There is a rule in
psychology that we naturally operate on a principle called ‘what you see is all
there is’. In other words, we think our present experience of a person or an
event is what we can expect for the future and we then ignore many other
pertinent facts, or lack thereof, that could tell us otherwise. [1] For example, a person who is a good speaker;
people are likely to assume he is a good husband, father, and who knows what
else. If what we’ve seen is good, then surely, the rest is good too. But is there a correlation between public speaking
and fathering? Likely not. This is
otherwise known as the halo effect.
Much of Jewish thought is based on the exact opposite
premise- ‘what we don’t see is really all there is’. As the great Kabbalists say, ‘there is
nothing besides Him’. Our world is a
tiny, insignificant tip of the iceberg for a vast spiritual world with
unlimited possibility. Obviously, this
goes against the fiber of our human thinking, so where do we get trained in how
to intuit the main, but hidden world?
One way is by studying the laws of the Cohanim.
If one goes to Sha’arei Tzedek Medical center in
Jerusalem, there is a sign at the front door that sometimes pops up which says,
‘Cohanim, do not enter’. It isn’t that
this is an apartheid (buzz word of the week) hospital against the Priests;
rather, the hospital is warning the Cohanim that there is a deceased in the building.
The problem is that a deceased body is not only itself impure, but it makes the
whole dwelling that it resides in impure- this is termed literally as ‘impurity
of the tent’. So two things: how do we
define impurity and why does a dead person convey impurity beyond itself to its
surroundings?
A working definition of impurity is a loss of
potential.[2]
In other words, there is a space with potential for occupation by positivity,
and instead there is nothing. However, in this world the word nothing is
misleading. Nothing in this world is by
definition going to be filled with negativity.
For example, if a limb lacks circulation it doesn’t stay inactive, but
healthy; rather, it starts to rot. Now, there is no greater loss of potential
than a dead human body. What was once a vibrant human being is now an empty shell,
but as we said, empty really means that it starts to attract negativity.[3]
One might think that when we look at
a human being, we more or less see who the person is. But it is not the case at all. The higher levels of a person’s soul are only
partially inside the body, but most of it resides outside the body (this is
where the real concept of a halo comes from). Therefore, in the wake of death,
not only is the body an empty shell, but the whole environment that housed the soul's extension becomes an empty
shell to what was, hence impurity in the whole space.
It is beyond the scope of this blurb to discuss why
only Cohanim are sensitive to this, but the gist is clear. Every person has an aspect that is beyond the
needs of the shell. We don’t only want to eat, sleep, and feel important. There is higher aspect that desires meaning
and to improve one’s moral standing. Ultimately, that is more real than the
shell, and knowing that it is that part that can fill a building tells us how
much more a person is and can be.
[1]
See ‘Thinking, fast and slow’ by Daniel Kahanemen
[2] See
Kuzari 2:60
[3] It
is only empty because most of us don’t actualize much of our potential so it
remains unactualized. Therefore, technically, a righteous person who used all
his potential will not convey impurity when he dies as there is nothing left of
the shell to actualize.
