I had a very interesting experience today. I attended a lecture by an Israeli-Arab Sufi mystic who does a lot of cross cultural talks. He was talking about the History of Islam and while he lectured, I felt no power or energy coming from him. He began to talk about how Muslim's pray and people were very curious about the bows (he had been describing it poorly). So he got up and demonstrated how it's done by going through the beginning of one of the prayers.
Immediately, the energy in the room changed. A conduit opened above him and a soul entered the room. He prayed for about two minutes and then returned to his lecture. I focused on the soul that had entered to see what it was. It occurred to me that his gift/power was in his prayers, not in his lectures.
I was in a very open environment, so a minute or two later, I asked him who had come in. At first he misunderstood the question, but then I rephrased it and he got what I meant (though I don't think anyone else in the room understood what I was talking about). He replied that Muslims welcome Eliyahu HaNavi when they pray. I replied that it didn't feel like the Eliahu that I'd met before. He smiled at me and continued with his lecture.
At that point, the spirit came over the me and began to circle me, faster and faster. It wasn't threatening, just moving around me. I felt myself, as I've felt before, as a Chasid: having a long beard and Peyot, and wearing a black coat and hat. The spirit circled me for awhile, then gradually faded as I disconnected with it.
I don't really know what to make of it all, but I thought it was interesting.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Yod
My Chevruta Dov, who is a scribe, wrote a letter for me a few weeks ago. I had asked him to write me a letter that I could then focus on and use to help "see" better. He wrote me a Yod.
When I focused on the letter, it showed me that it was composed on three parts: the crown on top, the body, and leg, each a separate gate. I began with the leg. As I focused into it, I felt myself turning quickly to either the right or the left. It was like a prism, that instantly shifted the direction of the light that entered it. The body was filled with the swirling energies of creation, and the crown on top was filled with the pure light of God.
Putting it all together, I see the letter as representing powerful change done either in the direction of God or under the direction of God.
When you add vowel sounds to it, it changes the emphasis between the three parts. The different vowel sounds change the emphasis between the three parts. Though kamatz (the ah sound that looks like a T) brings out only the top two: the light of God and the power of creation, which makes sense, as that is, when pronounced, a name of God.
When I came back to Dov, excited by what I'd seen, he told me that the Yod is usually thought of as Keter-Hochma-Binah, the three highest sephirot.
He then told me that what he'd actually written was a vav! I realized I had looked at it quickly, then pictured a yod in my head when I meditated. So now I have to find out what comes from the vav. More next week!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Baal Shem Tov and Pulses
This is a story that has come up in my life in three different unrelated contexts recently. When that happens, I realize it must be important. This version is from The Wings of the Sun by R. Avraham Greenbaum.
Another English version of the story, which is slightly longer, can be found in The Light and Fire of the Baal Shem Tov By Yitzhak Buxbaum.
Another English version of the story, which is slightly longer, can be found in The Light and Fire of the Baal Shem Tov By Yitzhak Buxbaum.
"...Another story tells of a prominent doctor who had come to visit the wife of the local lord.
The countess lavishly praised the Baal Shem Tov as a great man and an expert healer. The doctor asked the countess to send for him. When he came, the doctor asked him if it was true that he was an expert healer. `True,' replied the Baal Shem Tov. `Where did you learn? Who was your professor?' asked the doctor. `God taught me,' replied the Baal Shem Tov. The doctor laughed heartily and asked him if he knew how to take someone's pulse. The Baal Shem Tov said, `I myself suffer from a certain problem. You take my pulse and see if you can find what it is, and I'll take your pulse and see what it reveals.
The doctor took the Baal Shem Tov's pulse and could tell that he had some kind of problem but he did not know what it was, because the truth was that the Baal Shem Tov was sick - he was love-sick for God (cf. Song of Songs 2:5), but this was beyond the doctor's level of understanding. After this the Baal Shem Tov took the doctor's hand and examined his pulse. The Baal Shem Tov turned to the countess and asked, `Have you had a burglary here?' The Baal Shem Tov listed a number of precious items. `Yes!' replied the countess, `It's some years since they were stolen and I have no idea where they are.' `Send to the doctor's lodgings,' said the Baal Shem Tov, `and open his chest. You'll find everything there, because I can feel this theft in the doctor's pulse.' The countess sent to search the doctor's lodgings and found the stolen goods, as the holy Baal Shem Tov had said, and the doctor left in disgrace" (Shevachey HaBaal Shem Tov #206.)
