Introduction to the Negative Mitzvot Mitzvot 129 - 130

Purity and Impurity:

Summer finally arrived and with it, the last day of school.

Bassi brought home her report card and showed it to her mother.

"I'm glad, Bassi," smiled her mother. "Seems that you've been trying, and it shows!"

But Bassi wasn't very pleased. "I really think I deserve better marks," she protested. "Sara got the same on her tests as I did, but her grades were higher on the report card."

Bassi's mother put her arm around her. "You know, Bassi," she explained. "This is the teacher's privilege. A wise teacher takes much more into consideration than the grade on a test."

"What do you mean?" asked Bassi.

"Your teacher observes your behavior, your effort, your participation in class, your homework, neatness, how studious you are, how much you understand, how much you really apply what you learn - and much much more!"

"Does my teacher really think about all those things?" exclaimed Bassi.

"Yes," her mother assured her. "And even more - she has thirty pupils to keep track of!"

"I guess you're right," agreed Bassi. "I'll leave the marking up to her. She certainly is aware of many more things than I am."

HaShem created Man with the ability to reason and understand many things about the world. The reasons for many of the Mitzvot in the Torah are clear. However, we don't understand everything.

Nevertheless, we accept what HaShem says relying on Him because He sees much more than we do!

The Torah tells us that certain things are "Tahor" which means pure and certain things are "Tameh" which means impure.

We may think that being pure and clean means that something is white and sparkling. However, the Torah teaches us that HaShem's definition is very different from ours.

The Torah defines what is meant by "purity" and "impurity."

Many Mitzvot deal with what actions an individual who has become impure must take in order to become pure again. Sometimes animals, sacrifices or even objects can become impure.

Mitzvot 129 and 130 apply to eating sacrificial meat when the person who is eating or the meat itself has become impure.

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Negative Mitzvah 130: Not to eat impure sacrificial meat
Leviticus 7:19 "And the flesh that touches any unclean thing, shall not be eaten"

We are not allowed to eat any meat from a sacrifice which has become impure.

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Negative Mitzvah 129: We are forbidden to eat sacrificial meat when impure
Leviticus 12:4 "She shall not touch any holy thing"

A person who is impure is forbidden to eat any meat from a sacrifice that is brought in the Beit HaMikdash.

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The biblical slavery of Egypt represents bondage to your own self. Every day, at every moment, must be an exodus from the self. If you're not leaving Egypt, you're already back there.

From: Bringing Heaven Down to Earth by Tzvi Freeman - tzvif@aol.com