The mitzvah of כיסוי הדם, which means covering the blood when you shecht. It's one of those mitzvot that we rarely have a an opportunity to fulfill because when do we shecht and when do we shecht, when do we have a chance to be by a shechitah? But once a year really, by kaparot, that's when we get a chance to do it. I'm talking many people try that since it's a rare mitzvah that we don't have a chance to do much during the year, and it's a mitzvah that we should be doing, and it has nothing to do the time at the Beit Hamikdash like some mitzvot that we can't do now, it's a mitzvah that applies nowadays like always, like it used to, so why not find an opportunity to do it? So we take the opportunity when we go to kaparot and we try to do the mitzvah. But this will be the discussion, the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם. And this is a mitzvah that comes from a pasuk in last week's parshah, that's actually what gave me the idea to talk about this mitzvah because it's a mitzvah in Parshat Acharei. And I'll just read from the pesukim just to see what the mitzvah is. The pasuk first talks about the prohibition of eating blood: איש איש מבית ישראל ומן הגר הגר בתוכם אשר יאכל כל דם. Any person, any Yid or a convert who's a regular Yid that will eat blood, Hashem says he will be חייב כרת, he will get the punishment of כרת. כי נפש הבשר בדם היא, because the nefesh, the life of the flesh is in the blood. ואני נתתיו לכם על המזבח לכפר על נפשתיכם. Blood really belongs on the altar, on the mizbeach. כי הדם הוא בנפש יכפר, because blood, which is a nefesh, that brings a kaparah. So really, blood belongs on the mizbeach. על כן אמרתי לבני ישראל, that's why Hashem said, \"Therefore I told the יידן, כל נפש מכם לא תאכל דם,\" that no one should eat dam, blood. והגר הגר בתוככם לא יאכל דם, and a convert who's a Yid should not eat blood. Then the pasuk continues, ואיש איש מבני ישראל ומן הגר הגר בתוכם אשר יצוד ציד חיה או עוף. If a man from the Yid or a convert from amongst you that will hunt and catch a חיה or an עוף, חיה is an animal, but it refers to a not a domestic animal, but it's more on the wild side, the wild animals, or a bird, אשר יאכל that could be eaten, ושפך את דמו and you will spill its blood, which means you will שחט it, וכסהו בעפר, you shall cover it with sand. כי נפש כל בשר דמו בנפשו הוא, because the nefesh, the life of all flesh is in the blood, therefore I said, \"Don't eat blood.\" And in middle, as we said, in between the pesukim of not eating blood, He put in the pasuk that you have to cover the blood that comes out from a חיה or an עוף that you shecht has to be covered. Now this din that when you shecht you have to cover the blood only applies, as we just read in the pasuk, to a חיה and an עוף, not a בהמה. We know there are three categories. An עוף is a bird, then from the animals we have חיה and a בהמה. בהמה refers to the domesticated animals, like a cow, a sheep, a goat, those fall into the category of בהמה. חיה is more the wild animals. We're talking here about kasher ones, which would include a deer or a giraffe, which is kasher. We just don't shecht it, we don't know exactly how to shecht it, but it's a kasher animal. So the din is that if you shecht a bird or a חיה, you have to cover the blood. If you shecht a בהמה, you don't have to cover the blood, there's no din of כיסוי הדם, of the blood. Now some people are not even familiar and they would forget. They even tell me, someone told me, in fact my father-in-law told me that he used to have a butcher shop, so once he went with different rabbanim who came to the שלאכטהויז, to the slaughterhouse, they came to check, to see the shechitah, how things are done. So he remembers a few rabbanim were walking and one Rav turns to the group and he says, \"You know what? While we're here, let's take the opportunity to do the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם.\" And this was in a slaughterhouse where they שחט בהמות and there is no din of כיסוי הדם. But the guy for a moment forgot because you know you're used to when do we come out to be by a place of shechitah, and he was in a place of shechitah, he thought, \"Oh, let's make כיסוי הדם.