Responses to a flood
I've always been fascinated with the idea of Jewish Archetypes. I think we could gain a lot in understanding our actions by seeing our own lives reflected in the stories and patterns of our ancestors. As I discovered last year, when I began to study texts in greater depth, the characters and choices of our ancestors are complex and often difficult to understand. The stories I understood, and last studied, when I was a child have a much greater depth than my childhood understanding could comprehend. Now that I study the stories as an adult, I see there are patterns and stories in our ancestors that replay themselves today, and maybe understanding the patterns will help to do Tikkun Olam.
I am not sure that I am the right person to prepare a comprehensive analysis of Jewish archetypes, but I think it's a good idea. So I'll send it out in the Universe and maybe it will germinate in the someone else for awhile until it grows into something or is passed along. (I also don't feel that I've studied enough to add to this discussion, but that's really an example of giving away my power - check in later for another post on that topic.)
It's raining in Jerusalem today. Due to soil conditions, an overabundance of development, and a lack of good drainage, whenever it rains, the runoff on the sides of roads tends to be mini-floods. This got me thinking about Jonah and Noah.
I had a patient awhile back who was re-playing the story of Jonah. There was something within herself that she was being asked to do that she absolutely didn't want to do, so she was spending a lot of time and energy running away from it. When I would connect to her, the vision I had was either her standing on the deck of a ship during a storm (when her symptoms were bad), to hiding in a storage room (when her symptoms were decreased).
I had no idea what God was asking her to do, but it became clear to me that for her to get better she needed to jump overboard in a raging storm and get swallowed by a fish for a few days. The first required courage in that she was essentially going to have to choose to allow her old self to die (a common shamanic metaphor - the shaman needs to die to move forward). The second would be enormously painful as she went though a near death experience in a cold dark place. But when she got spit up by the fish on the shore, things were going to be a whole lot better.
Today weather got me thinking about Noah too. In that case, Noah listened to what God asked and was able to ride out the flood in an ark. I can't imagine it was comfortable living in a huge boat filled with animals for a little over a year. Nor can it have been easy to watch your entire community, and everything you know, get wiped out. Noah also went through a "death" of sorts and emerged a changed man.
Comparing the two:
Noah listened to what God wanted and rode our the storm on top of the water.
Jonah ran away, got tossed around on a boat until he jumped into the water and rode out the storm in the water and in a fish.
Noah went through the change with his family.
Jonah went through it alone.
Noah listened and went through the storm with God.
Jonah ran away and caused the storm.
Noah accepted the change at the end and became a new person, though somewhat of a drinker.
Jonah didn't accept the change and did what he was asked but resented it.
If we are to think of these as Archetypes, we need to look at what they can teach us about our own lives and the problems we face. Both of these men were challenged by God. Is our response to our challenges to run away or to figure out what to do? Is the storm part of the challenge or is it caused by our response to it? Are we willing to let the challenge change us or are we going to resist to the end, long after the change has happened? How do we involve others in our challenges? Are we going to maintain our community connections or try to go it alone? Do we keep our problems to ourselves or do we let our challenges cause problems to others (the sailors on the ship Jonah was on)? Or do we involve others to help them ride through a crisis?
The Archetypal part of this is to ask if these behaviors go together. If we identify as a Jonah or as a Noah, can we use that to understand our behavior? And most importantly, can we use that to change and grow? A Jonah might suddenly understand why they cause problems to others when faced with a challenge and try to head off the storm by spending more time with themselves. A Noah might try to involve others in help her to meet her challenges instead of trying to go it alone.
This is just a brief sketch of what two Jewish Archetypes might look like. These two stories are very short and incomplete, so I wouldn't think that a person would be primarily one of them, but a person might have a bit of Noah in him, and that might be useful to understand. I'm very pragmatic about this and if they can help us to understand and grow, then it's something worth pursuing.
I am not sure that I am the right person to prepare a comprehensive analysis of Jewish archetypes, but I think it's a good idea. So I'll send it out in the Universe and maybe it will germinate in the someone else for awhile until it grows into something or is passed along. (I also don't feel that I've studied enough to add to this discussion, but that's really an example of giving away my power - check in later for another post on that topic.)
It's raining in Jerusalem today. Due to soil conditions, an overabundance of development, and a lack of good drainage, whenever it rains, the runoff on the sides of roads tends to be mini-floods. This got me thinking about Jonah and Noah.
