09 Jul PARSHAS CHUKAS: THE POWER OF ONE TO PURIFY THE MANY

Parshas Chukas begins
with the laws of Tumas
Mes, where we learn
that if a person comes
in contact with a dead
body (or is merely under
the same roof as a dead
body) he is given the status of a ‘Tameh Mes‘
and the only way for him to become tahor is
for him to be sprinkled with the water of the
Parah Adumah on day three and day seven of a
seven-day procedure.
The pasuk reads, “And the pure one shall
sprinkle on the impure one on the third day
and on the seventh day, and he shall purify him
on the seventh day; then he shall immerse his
clothing and immerse his flesh in water and be
pure in the evening. [Bamidbar 19:19]. There
is an interesting passage in the Talmud
Yerushalmi which certainly requires further
exposition. Rav Yehoshua ben Kafsai said
“My whole life I read this pasuk ‘the pure one
shall sprinkle on the impure one…’ and I
assumed that a single tahor individual needed
to sprinkle the Parah Adumah water on a
single impure individual.” Rav Yehoshua ben
Kafsai then says, “This was the case until I
learned otherwise from ‘Oztroseha shel
Yavneh’ (literally – the storehouse of Yavneh)

that a single tahor individual can even sprinkle
on many tameh individuals.”
The question is, what does it mean he learned
this law from the “Otzros of Yavneh”? What
does the Talmud Yerushalmi mean by the term
storehouse of Yavneh? Rav Meir Shaprio, the
Lubliner Rav and the founder of the Daf Yomi
concept, was also a powerful orator. He
presents a homiletic exposition to this passage
of the Talmud Yerushalmi.
What happened in Yavneh? At the time of the
destruction of the Second Beis HaMikdash,
Rabbi Yochanon ben Zakkai met Vespasian,
the Roman General who later became Emperor
of the Roman Empire. Vespasian granted Rav
Yochanon ben Zakkai three wishes. One of the
three things Rav Yochanon ben Zakkai asked
for was “Yavneh and her Sages.” Yavneh was
a city on the Mediterranean Coast of Eretz
Yisrael. It had a Yeshiva. Rav Yochanon
pleaded that this Yeshiva be spared so that
despite the great Destruction that was coming
to the Beis HaMikdash and the Jewish
population in Jerusalem and other parts of the
country, he would have a few remaining
Talmidei Chachomim who would preserve
Torah and Judaism for future generations.
The Talmud (Gittin 56b) suggests that Rabbi

Yochanon ben Zakkai may have made a
mistake. Perhaps one of his requests of
Vespasian should have been to spare the Beis
HaMikdash. Be that as it may, Rav Meir
Shapiro suggests that the Yerushalmi, in
referring to the “Otzros of Yavneh,” was
indeed referring to the lesson learned from the
Yeshiva of Rabbi Yochanon ben Zakkai in
Yavneh!
The Torah that we learn here today, and the
fact that there are still people who learn Torah
throughout the Jewish world, is the result of
the few Talmidei Chachomim left in Yavneh
after the Churban HaBayis who literally saved
the world of Torah. Had they been wiped out,
Torah would have been forgotten.
So, what do we see from the “Otzros of
Yavneh“? Rav Yehoshua ben Kafsai was
saying, “I see from Yavneh the power of one
individual. One person—and certainly a few
good people—can make a difference, can save
the world! I always thought that one tahor
person can sprinkle on one other tameh person
and have a one-on-one affect. But from
Yavneh I see that one tahor person can affect
hundreds of people.”
We have seen in our lifetime individuals who
have revolutionized the world. It is his

homiletic insight, so we can cite him as an
example. Consider Rav Meir Shapiro himself.
It is mind-boggling to think of the zechus Rav
Meir Shapiro has for coming up with Daf
Yomi. Thousands and thousands of people
worldwide learn Daf Yomi. Rav Meir Shapiro
did not live 2,000 years ago or even 200 years
ago. He lived in the 20th century. He came up
with an idea that revolutionized the world.
There are people like that.
There are others as well—Rav Aaron Kotler,
the Vilna Gaon, the Ramban and the
Rambam—people that revolutionized the
Torah world. But even people like us can make
a difference. One person can make a difference.