This fourth aliyah of Ki Teitzei is just awesome. So many eternal nuggets of wisdom and honor - you could write a whole book about this aliyah. You could wrote a whole book about a single verse. You could write books upon books on a single word. In an everlasting hope to grow just a little closer to H' - it would be entirely worth it.
But the imagery of G-d walking through a holy camp, inspecting for cleanliness and holiness so that H' may "rescue and deliver our enemies" is just so . . . cool. Devarim 23:15.
As my past entries have indicated, I'm really wrestling with and taking issue with the fact with a narrative I've been hearing ever since I started studying Torah and chasidut more intensely - which is sort of this very foreign idea of an ever-present yetzer hara - a prosecutor, evil urge, bad side, etc. - that is constantly trying to bring us down and draw us away from G-d. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that idea - it's just that, to me, an unlearned Torah newbie flying in the face of thousands of years of established kabbalah, this yetzer hara - it just has no basis whatsoever in Torah. Perhaps the closest thing that comes to mind is the urge to chase after foreign gods and "follow the eyes" as stated in v'ahavta. Okay, so maybe there is some express discussion of this in Torah. But perhaps what my real issue, then, is not that it exists, but rather that it exists as an ever-present struggle that, apparently, can never end. This is certainly not described by the Torah and, to me, Torah says the exact opposite - that it can and must be eradicated "to remove evil from your midst."
Take this example of G-d walking through the camp - certainly, there is a recognition of unholiness in the nocturnal emission of simple act of relieving oneself. But the Torah states that the way this is dealt with is to move outside the camp entirely, and to get over it. To wash, to bury, and never return. And remove that negative presence forever. Perhaps this is why one of the miracles, the Midrash (Talmud?) states, about the desert is that B'nei Yisrael never had to use the restroom (and therefore they entirely eliminated this risk of contamination entirely - in a weird way, similar to how I feel about my vegetarian lifestyle and its natural avoidance of all tirayfa foods).
In any case, what is the result of this removal and purification? That G-d will walk through the camp and "not see among us an indecent thing," which will spurn a desire to rescue us and deliver our enemies into our hands. Wow. All over some physical purity.
Or is it just physical purity? Of course, it cannot be. Nothing can be purely physical. But the Torah, of course, brilliantly connects the two - it's not that physical purity causes spiritual purity or that spiritual purity causes physical purity, it's that they're one in the same. Is H' really looking for physical purity? Sure, but that can't only be it. Surely G-d is also looking for spiritual purity, which naturally results from, causes, is correlated with, or simply exists alongside - or, really, is the exact same thing - as the physical purity described immediately before.
What this all means is that G-d is truly closer to us than ever before - the relationship is not some thing reserved only for who have the ability, time and luxury, of studying and praying all day (and G-d bless them if they can). It just requires the simplest steps of physical, and spiritual, because they must be the same, purity.
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