Rabbi Winston – Parashas Mattos-Massey

 R Winston - Parashas Mattos-Massey

THE LAWS OF kashering are many and confusing, and learned from this week’s parsha. Thanks to Midian, we’re still in exile. Bilaam sent them in, and their impact went far beyond Shittim, causing the tribes of Reuven, Gad, and half of Menashe to choose the land east of the Jordan river. And unfortunately and clearly unbeknownst to them at the time, it cost them and every Jew since then, the final stage of redemption.

Because, by choosing not to settle in Eretz Yisroel, they reduced the magical number of 600,000 necessary to annihilate the Sitra Achra and begin the Messianic Era. Had that many men between the ages of twenty and sixty settled on the west side of the Jordan, evil would have been destroyed forever, and Yemos HaMoshiach would have begun at that time.

Revenge against Midian in this week’s parsha therefore was more historic than it might seem. And unlike with respect to the annihilation of Amalek, we were allowed to take spoils of war, which we did. Among the many things taken were cooking implements, and that created the need to talk kashrus, specifically the kashering of treif pots, pans, dishes, etc. 

Obviously, everything had to be thoroughly washed and cleaned. That took care of all the mamashos, the traces of food that stuck to the vessels. For the average person, that would have seemed like enough. What else could there be to worry about?

Bliyos. Absorptions. Molecules of food that can, under the right conditions, become absorbed into the walls of a pot, a roasting spit, or a knife, etc. And even though such vessels may seem impervious to everything, especially today given the materials and methods used to make them, halachically, nothing is. With enough heat, bliyos of what is being cooked will split away from the main food and become absorbed in the walls of the cooking instrument. 

That’s how a pot, etc., can become milchig (dairy) or fleishig (meat) and remain that way even after the food has been removed and the pot has been cleaned. It’s the bliyos that were absorbed that do that, and they will remain in the walls of the pot until one of two things happen. Either the pot remains unused for 24 hours, or something is done, like kashering, to draw out the bliyos and make the pot pareve again.

Why 24 hours? Because Tradition teaches that bliyos can only remain detached from their source for 24 hours before they lose their taste, and kashrus is a large part about taste. This works in two ways, because bliyos are something the rest of the world would not consider to be something to worry about in terms of kashrus. On the other hand, they would call something food even though it has lost all taste. Kashrus does not. 

This means, technically-speaking, that any pot that sits a full 24 hours without being used and clean of all food automatically becomes pareve once again and, indeed, that is the Torah law. The rabbis however have declared that such a pot remains milchig or fleishig forever until properly kashered. People make mistakes, especially with kashrus, so many halachic fences have been put in place to keep people a safe distance from breaking Torah law. 

However because many laws of kashrus are rabbinic in origin, it leaves room for leniencies in emergency situations. No one can pick and choose which rabbinic laws to keep or ignore, but a competent halachic authority can decide in what situations they may or may not apply. This is usually based upon precedents from earlier generations.

The other way to kasher something is prescribed in this week’s parsha. Since heat is usually the main culprit in causing bliyos to enter vessels, heat has to be used to rectify the situation as well. How much heat is used to kasher will depend upon how it was used to make something treif in the first place, or to make it milchig or fleishig. The stronger the heat, the deeper the bliyos enter the vessel and likewise, leave it.

That is part of the technical laws of Kashrus. There is mussar in this as well because, like bliyos of food, we get absorbed into the “walls” of exile as well. Depending upon the heat (passion) that was used to cause this, that is how deep a Jew can be absorbed into exile, and that is how much heat (anti-Semitism) will be needed to extract the bliyos. 

When Moshe Rabbeinu went down to Egypt, he did not convince everyone of his mission right away. Only a few people joined him, the rest holding out until they too became convinced of his G–Dly mission. After a few more plagues, some more joined the group, and then a few more. 

But even still, after all of that and eight plagues, four-fifths of the Jewish people in Egypt at that time were still not onboard, and died in the Plague of Darkness instead of going out. That was twelve million Jews altogether who had become absorbed into the Egyptian lifestyle and refused to be extracted! “Rava says: It will be likewise in the Messianic Era” (Sanhedrin 111a.). No wonder Heaven is turning up the heat, and the Diaspora is becoming less and less hospitable. 

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