I had a patient awhile back who was re-playing the story of Jonah. There was something within herself that she was being asked to do that she absolutely didn't want to do, so she was spending a lot of time and energy running away from it. When I would connect to her, the vision I had was either her standing on the deck of a ship during a storm (when her symptoms were bad), to hiding in a storage room (when her symptoms were decreased).
I had no idea what God was asking her to do, but it became clear to me that for her to get better she needed to jump overboard in a raging storm and get swallowed by a fish for a few days. The first required courage in that she was essentially going to have to choose to allow her old self to die (a common shamanic metaphor - the shaman needs to die to move forward). The second would be enormously painful as she went though a near death experience in a cold dark place. But when she got spit up by the fish on the shore, things were going to be a whole lot better.
Today weather got me thinking about Noah too. In that case, Noah listened to what God asked and was able to ride out the flood in an ark. I can't imagine it was comfortable living in a huge boat filled with animals for a little over a year. Nor can it have been easy to watch your entire community, and everything you know, get wiped out. Noah also went through a "death" of sorts and emerged a changed man.
Comparing the two:
Noah listened to what God wanted and rode our the storm on top of the water.
Jonah ran away, got tossed around on a boat until he jumped into the water and rode out the storm in the water and in a fish.
Noah went through the change with his family.
Jonah went through it alone.
Noah listened and went through the storm with God.
Jonah ran away and caused the storm.
Noah accepted the change at the end and became a new person, though somewhat of a drinker.
Jonah didn't accept the change and did what he was asked but resented it.
If we are to think of these as Archetypes, we need to look at what they can teach us about our own lives and the problems we face. Both of these men were challenged by God. Is our response to our challenges to run away or to figure out what to do? Is the storm part of the challenge or is it caused by our response to it? Are we willing to let the challenge change us or are we going to resist to the end, long after the change has happened? How do we involve others in our challenges? Are we going to maintain our community connections or try to go it alone? Do we keep our problems to ourselves or do we let our challenges cause problems to others (the sailors on the ship Jonah was on)? Or do we involve others to help them ride through a crisis?
The Archetypal part of this is to ask if these behaviors go together. If we identify as a Jonah or as a Noah, can we use that to understand our behavior? And most importantly, can we use that to change and grow? A Jonah might suddenly understand why they cause problems to others when faced with a challenge and try to head off the storm by spending more time with themselves. A Noah might try to involve others in help her to meet her challenges instead of trying to go it alone.
This is just a brief sketch of what two Jewish Archetypes might look like. These two stories are very short and incomplete, so I wouldn't think that a person would be primarily one of them, but a person might have a bit of Noah in him, and that might be useful to understand. I'm very pragmatic about this and if they can help us to understand and grow, then it's something worth pursuing.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Amulet making part I
I've begun work on an amulet. I had a feeling that this was the right time to do it and called a friend in the art world. She gave me the name of a jeweler who gives private lessons and the two of us hit it off immediately. I had thought of making amulets in the past, but things never seemed to work out. Now the path opened for me very simply, so I am assuming that this is the right time to do it.
I'm at the beginning of the process, but it's very interesting to learn a new skill at this point in my life. I've worked with tools all my life, and silversmithing is not that different, everything is just much, much smaller. I've come up with a very simple design for the amulet I want to make and the first step was cutting a small triangle out of a sheet of brass. (Brass is for the model, Silver will be for the amulet itself.)
Holding the sheet of brass and running the tiny hacksaw blade up and down was not an entirely new skill, but my attitude was wholly different. Amulets are about channeling spiritual energy into an object of power. In the past, when I have "charged up" objects, I have held them in my hands and done the equivalent of a healing on them: connect to Shechina, connect to the object, and let the energy flow through me into the object. In this case, I am creating the object, so I need to make sure that I am transmitting energy every moment that I work on it.
I try to always work on the amulet in a healing mode. Usually my healing is very quiet with my hands kept still while on a person's body, tuning in to the patient's energy. Jewelry making is very different, every moment is concentrated on moving the tools in the proper direction using good technique. For me, it's a healing in motion where the only person in the room is me and the presence of the Shechina comes from my focus on my work, not from my connection with the client.
