FIRST AND LAST WATERS
The Torah portion K’doshim-Holy not surprisingly emphasizes the idea of holiness several times. In one verse (11:44), after discussing some of the laws regarding idolatry, the Torah continues, “And you shall sanctify yourselves and you shall be holy.”
The Talmud (Brachos 53b) links these two references to holiness to the two washings of our hands associated with eating bread. The first refers to the “first waters,” washing our hands before parting of bread. The basis for this washing is to guarantee that the Kohen could eat Truma, consecrated food in a state of ritual purity. The rabbis instituted washing our hands to ensure that whenever Truma is eaten our hands would always be ritually clean.
The second reference to holiness, the Talmud states, is to the “last waters;” the washing of our fingertips at the end of the meal before reciting the Birchas HaMazon-Grace after Meals to remove any residual caustic Sodomite salt, which could cause blindness on contact with the eyes.
The question can be asked: what connection do the “first” and “last” washing have with the context of that section which discusses idolatry, as Rashi states: “And you shall be holy” means “separate from idolatry.”
We must also understand how the “last waters” is related to the idea of sanctification. While the first waters are intended to render our hands fit to touch consecrated food, how do our Sages justify a health precaution as a form of holiness?
The simple answer is that since it facilitates our ability to recite the Grace after Meals, it too is considered an accessory to holiness.
Upon deeper reflection, however, we can find an even more direct relationship between washing the fingertips and holiness.
TWO FORMS OF BLINDNESS
The rationale for the “last waters” washing, as mentioned, is to prevent blindness caused by Sodomite salt.
Blindness can be spiritual. Vision is a function of the brain and not just the eyes. If the brain cannot accurately process something it produces a form of blindness. And, in some ways, a distorted view of an object, person or event, can even be worse than utter blindness. People who think they can see perfectly well are hard to convince of their error and will not seek ways to compensate for their blindness.
To illustrate the above, the Rebbe described a scenario in which a blindfolded person is brought into a room. When the blindfold is removed he sees masked people with knives in their hands ready to stab a captive tied to a bed. His first impression is that these are a gang of murderers about to kill a helpless person. He does not grasp that this is an operating room and the team of surgeons are about to save the life of the unconscious patient.
We may ask, at what point is this person more blind? When he is blindfolded or after the blindfold has been removed? The answer is quite obvious. He is far more blind without the physical blindfold, because his understanding of what he sees is the very antithesis of its reality. When he wore the blindfold he was ignorant of the reality but his perception was not skewed against the reality.
From the above we can see that there are two forms of blindness: The first is where we cannot see reality; the second is where we see the opposite of the reality.
These two forms of blindness exemplify the difference between people who don’t see the G-dly reality of everything and those who see the opposite of the G-dly reality.
KNOWING AND SEEING
Most of us who believe in G-d and know that He is behind everything do not necessarily see that reality. If we had eyes to see the true reality we would see Divine Providence in every happening. If only we could see the Divine, our lives would be holy to the maximum because everything we did would revolve around the G-dly reality we see and experience.
The difference between knowing and seeing affects every aspect of our lives. If we could see the G-dly reality, even the most mundane of activities would be oriented towards G-d and driven by our desire to get closer to Him. Our Animal Soul’s passion for the physical would be tempered by our awareness of the Divine within the physical world. The cognitive dissonance between what we know and how we feel and act would disappear.
GETTING RID OF DEPRESSION
There is a beautiful story of the Mitteler Rebbe (Rabbi Dovber of Lubavitch, the son and successor of R. Shneur Zalman, the Alter Rebbe, the founder of the Chabad movement and the author of the classic work, the Tanya) when he was a child. A group of distinguished Chassidim, two of whom were businessmen in addition to being scholars, were chatting. One Chasid asked his colleagues why they appeared downcast. The Mitteler Rebbe said the reason was obvious and he quoted and reinterpreted a verse in the book of Psalms (115:4):
“Their idols are but silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have a mouth but cannot speak, they have eyes but cannot see. They have ears but cannot hear, they have a nose but cannot smell.”
