Dalya & Jonny Sack

I will utilize the wisdom of our great Chassidic masters to say what I have to say.

Tahara purity is essentially the presence of holiness and Tumaa is the absence of holiness. We can ask ourselves why did הקב"ה create a world where there is Tumaa, this absence of purity? Why should the soul as it says in the midrash descend into this world away from it’s pristine purity?

The chassidim say over and over again that you have to have a ירידה לצורך עלייה. There is a requirement for their to be a descent in order for their ultimately to be an ascent. There are two types of טומאה in this world. One type is the absence of holiness created by ourselves. Sin itself is called טומאה. But there is another type of טומאה which is part of a natural process. It’s part of the world. The birth of a child results in טומאה. We are told that there are six days of work so that there can then be Shabbat. There are six years of laboring in the field agriculturaly so that there can be a seventh of Shmita.

In fact those six days and those six years and the whole process of birth and indeed the monthly cycle of a woman are all forms of טומאה which are built into the world, to nature. All of those aspects of טומאה are a ירידה for the purpose of an ultimate עלייה.

The late Lubavitcher Rebbe once pointed out that all the placed that Bnei Yisrael encamped in the desert are also called journeys. Why? Because even though they stopped for a moment , even thought they might have been there for a number of years it was all for the purpose of the journey onwards.

Sometimes we have to stop, sometimes we are forced to stop but that stop comes for the purpose of an Aliya, the purpose of an ultimate ascent. You have gotten married literally on motzei Rosh Chodesh.

As we drove here we suddenly say the first sliver of the moon. The waxing and waning of the moon every month is also a form of טומאה וטהרה. At the end and beginning of every month the moon is not visible, it reflects absence, darkness and it’s a form of טומאה as it were. And yet bit by bit, day by day, hour by hour the moon grows until in the middle of the month, two weeks from now the moon will be radiant in it’s full glory and that say the חכמים is the story of Am yisrael .

There are moments when we shine, when there is splendid glory and there are moments when we are almost obscured by darkness. So this is true in our lives and so is it true in marriage. Tonight even with the sliver of the moon there is a sense of energy and joy and you’re smiling but we know that our lives aren’t always that way. We know that there are moments too when things seem to be obscured when there is mystery and sadness. But it is like the moon. It is a phase.

Which like the moon and the cycle and like the rules of טומאה וטהרה we eventually find ourselves ascending to levels that we couldn’t have believed before. That is the bracha that I want to give the two of you. That your lives will follow the natural cycle of Judaism. The two of you have committed yourselves with such purity of intent and want to commit yourselves to the world of Hashem, to dvar Hashem in a way that will bring glory to הקב"ה and glory and honor to people too.

That is the challenge and Beezrat Hahsem we will be the full beneficiaries of this couple so that in the future you will not just be a source of energy and strength and purity for those nearest and dearest to you but I am absolutely convinced that you will touch the lives of hundreds and thousands because you truly live by the טומאה וטהרה the ascent and descent of the torah.

May you and your families be blessed with good health, with many years of joy and pleasure and continued עלייה, continued growth of dvar Hashem.

Mazal Tov!