Broken Vessels: Getting Our Act Together

Whoever grew up being exhorted to eat the last scrap of food on his or her plate can surely appreciate the enigma in the sacrifice of the sin offering. Food left behind was called notar, leftovers - and had to be burned - and every earthenware vessel, anything that came out of the kiln, had to be broken into shards of clay and buried forevermore. Once and for all - you were not allowed to eat leftovers! - but even beyond that, there was mass wastefulness, perhaps millions of bowls, plates, anything earthenware that became no more valuable than disposables, designed for one-time usage.   

Let's get the specifics: Here you are, and you unwittingly commited a sin - it could happen to all of us (the Talmud talks about rabbis who erred, and even boasted, "Now, I'll have to bring a fat sin-offering") - and you've brought your sin offering; the offering was divided into two, parts consumed by the fire of the altar, and those which the Cohen ate. The Cohen took his food, and mind you, he had to eat it in a sacred place! Not just that, if any blood shpritzed on him during the process, he'd have to launder his clothing also on the grounds of the Beit Hamikdash, or its predecessor, the mishkan - and here, the very same Cohen is finished eating his zesty meat; what does he do? If it were simply a copper plate he could have eaten off of that, but let's say he didn't have one, didn't have the money or none were around, he'd eat out of a much more rudimentary plate or bowl, one of earthenware material, and here he is, plate or bowl in hand and no, he could not wash it off, he'd have to find a hard place on the ground, or smack it with his elbow or knee, breaking it into little pieces, and then hide any evidence of it once having been. 

Why do we do that? Why is the Cohen obligated to break any earthenware vessel after the alloted time for consuming the sacrifice has passed? Why couldn't it be scrubbed down, really really well, or put back in the kiln, or an oven fired up really really hot?! 

The Kli Yakar writes something fascinating. Earthenware vessels and copper vessels represent two different things; earthenware, people who need a more excruciating, difficult atonement process - their hearts need to be broken, shattered to pieces to atone for themselves. In contradistinction, the more righteous are likened to copper, a little scrubbing does the trick. 

It would seem that perhaps this is the reason for the difference; metal is malleable, can be morphed and changes at a much lower temperature, whereas firing up a kiln, according to a dear friend, Raphael Wilson, can take a temperature of up to 2,500 Degrees Fahrenheit. The atonement process thus is signified by the effort needed to change the material and remake it. As the Haftorah for Parshat Yehezkel taught, Hashem desires for us to turn our hearts of rock into living flesh, at the very heart of the ability to change, and achieve the teshuva proces; dynamism, a willingness to become someone new is what really spurs the world to growth - teshuva the very conception of a life open to change that was created before the world could come into existence.