\" But כיסוי הדם is not by a behemah, it's only by a chayah or an of, the wilder animals or the birds, which is like a chicken or any other bird that we will shachat that's kasher, there's a mitzvah of כיסוי הדם, and by a chayah, but not by a behemah. And it's also good to mention that when we do the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם, we make a berachah: אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו על כיסוי דם בעפר. And the reason we make a berachah is because we fulfill a mitzvah, so we make a berachah before we do a mitzvah. Even though this is a mitzvah which does not fall under the category of chovah, it's not an obligation, meaning there is no mitzvah in כיסוי הדם, unless you're interested in shechting the bird, and eating the meat. What happens if a person says, \"I don't want to eat meat, I mean a chicken, I don't want to eat chayah\"? There's no mitzvah. Just like shechitah, there's no mitzvah to shecht. A person wants to eat meat, then you have to shecht. If you don't want to eat meat, there's no mitzvah to shecht. Nevertheless, we make a berachah. If you do shecht, you make a ברכה, אשר קידשנו במצוותיו וציוונו על השחיטה. The same is with כיסוי הדם. Even though it's not a mitzvah chiyuvit, a mitzvah that I have to do, but if the opportunity is there, if I happen to shecht, I have to do the mitzvah, so we have to make a berachah. So the berachah is אשר, אשר קידשנו במצוותיו וציוונו על כיסוי דם בעפר: You commanded us to cover concerning covering the blood with sand. What is the reason behind the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם? So the Sefer HaChinuch, was a sefer that goes through all the תרי\"ג מצוות, all 613 mitzvot of the Torah according to the order of the chumash. And in every mitzvah he gives a few halachot, and he gives the pesukim where we learn it out from, and he also gives a little idea of what's behind the mitzvah. So the Sefer HaChinuch explains what is the reason for the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם, and he says the reason is because as the pasuk says כי הדם הוא הנפש, the blood that is the life, that is the soul, so imagine you're eating meat, and at the same time you'll be able to sit and watch and see the blood which is the life of the meat that you ate. That's אכזריות, he says, that's cruel. Imagine, there's some people who say they don't want to eat meat at all, because it's cruel to kill an animal to eat. Now the Torah doesn't go along with that. The Torah says that the Torah doesn't encourage a person to be a vegetarian, the Torah says it's okay to eat meat, but nevertheless the Torah does give certain restrictions of not doing it in a form of אכזריות, of cruelty. Torah doesn't agree that killing the animal, shechting the animal, animal is cruel, but there are certain things which are called cruelty. For instance, even the mixing of blood and, blood, I mean milk and meat, is also comes and based on cruelty. לא תבשל גדי בחלב אמו, you shouldn't cook the goat in its mother's milk, which is very cruel. But this is also because of cruelty, he says, that you shouldn't eat the meat and at the same time the blood will be right there open, and that's the life of this meat that you're eating from. And therefore Hashem said, cover the blood, so you won't see the blood. But then he continues, what is the reason that the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם only applies to חיות and עופות, and not to בהמות? And he says, because most בהמות were kosher to be brought as korbanot, as sacrifices on the מזבח in the בית המקדש. Most בהמות were kosher. And therefore, if it's a korban, you don't have to cover the blood. And in the time of the מדבר, in the desert, actually the Ramban speaks of it more at length, on the pasuk, that when the Yidden were in the desert, they ate, all the meat that they ate, were all from korbanot, from the בהמות. So therefore, you don't have to cover it. Even later on, he says, it was common for people who wanted to eat meat, would actually from a בהמה would eat, bring a korban. So therefore, since they were fit for korbanot, and most times they were brought for korbanot, you don't have to cover it. But חיות, there is no such thing as a korban from a חיה. You can't bring a korban, there is no korban from a חיה. Also from birds, most of the birds cannot be korbanot. Only two kinds of birds could be korbanot. Out of all kosher birds, only תורים ובני יונה, these two kinds, where we find in the Chumash many times קרבן העוף, but most of the birds are not korbanot. And being that they're not korbanot, that's where Hashem said that you should cover the blood. And actually if you look into the pasuk, they don't bring the pasuk, but from the pasuk it seems that way, because the pasuk, when it says don't eat blood, as I read the pasuk before, because blood is the nefesh, and that belongs on the mizbeach, and right after that he says, if you shecht a חיה or a עוף, you should cover the blood. We see that it goes together, it's connected to the mizbeach. That if it's the mizbeach, then you don't have to cover it. Because this is something that doesn't go on the mizbeach, therefore you have to cover the blood. So we have to cover the blood from those things that have nothing to do with korbanot, and that is a חיה, or birds, like a chicken. A chicken is a bird, you can't bring a chicken as a korban. So that's why you have to cover the blood.

