Tucked away in this week’s Parshah, is the requirement to ‘tovel’ [literally: dip] in a Mikveh all utensils that are used for eating. I’d like to share with you a beautiful piece from Rav Hirsch on the subject.
This immersion contains some peculiarities. Firstly what is the idea behind the fact that only metal utensils (biblical) and glass ones (rabbinical) require ‘toveling’? What exactly are we to achieve in this toveling process – the Rabbis point out that had we been trying to purge the utensil from impurities a mere cupfull of water would suffice. Here however, we require full immersion into a mikveh, the type a person sometimes has to go into.
We note the form of the verb used to describe the immersion – ‘yischato’ (Bamidbor 31:23) – accurately translated, it means ‘the utensil cleanses itself’. The utensil is not the object of the phrase (which would have read ‘a person should cleanse it’) rather the subject. Obviously, the utensil is not dipping itself into the water, what the verse is referring to is the person who is dipping it; he is cleansing himself. This fits in with the idea that the Rabbis said that the Mikveh needed is one that a person could go in to – only we dip the utensil in place of ourselves. But what are we cleansing ourselves of when we dip kitchen utensils into the Mikveh made for man?
Rav Hirsch subtly points out how metal utensils differ from say, wooden spoons and animal skin bottles. Metal needs to be mined, refined, heated and hammered into shape before it can be used. This process can only be done by humans. Animals have not yet invented metal cutlery. Cutlery they have, but not the ‘made in china’ type. I remember a couple of years ago going to Chester Zoo. In the monkey area we watched the chimpanzees use twigs that they had stripped of their leaves and proceeded to poke them down narrow holes [provided by the zoo!] in order to extract the termites nesting in the holes!
Another fascinating incident of animal ‘intelligence’ was discovered by the remarkable LIFE series by David Attenborough, in which he uses ingenious video footage to capture previously unknown wonders of the animal world. This particular episode focused on a remarkable duel between a cute, cuddly little squirrel and a large, scary rattlesnake, which has come to eat the squirrel’s babies. The squirrel is desperate to scare off the snake and save its young, but faces quite a daunting challenge, in that, as you can imagine the snake is not exactly terrified of the cuddly little rodent. But, the squirrel has an ingenious trick up its sleeve (or paw!). Living in rattlesnake territory, this creature has developed an incredible method of self-protective disguise, based on its knowledge of the rattlesnake’s habit of shedding its skin.
The squirrel goes in search of a discarded rattlesnake skin, which it brings back to its nest and proceeds to chew into a paste and apply to his body; a type of snake flavoured deodorant! Knowing that a snake cannot see well but relies on its sense of smell and ability to see heat, the squirrel is now prepared. When confronted by the snake, it pumps warm blood to its tail and spreads it, so the snake sees a large source of heat which smells like a rival rattlesnake. Rather than get involved in an aggressive territorial dispute, the snake slithers off to find easier prey.
However great animal intelligence stretches, they still have no capabilities to mine metals – they are limited to the natural sources available to them. As humans with the gift of intellect – real human intelligence as opposed to natural instinct – we can develop ‘new’ ideas. Herein lies the problem that requires ‘toveling’.
We are to use our G-d given qualities to develop things, however when we use them to serve our bodies then there is a breakdown of our hierarchy. The hierarchy is that the human mind should always be the driver. The physical body is to be channelled to be subservient to the intellect. It is the harness that keeps our animalistic drives in check. When we use the intellect to provide cutlery to eat from there is a breakdown – our higher intellect is being used to service our lower animalistic need.
The human mind is our greatest gift from Hashem. With it we can think, develop, and explore our relationship with Him. But when we use it to serve our bodies then WE need to be reminded of the correct hierarchy. The process of ‘toveling’ does exactly that – it’s as if we ‘tovel’ ourselves and we flush out the breakdown. We immerse totally in water and are reborn with our hierarchy back intact and only now we can eat off our metal cutlery. To use wooden utensils is in some way similar to the chimpanzees way of getting food so there is no breakdown of hierarchy – we have used animal type instinct, natural product to satisfy the animalistic side of us that requires eating – that’s fine.
May we use our brains to their utmost; to remember that our intellect is there to control our body, and to remember that how ever far we stretch the human intellect we are still mere humans against the backdrop of something that is All-Mighty.
Good Shabbos, Yaakov.