The young Rebbe reinterpreted this Psalm for the Chassidim. The word for “their idols” atzabeihem can also be translated as “their depression.” And here is how he ingeniously rendered this text:
“Their depression comes from their distorted view that silver and gold come from human actions and resources. So they can speak words of Torah but the words do not speak to them and influence their attitude. They have eyes but cannot see Divine providence. They have ears but can only pick up the superficial and they therefore have lost their sensitive sense of smell.”
“This,” the Mitteler Rebbe concluded, “is how an idol is created.”
“FIRST WATERS”: REMOVAL OF FIRST “MILD” FORM OF BLINDNESS
We can now easily appreciate the requirement to wash our hands before partaking of bread and its connection to holiness and the negation of idolatry.
Food is a powerful metaphor for our dependence on and engagement with the physical world. Before we take that “plunge” into the physical, we must first get rid of the first form of blindness, where we fail to see the Divine in everything. This we do by washing our hands before the meal.
The hands symbolize our interaction with the physical and they must be elevated to the spiritual realm.
Laxity in this mitzvah, our Sages teach, leads to poverty. In the spiritual sense that means we lack the spiritual capital to live our lives to the fullest.
“LAST WATERS”: REMOVAL OF INSIDIOUS BLINDNESS
However, there is a more insidious form of blindness. These are the effects of “Sodomite salt,” the spiritually caustic substance that comes from having satiating our physical desires to the fullest. In that state we can develop an even more damaging form of blindness. Just like the evil Sodomites used their “hospitality” toward wayfarers as a way of capturing and torturing them, so too, Sodomite blindness spins our vision around to see in everything the opposite of reality, by worshipping things and pursuing goals that are contrary to G-d.
TWO HISTORICAL REALITIES
The “first waters” and “last waters” can be said to reflect two historical realities.
In the days of the Beis HaMikdash (the “first waters”) the Kohen’s washing of his hands before partaking of Truma, the consecrated food, symbolized the need to conform our physical activities to our spiritual level. The Temple dispersed G-dly awareness to the entire nation, but the people always had a free will choice to embrace that holiness or resist it. Washing our hands and sanctifying them was our way of saying that we wanted to embrace that which our mind knew so that it informed our entire being.
Washing our hands today before our meal injects us with some of that “first waters” dynamic that prevailed in the days of old and prepare us for the future Third Temple era.
However, as we stand in these last days of exile, we are in the “last waters” era. Now there is a more insidious threat to our spiritual lives. Exile, and particularly the last moments of exile, is a period in which people “call evil good, and good evil, that change darkness into light, and light into darkness…” (Isaiah 5:20) The blindness now is of the latter type, where many see a picture that is totally the opposite of the reality, with their eyes wide open!
NO BLINDFOLD, BUT STILL BLIND
Yes, we are like the person whose blindfold has been removed but who cannot see how the surgeons are saving a life.
We are now living in the End Days (“last waters”) when G-d has removed the blindfold for us to see G-dliness in the most unfiltered way. We have seen the most unprecedented and open miracles in a taste of the future. Yet, because we have not yet been given the Third Beis HaMikdash, we can still suffer from Sodomite blindness and see recent events as the opposite of what they truly represent.
Our generation now needs to wash off the residual effects of Galus with the “last waters” in these latter days.
MOSHIACH IS IN SODOM!
The Midrash comments on the words in Psalms, “‘I have found My servant David.’ Where has he been found? In the city of Sodom.”
The Midrash might be alluding to the fact that the last challenge before Moshiach is to get rid of the blinding effects of Galus precisely at the time when our eyes have the capacity to be opened. As the Rebbe told us, the only thing left for us is to “open our eyes.”
The “last waters” can be said to allude to the teachings of Torah concerning Moshiach, which help remove the potential for our open eyes to see a distorted picture.
Everything can be said to be hinted in the Torah.
The Talmudic expression, חובה אחרונים מים –“The ‘last waters’ are an obligation” are numerically equal to the words דוד בן במשיח - “with Moshiach ben Dovid.”
The implication of this hint is that Moshiach’s efforts will be directed at opening our eyes so that we can see G-d’s presence in the most revealed fashion.