To explain this a little bit deeper, and a little bit more the way chassidus explains this idea that כיסוי הדם, the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם is because you cannot bring it as a korban. That's what we're saying here. Because these are things that cannot be brought as a korban, that's why you have to cover the blood. To explain that a little bit deeper, what is the connection? And we actually see another din which goes along with the same lines, that even a chicken, a bird, or a חיה that belonged to hekdesh, that belonged to the בית המקדש. For instance, a person donated a bird to the בית המקדש, not as a korban, we call it for בדק הבית. A person at the time of the בית המקדש was able to donate whatever he wanted to the בית המקדש, things that the בית המקדש didn't need, but there was a value. The בית המקדש would take it, and they would sell it, and the money they would use for the upkeep of the בית המקדש. So if there is a bird or a חיה which belongs to hekdesh, which belongs to בית המקדש, and you shecht it, you don't have to have כיסוי הדם. Why? Because as we said, if it has a shaychus to korbanot or to hekdesh, to kedusha, you don't have to cover the blood. If it doesn't have a connection to korbanot, to Beis Hamikdash, to kedusha, then you have to cover the blood. What's the idea behind it? What is the reason that if it's connected to korbanot, to kedusha, you don't have to cover, if it's not connected to kedusha, you have to cover? What's the idea, why does this have to do with covering the blood? So Chassidus explains that the inyan of covering the blood is not only something specific in this mitzvah, but this is a lesson or it's connected to something general in all the mitzvot. And we do find that as much as it seems that כיסוי הדם is a very, very individual mitzvah, we can't say it's a מצוה כללית. There are certain mitzvot we know are very general mitzvot, they're very important mitzvot, fundamental mitzvot. Some mitzvot are very, you know, there's one mitzvah out of the 613. This would seem one of those, one of the small מצוות, כיסוי הדם, but it doesn't have any כללות'דיגע ענינים, general ideas of all mitzvot in it. But it's not true. Every mitzvah has general things in it that we could learn to all mitzvot, and the reason for many of the many details of all the mitzvot are connected to ענינים כלליים, general ideas in mitzvot. But here we see it specifically. We see in a different place in Gemara that there is a certain halacha that has to do with all the mitzvot, and it all comes from the מצוה כיסוי הדם. Not this inyan, I'll just say this as an example that shows that this happens to be a מצוה כללית to the general other mitzvot. And which mitzvah is it? It's the mitzvah the din, not the mitzvah, the din that you're not allowed to do anything embarrassing in connection to a mitzvah. The Gemara says that when you do כיסוי הדם, you're not allowed to do it with your foot. You have to cover with your hand, but you can't cover the blood with your foot. On one hand, you could think, since you poured the blood on the floor and there is sand on the side, with your foot, you would move it and cover it. So it says you're not allowed to. Why aren't you allowed to? Because it's a ביזוי מצוה. It's embarrassment to use your foot for a mitzvah. And a person should not make מצוות בזויות עליו, shouldn't have embarrassment to mitzvot. And the Gemara says that from this mitzvah, this din, we learn out concerning all the mitzvot that you're never allowed to do anything which will cause embarrassment to a mitzvah. And where is this taught? It's taught in the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם. But what it means is to teach us for all the mitzvot. So we see here, I'm just using this as an example, that even though it seems to be one small little mitzvah, but this mitzvah has a din which is the source of this din to all the mitzvot. Actually the Gemara, when it says that you're not allowed to embarrass a