The mystery novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time begins with a small series of shocking revelations for its protagonist, Christopher Boone (spoilers ahead). First, there is the incident with the dog itself: Wellington, the neighbor’s dog, is dead. Next, he discovers that the dog’s death somehow has to do with an affair that his deceased mother had with Wellington’s old owner. Finally, he learns that it was his own father who killed Wellington, also because of events driven by his mother’s infidelity. Last, he learns that his mother is not dead at all. She left two years before. Christopher’s father had lied to him. As you can imagine, all of this shakes Christopher’s worldview. He sets off on a journey of discovery, finding both his mother and newfound independence in the process.
While the story itself has many unique elements, it is a classic example of a coming-of-age story, where the protagonist loses his or her innocence. When a child moves through adolescence towards adulthood, there is no turning back.
This literary theme expresses something very much true about our own experiences. We ourselves have come of age, have had our assumptions challenged, have learned new and painful things. It is not all bad; not by any means. We have also been opened up by our relationships, by Torah, by experiences. The common theme is that we cannot go back, whether it is good or bad. Childlike naivete must be left behind, one way or another.
We find two classic examples of this as we read Rashi’s comments regarding the parah adumah.
“This is the statute of the law which Hashem has commanded. Speak to the Children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without defect, in which is no blemish, and which was never yoked. You shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and he shall bring it forth outside of the camp, and one shall kill it before his face.”
Why must we give the red heifer to Eleazar the priest, and not Aharon, the kohen gadol?
Rashi explains:
“Because Aharon had made the golden calf, this rite was not entrusted to him that it should be carried out by him, because the prosecuting counsel cannot become the defending counsel.”
In other words, the parah adumah comes to atone for the sin of the golden calf, and Aharon was too intimately involved in that sin to fix it. It is too late. We cannot make him whole and innocent again. Aharon’s coming of age story includes an inability to fix his mistakes.
Likewise, Rashi comments regarding the requirement to keep the parah adumah as a mishmeret, as something for safekeeping (verse 9). What is kept for safekeeping? Rashi explains:
“(The ashes of the red heifer are kept permanently) just as the transgression of the calf is kept in remembrance for all future generations for punishment. For there is no punishment visited upon Israel that does not have something of the visitation of punishment for the sin of the calf.”
Again, we see that some things cannot be fixed and that some innocence cannot be recovered. Israel can make up with G-d, under certain circumstances – in this case, through the Tabernacle and the red heifer. This is something all relationships go through. Part of growing up is realizing our parents are imperfect, and our relationships shift for this reason. Friendships and marriages are no exception to this general trend. Again, innocence and naivete must be left behind. How can we hope to recapture them? Some things cannot be undone, only lived with.
Yet, amidst all of this, the opposite message appears, the message of innocence recaptured!
Famously, the red heifer must be temima, free of any blemish:
“This is the statute of the law which Hashem has commanded. Speak to the Children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and which was never yoked.”
Rashi explains, in a lovely and moving passage:
“This is an allusion to the Israelites who were perfect but through (the sin of the calf) became morally maimed. Let this perfect animal come and atone for them so that they may regain their state of perfection.”
How can this be? Our lives are saturated with irreversible decisions and consequences! No punishment is ever visited upon our people without it carrying something of our great national sin! Aharon cannot engage in the atoning process of the red heifer, as he is too blameworthy! So how can Rashi tell us that, for all that, we may indeed recapture our old perfection?
In truth, we may be too narrow in our thinking on this matter. It is true that our decisions are so often irreversible, both the good and the bad. Sometimes, indeed, they are so powerful that they may accompany us for several lifetimes. Yet, it is also true that we do not ever entirely lose ourselves.
Are we really not the children who once played outside, who lost themselves in dance, who played pretend, who soared through the air, who swam the ocean in a pool? We are usually all too aware that the inner child is gone. And it is true and fitting.
Yet, we can sometimes find ourselves restored to childhood, if only momentarily. We sit with old friends and contemporaries and we can smell the smells of our childhood homes, recalls the sounds and the feelings we heard and felt; we can sing in shul and lose ourselves, lose our individual selves and our pain for just a moment, in an almost childlike fancy; we can lose sense of time in a shiur or at a wedding or a baseball game or a movie. Sometimes we forget to be so critical, to remember our pains, failures, accomplishments, victories. Sometimes we really do go back.
Rabbi Soloveitchik once commented, regarding the famous idea that Sarah Imeinu was like a seven-year-old even at the age of one hundred and twenty seven. What does this mean?
“In the realm of chemical processes, there is no way to retain biological youth in a middle-aged person, nor can the pattern of the middle-aged be preserved in old age. The sequence is strict and unalterable…
“In the realm of the unfolding of the spirit, however, it is possible to see youth and ripe age- or even childhood and youth- as simultaneous experiences. The advanced in years quite often display spiritual restlessness and intensity, and the young are sometimes characterized by cautious wisdom and sober judgment. An old person may be wonderfully childlike with a dreamer’s naivete and excitement. The idealism of youth quite often sines through the eyes of the graybeard. In fact, great people are sometimes great children…
“Sarah was at one and the same time seven, twenty, and a hundred years old. She was simultaneously very old and very young, representing the aged, the adult, and the child” (“From Generation to Generation,” pages 186-7 in “Abraham’s Journey”).
Sarah Imenu may have held on to her childhood throughout her life and we may not have. Yet, there is something still within us, pure, unadulterated: Temima – clean, free of imperfection. While we live with our past and do not turn back the clock, there is still something there, something that stays with us throughout it all. It is a certain perfection, something witnessed easily in children and cultivated only with difficulty by adults. This is temimut, a pure and spiritual beauty and healthy innocence. We have it yet, despite what we may think.
Despite all of our sins, Hashem tells us that we may regain our spiritual perfection. Along with the past, this pure potential is also unchanging. It waits for us to bring it out and re-make ourselves with it.
