Breaking the Vessel
On Selfhood, Sacrifice, and the Healing Power of Heartbreak
“An earthen vessel in which [the sacrifice] was boiled shall be broken; if it was boiled in a copper vessel, the vessel shall be scoured and rinsed with water.” (Leviticus 6:21)
[BUT AN EARTHEN VESSEL…MUST BE BROKEN — because the substance absorbed in it becomes what is known as נותר (the technical term for any portion of a sacrifice not eaten by the time prescribed for this) (cf. Avodah Zarah 76a). That, too, is the regulation applicable to all sacrifices (i. e. that an earthen vessel wherein they have been cooked must be broken). —Rashi
An earthenware vessel … must be broken. The means of purifying vessels parallels the way of repentance. Earthenware vessels which have absorbed a lot of prohibited food cannot be purified through water and must be broken, but metal vessels that absorbed only a little can be purified with water. In the same way, some people have become habitual in transgressing and can be purified only by breaking their heart. Others, however, transgressed only a little and need only a slight rectification. Today, when we have no Temple, the way for the unlearned masses to achieve rectification is through breaking their heart, the vessel in which they ‘cooked up’ the sin. —Kli Yakar
When we think of sacrifices, the cleaning of the vessels is not usually top of mind. After all, the vessels in which food is cooked seem incidental to the food itself. Nobody asks the chef about the pot. The questions always center on the ingredients. But the Kli Yakar considers the laws concerning cookware to have a metaphoric intensity. They represent the soul of the one bringing the sacrifice. The process by which a vessel is purified—or not—correlates with the process by which a person can be transformed and rehabilitated. The power of the sacrifice is not to be found only in the animal, but in the pot in which it is cooked. How odd.
The laws for kashering vessels that are known to those who keep a kosher home are derived from the laws of purifying vessels in the Temple. That alone is worth pondering as it turns all acts of food consumption into a microcosm of priestly life. The reason for both the laws of kashering and the laws of purifying turn on a simple principle—just as vessel X absorbs substance Y, so X needs to release Y. We aren’t empty vessels, we carry all kinds of things with us. (The word “metaphor” means “to carry across.” Language, too, is a vessel.)
Glass, which is not used in the Temple, does not absorb anything. Therefore it requires no releasement. The opposite of glass on the difficult-to-purify-scale is earthenware (kli cheres). Earthenware is not only quite absorptive, but it is impossible to clean by applying heat without breaking. That is, it can absorb, but it cannot realse. In the laws of kashrut, earthenware cannot be made kosher once it has become unkosher, in part because the sages worried that, out of a desire to save it, a person would cut corners in the purification process.
All this technicality may seem to be a hang-up of a time when chemistry, physics, and technology were under-developed. But metaphorically, it is powerful to think of different vessels as correlating to different kinds of souls or sets of experiences. What kinds of experiences can we have without much residue or influence and what kinds of experiences stay with us, stubbornly, no matter how much we try to scrub them away or forget them? In our time, we tend to think of selfhood as quite malleable and experience as ephemeral. The notion that we are deeply formed and that certain choices make us who we are seems uncouth. The liberal views the self more like glass. The romantic views the self more like earthenware.
The law concerning the breaking of earthenware vessels appears after the introduction of the sin offering (chatat). We are reading about a person looking to make amends and gain a fresh start. If a sacrifice is the ritual process by which one can right the worldly repercussions of one’s erroneous ways, the cleansing of the vessels may be the process by which one rights the psychological effects of error. The ritual isn’t over when God forgives, as it were. It’s only over when we forgive ourselves.
Think of it this way: If a person sins and brings a sacrifice, what stops the person from continuing to sin and continuing to bring sacrifices, integrating the act of bringing the sacrifice into an otherwise unchanged pattern of behavior? There’s an inappropriate joke to this effect. A man confesses to his priest all the terrible things he has done over the weekend. The priest says, “Give me 200 Ave Marias and 200 Our Fathers.” To which the man responds, “I’m not asking for atonement. I’m just so giddy, I’m telling everyone.” What prevents the sacrificial act from becoming co-opted? While no method is foolproof, I like to think that the detail about the cleansing of the vessels is an expression of the idea that the sacrifice isn’t over until all residue of it has been removed. For the Kli Yakar, this happens only when our hearts are broken. (Kli Yakar fittingly means “precious vessel.”)
In the case of metals, there is a process for rectification, but in the case of earthenware, the process is symbolic, because the actual vessel cannot be reused. Technically, the schmutz stays in—it’s just that the discarding of the vessel serves as an amelioration of the situation. The word “human” comes from hummus, meaning earth. Genesis describes the first human as formed from clay. The use of a clay vessel is thus the most primal and simple expression of the human condition itself, a condition that is humble but also brittle.
The idea that we can wash away our errors has an elegance to it. But the idea that we cannot—because fundamentally the cause of error is our humanity itself, not some character defect—is more honest. The notion that we can be transformed by a broken heart puts a hopeful accent on what might otherwise feel tragic. The breaking of a vessel isn’t resignation, it’s the affirmation that we can feel broken and nonetheless be pure.
Last week I wrote about the Biblical emphasis on the fact that sacrifices are to be brought lifnei Hashem, before God. The emphasis on the cleansing of the vessels continues the point that sacrifice alone is not enough, that ritual is not a guarantee of efficacy. The process of transformation is multi-staged, but always personal. While the sacrifice itself has a method that is repeatable, the vessel in which it is brought, like the self that brings it, is variable. Ritual that remains impersonal might be of worldly consequence, and is not to be diminished, but it will not be of personal consequence.
Ethicists debate whether goodness is about impact or whether goodness is about virtue and character. While we face difficult tradeoffs on these matters, the law of the sin offering gives us a literary indication that both are important. Sin or error or transgression has consequence both for others and for the self. Neither self-centered piety nor other-centric behaviorism will be enough to make the world whole. But given the inherent fragility of the human condition and the inevitability of human failure, we need processes that allow us to believe in improvement. Sometimes the hardest reparations are within. Paradoxically, a broken vessel, a broken self, an unresolved conscience, can be a sign of vitality and resuscitation.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins @ Etz Hasadeh
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