mitzvah, the Gemara uses the לשון, ואבוהון דכולהו דם, the father, the source, and it says the lashon, the father of all the mitzvot concerning this din is dam, is this mitzvah of כיסוי הדם, that you can't embarrass the mitzvot. And the reason why, obviously, this is a by the way, why you can't embarrass the mitzvot, so the mefarshim say, because the mitzvot are considered shluchim of Hashem. Not only the Yidden who fulfill the mitzvot are fulfilling Hashem's mission, the mitzvot themselves are Hashem's messengers. There's a Midrash that says, כבדו את המצוות שהם שלוחי. Honor the mitzvot, they are my agents. So imagine if you embarrass the mitzvot, you're really embarrassing Hashem. שלוחו של אדם כמותו, a agent of a person is like the person himself. So memila you can't do a bizui and embarrass the mitzvot, but we see we learn it out from this din. So just like here we see that there is a general halachah in all mitzvot that come from כיסוי הדם, so this halachah of כיסוי הדם, this idea of כיסוי הדם in general, is because of something that has to do with all the mitzvot, and klal, not only with all the mitzvot, klal with our avodat Hashem. In this little mitzvah of כיסוי הדם we have a direction in how a yid is supposed to serve Hashem, in everything that he does. And that's connected to the idea that we said before, that things that have to do with korbanot and with kedusha you don't have to cover the blood, and things which don't have a connection to kedusha, you have to cover the blood. And I'll explain what it means. Blood, we know klal, it says in sefarim, represents excitement. Part of blood is heat. When a person has hot-blooded, I mean the blood of a person, like the pasuk says, is the nefesh of the person. That represents the excitement and the enthusiasm of a person. That's what blood is. When you shachat an animal, that means you're preparing your food. You're shachating an animal to be able to eat it, so you are preparing your food. Preparing your food means you're getting into eating food, which is gashmiyut, which is part of this gashmiyusdike world with our gashmiyusdike physical needs, which really represents more than food. Many times when they talk about a person's needs, his physical needs, we use the term eating. A lot of times, \"Where do you eat from?\" it says. It doesn't mean what do you who supports you, where do you buy your clothes from, but we use the lashon eating. So when we talk about food, food doesn't only mean food. Food represents all our physical needs. So here we're talking about shachating your and preparing your food, shachating the animal, which is preparing your food, which really means this is the preparation to getting involved in the gashmiyusdike physical needs that you have. So if it's kedusha, if you're getting involved in something gashmi, but it's a mitzvah, it's kedusha, it's a korban to Hashem, then don't cover the blood. Covering the blood means hiding the enthusiasm, hiding the koach, hiding the heat. That's the remez in the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם. כיסוי הדם means that when you shachat the animal, and you're using it going to use it for your gashmiyusdike needs, if the animal is not a korban or has no connection to a korban, then make sure that the blood is covered. The blood is covered means that the koach, the enthusiasm is covered. Don't exhibit any enthusiasm in it, in the gashmiyut of it. Because when we go and talk about gashmiyut, a person should not get involved in gashmiyut for the sake of gashmiyut itself. You should not have this koach, this excitement, in the gashmiyut itself. You should have the excitement you should get involved in gashmius because כל מעשיך לשם שמים, whatever you do should be for the sake of Hashem. כל מעשיך, as we all know, means your maasim, whatever we do for ourselves should be l'shem shamayim. It doesn't talk about mitzvos. Mitzvos is not called מעשיך, your maasim, your actions. Mitzvos are called מעשי השם, actions of Hashem. We do them, but they're maasim of Hashem. When it says כל מעשיך לשם שמים, your things should be it means when we do our things. So when we get involved in our gashmius, it has to be l'shem shamayim. בכל דרכיך דעהו means in all your ways, your ways, you shall know Hashem. When it comes to our own ways, not the ways of mitzvos. The ways of mitzvos are called דרכי השם, the ways of Hashem. Gashmius is called דרכיך, your ways. So the the pasuk says בכל דרכיך דעהו, in all your ways you should know Him, but not the gashmius. So, therefore, when it comes to gashmius, then we have to have the blood covered. But anything that's a korban to Hashem, or anything that's holy, belongs to the Beis Hamikdash which is holy, which represents when we get involved in holy matters, they're the opposite. Don't cover the blood. There the blood has to be revealed, there it has to be open, you have to exhibit your excitement, you have to show excitement. But when it's not connected to kedusha, when it's not connected to a korban to Hashem, when it's pure gashmius, then cover the blood. When you're preparing the food, preparing your needs and the gashmiusdike ones, cover it.