As I worked, every few moments I would have to stop and make sure that my body was relaxed. The focus in learning the new skill was causing me to tense up my whole body, especially my shoulders and neck. Then I would need to breath deeply and allow the energy to flow as I began to work again. It makes me realize how tense I must have been in the past when I've done physical work.
The hacksaw required a softness of hand that I'm not used to. Carpentry taught me to let the saw do the work instead of my muscles, but with thin blades, any tension or misdirection in my hand would snap the blade. The lines I was cutting were tiny without the margin of error I'm used to. Then I needed to breath and relax again, letting the Shechina flow through me.
If I get in the habit of always working on the amulet in a spiritual way, then it will come naturally as I continue to do the work. My focus is intense now because it is such a new skill. But as I get more practiced, it will become harder to maintain the focus and the energy. I don't know if I will make one amulet or many, or even if I'll complete the one I'm working on, but it gives proof to the idea that people don't need to be healers to bring God into the world. Anything that we do can be done with connection to the shamanic realm, it's just requires practice.
I'm at the beginning of the process, but it's very interesting to learn a new skill at this point in my life. I've worked with tools all my life, and silversmithing is not that different, everything is just much, much smaller. I've come up with a very simple design for the amulet I want to make and the first step was cutting a small triangle out of a sheet of brass. (Brass is for the model, Silver will be for the amulet itself.)
Holding the sheet of brass and running the tiny hacksaw blade up and down was not an entirely new skill, but my attitude was wholly different. Amulets are about channeling spiritual energy into an object of power. In the past, when I have "charged up" objects, I have held them in my hands and done the equivalent of a healing on them: connect to Shechina, connect to the object, and let the energy flow through me into the object. In this case, I am creating the object, so I need to make sure that I am transmitting energy every moment that I work on it.
I try to always work on the amulet in a healing mode. Usually my healing is very quiet with my hands kept still while on a person's body, tuning in to the patient's energy. Jewelry making is very different, every moment is concentrated on moving the tools in the proper direction using good technique. For me, it's a healing in motion where the only person in the room is me and the presence of the Shechina comes from my focus on my work, not from my connection with the client.
As I worked, every few moments I would have to stop and make sure that my body was relaxed. The focus in learning the new skill was causing me to tense up my whole body, especially my shoulders and neck. Then I would need to breath deeply and allow the energy to flow as I began to work again. It makes me realize how tense I must have been in the past when I've done physical work.
The hacksaw required a softness of hand that I'm not used to. Carpentry taught me to let the saw do the work instead of my muscles, but with thin blades, any tension or misdirection in my hand would snap the blade. The lines I was cutting were tiny without the margin of error I'm used to. Then I needed to breath and relax again, letting the Shechina flow through me.
If I get in the habit of always working on the amulet in a spiritual way, then it will come naturally as I continue to do the work. My focus is intense now because it is such a new skill. But as I get more practiced, it will become harder to maintain the focus and the energy. I don't know if I will make one amulet or many, or even if I'll complete the one I'm working on, but it gives proof to the idea that people don't need to be healers to bring God into the world. Anything that we do can be done with connection to the shamanic realm, it's just requires practice.
Monday, December 22, 2008
My Thoughts on Ritual Impurity
One of the restrictions on Cohanim is that we are not allowed to be in the presence of a dead body, which is considered ritually unclean. Growing up this mostly meant I stayed out of graveyards and sat in a shed next to the funeral home with my father when my Aunt died.
I never understood why I did these things, though I did know that on the few occasions when I went through graveyards, I felt uncomfortable and had the feeling that it was wrong to be there. (Notably only recent graves; when I've walked through colonial era graveyards, I experienced no discomfort.) A few years ago, I attended a wake for the brother-in-law of a close friend. I looked at the body out of curiosity, but then stayed as far away from it as possible - it just felt wrong. I could feel the soul of the deceased was present in the room, which was normal, but the body itself made me feel uneasy.
Two years ago, my dog died. She had been with me for almost 12 years and fought against cancer for five months when we decided that the pain was too much and it was only going downhill from there. We brought her to the vet and as she was put to sleep, my wife and I cried. I felt her ancestors come into and fill the room immediately before the injection. They gathered her to them as she died, and surprisingly quickly, they took her to the other side and were gone from the room. We sat there crying and then I suddenly looked at my wife and said that we had to leave. Her body, which only a minute or two early had been filled with life, was now empty. And impure.
A few days later, when I picked up her body to take it to bury, it was no longer impure, energetically I felt nothing.
