Chasidut על אבות 6:9
Kedushat Levi
This idea is alluded to in the wording in Chagigah 3:1. The Mishnah there discussing different degrees of holiness, i.e. that קדשים, sacred parts of sacrificial animals, have a higher degree of holiness than t’rumah, the portion of the farmer’s harvest that has to be given to the priest. An example given by the Mishnah illustrating this is that whereas two vessels which require ritual purification through immersion in a ritual bath may be cleansed even when one of them is inside the other, this ruling is not valid when the vessels in question belong to a higher level of holiness known as קדשים, vessels used in handling the remains of sacrificial animals, for instance. Apparently, the author of this Mishnah relates the rules pertaining to cleansing vessels that have become ritually impure to their respective origins. In other words: the holier one’s origin, the more stringent the rules for recapturing one’s purity once it had been lost. The wording of the Mishnah, i.e.חומר בקודש מבתרומה , can be understood allegorically as: “the reason why higher ranking holiness is subject to more stringent steps of purification than lower ranking holy vessels, is because the higher ranking ones had been inside the lower ranking ones.” The word תרומה chosen by the Mishnah, has a double meaning, i.e. it is something in need of being elevated further. Applied to the צדיק in our parable, it means that the tzaddik engaged in “outreach,” must be much more on guard against being drawn into the sphere of the sinner than the kind of tzaddik who does not venture to mix with the sinners even in order to bring them closer to G’d. A tzaddik faced with this dilemma will do well to remind himself that the allures of this world are transient, and cannot be compared to the delights in store when the soul rejoins its place in heaven after having successfully discharged its duties while within a mortal body.
When our sages in Avot 6,10 stated that everything that G’d created, He created only for the sake of His glory, this is another way of saying that He desires to have satisfaction from the conduct of His creatures.
When our sages in Avot 6,10 stated that everything that G’d created, He created only for the sake of His glory, this is another way of saying that He desires to have satisfaction from the conduct of His creatures.
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