Which is similar to what you know the pshat it says in Chassidus brought down, the שיחות on the פסוק יגיע כפיך כי תאכל אשריך וטוב לך, which means the toil of your hands you shall eat. And if you do that, אשריך וטוב לך, good is to you, אשריך is you are lucky, and And in Pirkei Avos it says אשריך בעולם הזה וטוב לך בעולם הבא, it's good in this world, good in the world to come. What's so good? If you eat from the toil of your hands. Why is that so special? Why does the Torah give such great brachos for eating from the toil of your hands? Well, normally it means that you eat from the toil of hands, you don't have to come to others, whatever. It's much more than that. What it means is that when a person works, his hands should be involved, but his heart and his mind, his brains, that should not be involved. Now we don't mean a person shouldn't use his brains when he does business. I once heard someone mention this idea, he says, well, do everything, any גשמיותדיקע thing you do, any business you do, do without brains. Doesn't mean you shouldn't use your seichel. But, but that's not what we're talking about. What we mean to say is that shouldn't be in which, in, in the inyan that a person is excited about, that's where your heart is and that's what you put your mind into and that's what you care about. So it says if it's יגיע כפיך כי תאכל, if it's only the toil of your hands, but not your pnimiyus, your excitement, your heart and your head, then אשריך וטוב לך, then it's good for you. This is the meaning of the pasuk where it says, ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה ויום השביעי תשבות. Six days a week the pasuk says your work shall be done. In one place it says תעשה מלאכה, you shall do melacha. But in one place it says תעשה מלאכה, the melacha your work shall be done. What do we mean it shall be done? It's done? It's not done, we do it! The pasuk says six days a week you shall do melacha, seventh day you rest. Says six days a week your melacha shall be done. The answer, pshat is, because when we do the melacha, it's supposed to be in a way as if it's done by itself. If you put your excitement into it, and your whole life into it, and your whole heat and enthusiasm into it, then you're doing it. But if you're doing it because you have to do it, but that's not where you're completely involved, then it's תעשה, it's, as far as you're concerned, it's, it's being done. See there's another pshat here, besides that. The other pshat is that when we work, as much as we work, we always have to realize that it's not us that's doing it, it's Hashem that's doing it. As far as we're concerned, it's happening to us rather than we're making it happen. It's happening to us by Hashem. The work that we're doing is being done. We're just vessels in bringing down what Hashem wants to happen, make happen. So it's תעשה, but that's as far as the work being done. What I'm saying here is different. As far as the doing itself, when we do it, we have to do it in the form of תעשה, as if it's done by itself without our excitement. And then the pasuk continues וביום השביעי תשבות, it'll come the seventh day, you will be able to rest. When it comes the seventh day, seventh day is Shabbos, and it says in Shulchan Aruch, being taken from the Midrashim, Gemara, that on Shabbos a person is supposed to feel כאילו כל מלאכתך עשויה, as if everything is done, as if you have no work. Because Shabbos you're supposed to rest and everything is supposed to go out of your mind. When is it possible for a person to feel on Shabbos that he has no work to do, and everything is done and he has no worry and has worries on his mind, when the truth is many times we do? Some people are in the middle of a big job, in the middle of something, and on Shabbos it's not finished. What do you mean feel on Shabbos as if it's done? You know when we could do it? If the week, the whole week before that