At the moment of death, there was a particular energetic about it that felt like this was a vessel for life that had none in it. It's very hard to describe as it's not anything I've felt since. It's hard to base my thoughts on a major tenant of Judaism on a single experience, but when I look at other examples of ritual impurity, it seems to make sense.
In modern times, menstrual blood, or Niddah, is a good example of ritual impurity. When women have their periods, they are ritually impure until a period of time passes (seven days after the last drop of blood) at which point the woman needs to immerse herself in a Mikvah (ritual bath) to become pure again. There are many Jewish men and women who do not touch members of the opposite sex because they are worried that the woman is in a state of Niddah and may pass along the ritual impurity.
Menstrual blood is that same state as I describe earlier: it is a vessel for life that has none in it. The egg has the potential for life, but there is no life there. When it is discharged from the body, the blood would have the same potential. The seven days might be the time period that it takes for the impurity to wear off, so to speak, just as it did with my dog.
Different people have different gifts, and I think feeling ritual purity has not been one of mine, or at least it's nothing I've focused on. I don't know if I felt it so acutely with my dog due to the intensity of my emotions, or if it was because it was the first time I had ever been with someone as they died.
I suspect that there are people who feel impurity very acutely and I think the Jewish laws on ritual purity originated in a person or persons with that gift. They then got canonized and expanded by people with a more intellectual gift. I need to study all of the other instances of ritual impurity (such as Tzora'at) in the Torah to find out if my ideas fits in the other cases.
I never understood why I did these things, though I did know that on the few occasions when I went through graveyards, I felt uncomfortable and had the feeling that it was wrong to be there. (Notably only recent graves; when I've walked through colonial era graveyards, I experienced no discomfort.) A few years ago, I attended a wake for the brother-in-law of a close friend. I looked at the body out of curiosity, but then stayed as far away from it as possible - it just felt wrong. I could feel the soul of the deceased was present in the room, which was normal, but the body itself made me feel uneasy.
Two years ago, my dog died. She had been with me for almost 12 years and fought against cancer for five months when we decided that the pain was too much and it was only going downhill from there. We brought her to the vet and as she was put to sleep, my wife and I cried. I felt her ancestors come into and fill the room immediately before the injection. They gathered her to them as she died, and surprisingly quickly, they took her to the other side and were gone from the room. We sat there crying and then I suddenly looked at my wife and said that we had to leave. Her body, which only a minute or two early had been filled with life, was now empty. And impure.
A few days later, when I picked up her body to take it to bury, it was no longer impure, energetically I felt nothing.
At the moment of death, there was a particular energetic about it that felt like this was a vessel for life that had none in it. It's very hard to describe as it's not anything I've felt since. It's hard to base my thoughts on a major tenant of Judaism on a single experience, but when I look at other examples of ritual impurity, it seems to make sense.
In modern times, menstrual blood, or Niddah, is a good example of ritual impurity. When women have their periods, they are ritually impure until a period of time passes (seven days after the last drop of blood) at which point the woman needs to immerse herself in a Mikvah (ritual bath) to become pure again. There are many Jewish men and women who do not touch members of the opposite sex because they are worried that the woman is in a state of Niddah and may pass along the ritual impurity.
Menstrual blood is that same state as I describe earlier: it is a vessel for life that has none in it. The egg has the potential for life, but there is no life there. When it is discharged from the body, the blood would have the same potential. The seven days might be the time period that it takes for the impurity to wear off, so to speak, just as it did with my dog.
Different people have different gifts, and I think feeling ritual purity has not been one of mine, or at least it's nothing I've focused on. I don't know if I felt it so acutely with my dog due to the intensity of my emotions, or if it was because it was the first time I had ever been with someone as they died.
I suspect that there are people who feel impurity very acutely and I think the Jewish laws on ritual purity originated in a person or persons with that gift. They then got canonized and expanded by people with a more intellectual gift. I need to study all of the other instances of ritual impurity (such as Tzora'at) in the Torah to find out if my ideas fits in the other cases.
A first look at Tzora'at
I took a few minutes today to look over the mention of Tzora'at in the Torah. Tzora'at refers to some sort of skin disease. The usual translation is leprosy, but from what I understand, it is not known what disease it is exactly. The discussion is found in Leviticus 13-14, in parshas Tazria and Metsora.