we worked, we weren't involved in it with our whole being and with our whole chiyus and our whole life, with our whole geshmak. So then, since during the six days of the week it's תעשה, it's as if it's done by itself because we're not involved. So when it comes Shabbos, certainly we're able to feel וביום השביעי תשבות. And this is the reason the pasuk says יגיע כפיך, יגיע כפיך, which means the toil of your hands. Usually when you do something that you don't really care about, and it's as if it's done, you don't work hard for it. So why does the pasuk say יגיע כפיך, from the hard work of your hands? But the Rebbe says the pshat, the contrary, when you do something that you don't care about, every move you make is hard for you, because really you don't want to do it. Really you want to sit and learn, really, but you're working, that's not what you care about. You care about, you could be working ten hours a day and learn one hour, that one hour is what you care about. This ten hours a day is by the way. So it's hard. Something that you enjoy doing and you care about and you're involved, as hard as it is, it's not hard labor. It's a geshmak. But when you do something that you really don't enjoy, then it's hard labor even if it's easy work. And that's what the pasuk says, it has to be whenever we work has to be hard labor because that's not what we care about. This is basically what it says, it's all famous inyanim, that it says that a person, עשה תורתך קבע ומלאכתך עראי, a person should make his learning permanent and his work should be temporary. How could that be? If you talk to a כולל יונגערמאן or a bachur in yeshiva, that's true. Most of the day he learns, a little bit he might have to do some work, so the learning is permanent, that's his main thing, קבוע, that's set, and his work is by the way. But most people are not like that. So who is this, who are the Chazal talking to when they say it, only to the כולל יונגעלייט? They're talking to everybody. The peshat is like this: they're not talking about time. A person could work 10 hours a day, learn one hour a day, daven one hour a day, so it's 10 hours versus two. But these 10 are עראי, are temporary, and these two are קבע, are set, permanent, because that's where he's in, that's what he cares about, that's where he has his chiyut, that's what he loves, and that's something that he has to do. That's יגיע כפיך. And this is the remez of כיסוי הדם. The remez of כיסוי הדם is that when you שחט your animal, and you're preparing your gashmiyut, you're preparing your food, cover the blood. The koach, the geshmak that you have, cover. On the other hand, when you're שחטing קדשים, קרבנות, or animals which is a שייכות to be a korban, or you're you're שחטing an animal which belongs to קדשים, to the Beit Hamikdash, even if it's not a korban, it belongs, as we call it, to the בדק הבית, to the fund of the Beit Hamikdash and they'll sell it, but in the meantime it belongs to them, which means this represents kedusha, don't cover the blood. Because here you should exhibit the the blood and the the geshmak that you have. But if it's gashmiyut, cover it. With what should you cover it? So the pasuk says that if you שפך את דמו וכסהו בעפר, cover it with עפר, with sand. Actually, in the beracha that we make, as I said before, the beracha is על כיסוי דם בעפר, that we cover it with sand, with עפר. Why עפר? What does עפר represent? So everyone knows that the word עפר represents bitul. It represents self-nullification, it represents anavah, it represents a person being humble. Where do we see it? Every Shemoneh Esrei, three times a day, we say at the end, ונפשי כעפר לכל תהיה, I shall be like dust, like sand to everybody. That's an expression taken from the Gemara, it's an expression that we say when we want to say to Hashem that we are nothing, we consider ourselves nothing. So which expression do we use? The word afar. When Avraham Avinu wanted to say to Hashem that I'm nothing, what words did he use? ואנכי עפר ואפר, I am sand and dust. That's an expression, afar is an expression of bitul. Pesach, when we want to be mevatel chametz, we want to nullify the chametz, when we say the כל חמירא, so what do we say, what expression do we use? We're saying that the chametz that we are that we have, they have a hef, יבטלו ולהוי הפקר כעפרא דארעא, that they be batel, and that should be hefker, ownerless, like what? כעפרא דארעא, like sand of the floor. So what do we mean? Bitul! And there it's even על פי הלכה the expression that we use is bitul. We're mevatel