A quick read is that the first section is about deciding when a person has Tzora'at, which is mostly about a Cohen (priest) coming to look at the person. The Cohen then makes a determination if the person is clean or unclean depending on the color of the skin, the depth of the skin disease, and the color of the hair growing in the affected area. If a person is unclean, they are isolated from the community for seven days at which point they are checked again. If they are determined clean, they can re-enter the community, but they need to go through a very elaborate cleansing ritual which involved shaving all the hair off of their head (eyebrows included) and sacrificing sin and guilt offerings. The blood of the offerings is put on several places on the person's body and then they are considered clean.
The first thing that stuck me was that the diagnosis is done by looking - it's entirely visual. The Cohen must be there is person, and they must look at the afflicted person. I have to study it more to see the role of the Cohen in the healing, but it seems that they declare a person as impure, wait, then declare them pure and perform the purification ritual to allow them to re-enter the community. (I will write another post soon on my thoughts about purity and impurity.) So the simple read is that the Cohen's role is to know when a person can or cannot be ritually pure, and help them become pure when it's possible. This bears more thought.
One passage that particularly struck me was Leviticus 13:13:
If someone has Tzora'at, they are impure, but if it has covered his entire body, so that he has no healthy skin at all, then he is pure. The following passage states that if "living skin" re-appears, then he is immediately impure.
In Chinese medicine, one of the basic principles is that Yin can transform into Yang, and Yang into Yin, and extreme Yin can transform into extreme Yang. A simple example is hypothermia. One of the warning signs that someone is entering hypothermia is that they start feeling warm when it is freezing outside. They become so cold that the Yin transforms into Yang and they begin to feel warm.
So it is in this case, when someone has become completely transformed by the impurity such that there is nothing pure remaining about them, they are transformed into a state of purity. It's as if the disease itself, by completely taking over the body, has purified them. This strikes me as a third possibility, they are pure, impure, or extreme impure that becomes pure.
This would also suggest that there is a state of extreme pure that becomes impure, though I don't know what that would look like but the myth of Icarus comes to mind. Perhaps there are those that try to get too close to God only to have it destroy their body.
The role of the Cohen is also generally considered the one who blesses. My hope is that this study will help me understand what exactly is the blessing that we give, and how to do it.
A quick read is that the first section is about deciding when a person has Tzora'at, which is mostly about a Cohen (priest) coming to look at the person. The Cohen then makes a determination if the person is clean or unclean depending on the color of the skin, the depth of the skin disease, and the color of the hair growing in the affected area. If a person is unclean, they are isolated from the community for seven days at which point they are checked again. If they are determined clean, they can re-enter the community, but they need to go through a very elaborate cleansing ritual which involved shaving all the hair off of their head (eyebrows included) and sacrificing sin and guilt offerings. The blood of the offerings is put on several places on the person's body and then they are considered clean.
The first thing that stuck me was that the diagnosis is done by looking - it's entirely visual. The Cohen must be there is person, and they must look at the afflicted person. I have to study it more to see the role of the Cohen in the healing, but it seems that they declare a person as impure, wait, then declare them pure and perform the purification ritual to allow them to re-enter the community. (I will write another post soon on my thoughts about purity and impurity.) So the simple read is that the Cohen's role is to know when a person can or cannot be ritually pure, and help them become pure when it's possible. This bears more thought.
One passage that particularly struck me was Leviticus 13:13:
If someone has Tzora'at, they are impure, but if it has covered his entire body, so that he has no healthy skin at all, then he is pure. The following passage states that if "living skin" re-appears, then he is immediately impure.
In Chinese medicine, one of the basic principles is that Yin can transform into Yang, and Yang into Yin, and extreme Yin can transform into extreme Yang. A simple example is hypothermia. One of the warning signs that someone is entering hypothermia is that they start feeling warm when it is freezing outside. They become so cold that the Yin transforms into Yang and they begin to feel warm.
So it is in this case, when someone has become completely transformed by the impurity such that there is nothing pure remaining about them, they are transformed into a state of purity. It's as if the disease itself, by completely taking over the body, has purified them. This strikes me as a third possibility, they are pure, impure, or extreme impure that becomes pure.
This would also suggest that there is a state of extreme pure that becomes impure, though I don't know what that would look like but the myth of Icarus comes to mind. Perhaps there are those that try to get too close to God only to have it destroy their body.
The role of the Cohen is also generally considered the one who blesses. My hope is that this study will help me understand what exactly is the blessing that we give, and how to do it.
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