the chametz by saying it's like sand. So sand is bitul, and that's what the pasuk says here: that when you're shachating a a chayah or a bird, which as the Ramban and the Chinuch say, are not connected to קרבנות, חיה can't be a korban, and a bird, most birds are not korbanot, so they're not connected to kedushah, so the koach, the dam, the blood that you have there has to be covered. And that has to be covered with sand, which means it has to be covered with bitul. You have to cover it, not have the koach. And how is it possible for a person not to have the excitement in gashmiyut? If you have bitul. It's because of bitul. When you have bitul, then you accomplish the covering of this blood. Why? Because why would a person have the blood, which means the heat, and the excitement, and the koach, and the life, and everything in the gashmiyut? It's only because of your ego, because I enjoy it. To me, my physical body likes it. It's all because of I. If a person would have the bitul, the proper bitul, then he knows that that my gashmiyut is nothing. What is important? Where my chayus belongs is in things that belong to Hashem, that Hashem wants us to do, not in what I need for myself. So in that case, if you have bitul, then your blood of שחטing the ordinary, not korban animals will be covered. And that's what the pasuk says: וכסהו בעפר. If you שחט the animal, you shall cover it, which means take away the chayus, and it shall be בעפר, with sand. Now, in truth, as we see before, not only korbanot don't you have to cover the blood, not don't you have to not cover the blood, but even when you שחט a בהמה, which is not a korban, we said before, covering the blood is only by birds and by חיה, but a בהמה you don't have to, the reason is because most of the בהמות were used for korbanot. But nevertheless, there are some בהמות not for korbanot. As a matter of fact, nowadays, there are no korbanot, so nowadays even the בהמות are חולין we call them, not korbanot, and nevertheless we don't have to cover. Even though it's חולין, חולין means not holy, and still the din is you don't cover. Why, we said? Because they could be used for korbanot, they are a מין And again, the word חול means food which is not holy, not תרומה, not korbanot, and therefore the level of tumah is very limited, goes up to a שני, and they would be careful with the tumah of חול in the same level as you would have to be careful by kodesh. But Chassidut says that the word חול על טהרת הקודש has a deeper meaning. חול על טהרת הקודש means that it's טאקע חול, it's not a korban, it's not holy, but a person could reach a level where when he is involved in his חולין matters, which means secular matters, ordinary גשמיותדיקע matters, to him it's על טהרת הקודש. He reached such a level that this could be with the same purity, it is the level of kodesh, that this person, whatever he does in his חולין behavior, is like kodesh. Just like when we do a mitzvah, it's קודש, but when we sit down to eat our regular meal, it's not קודש, that's חול. You have some people who reach a level that when they sit down to eat a regular meal, they worked themselves over, they elevated themselves to such a level that that to them is חול, but על טהרת הקודש, it's a level of kedushah. They serve Hashem constantly with anything they do in gashmiyus. What we see here is that you don't have to cover the blood of a בהמה, even though a בהמה is חול, a בהמה which is חול, because it's connected to קרבנות, it's a kind, a species that could be used for a קרבן, that represents the idea of חול על טהרת הקודש. That if you have חול, because a בהמה is חול, but if it's a level that has to do with קודש, you also don't have to cover it. That means that a person who reached that level could show, could demonstrate chayus and blood, and a koach, and a life, even when it comes to his חול. We said before that when you sit down to eat, you sit down to eat a regular, ordinary meal, it's not a Shabbos meal and it's not a Yom Tov meal, it's not a mitzvah of מצה and you're not eating in the סוכה, it's regular חול, cover the blood, hide the excitement, don't get excited over the piece of steak that you have, don't. If that same piece of steak would be a קרבן, or it's a mitzvah to eat it, show excitement, don't cover the blood. Now we're saying that if you have a person that reached a level that he sits down to eat his ordinary meal, it's חול, but it's על טהרת הקודש, he reached such a high level that to him this is a form of kedushah, he also doesn't have to cover the blood, because since to him this is a demonstration of kedushah, he is able to demonstrate excited excitement, because we're not afraid it's going to pull him down. A person, a regular person, if you show excitement in חול, in your ordinary gashmiyusdike things and you show, you put your life into it, you know what's going to happen? You get drawn into it, you get pulled into gashmiyus and you lose sight of the truth. When you do a mitzvah, show your excitement. But if you have a person that reached the level that when he eats gashmiyus, a normal meal, to him it's חול על טהרת הקודש, he has the right to demonstrate chayus, because his excitement will not be excitement of the gashmiyus aspect of the meal, even though it's not a mitzvah and it's a gashmiyusdike meal, but he is at a level that he feels the excitement in the spirituality that's there in this food. And therefore, he also doesn't have to cover the the blood. So, it comes out from here that we have three categories that we're discussing here. We're discussing things which are completely חולין the way it is in our level when we are involved in secular things, there the דין is that you have to cover the blood. Then you have things which are korbanot or kodashim, the din is you don't have to cover the blood. Then you have the one in the middle: if you have חולין על טהרת הקודש, if a person has the חולין, but it's on the level of kedushah, he also does not have to cover. Why? Because his involvement and his chayut will be a chayut of kedushah.

Now, the truth is this is hinted by the Rambam in three expressions of the Rambam that the Rambam writes at the end, the very, very end of Hilchot Shechita, which deals with the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם. And he talks about that halachah that we said before that you shouldn't cover the blood with your foot, or with your hand he says, or with a knife, or with a כלי, not to have a בזיון. And then the Rambam continues, and he says three expressions. The three expressions are, first he says שאין הכבוד לעצמן של מצות אלא למי שצוה בהן ברוך הוא. Because when you say you have to give kavod to the mitzvot, it's not kavod for the mitzvah; it's kavod for the One that commanded us to do the mitzvah. And then he says, and what did Hashem do? והצילנו מלמשש בחשך. He saved us from טאַפּן אין טאַפּן it, touching, feeling in dark, feeling the dark. He saved us from going around in darkness. וערך לנו נר ליישר המעקשים, and He prepared us that we have a candle to straighten out all crooked things. והאיר להורות נתיבות היושר, and He gave us the light to teach us, to show us the paths of straightness, of yosher, of kind of of of what's right. So, the Rambam has three expressions here: that we don't touch the darkness, we're not we don't have to go around, like when some a room is dark and you want to walk around, you have to touch, feel around, we don't have to feel in the dark; we have a candle to straighten out the crookedness; and we have the light to light up the paths. So, the Rebbe says the pshat here that these three expressions are not just three expressions some people think the Rambam at the end of every sefer, he wrote some ideas, mussar ideas with poetic expressions. So, he used poetic expressions that we don't feel around in the dark, and we have a candle to light up our crookedness, and we have the light to show us our paths. He says everything is exact in the Rambam. And that applies to three things that we have, and let me just explain it a few moments. Bichlal it says in Tanya that everything in the world is divided into three categories. We have certain things are kedushah, holy. Certain things are klipah, evil, שלש קליפות הטמאות, they're bad. Things which are holy and good, we have to do. Things which are bad, we're not allowed to do. Then we have a lot of things in the middle, which are קליפת נוגה. They're not good, and they're not bad. They're chol, they're regular. They're not good, and they're not bad. To eat matzah on Pesach is a must, that's kedushah. Piece of חזיר, that's קליפה. Most bread, cake, things, tea, that's all in the middle, that's called קליפת נוגה. And our job is to elevate the things which are neutral in the middle and to elevate them to the level of kedushah, that's what we have to have. Bichlal, in mitzvot we find the same three. We find certain mitzvot are סור מרע, מצות לא תעשה, the negative mitzvah, negative commandments: stay away from bad. That means there are things which are bad, and stay away from them. Then we have מצות, קום ועשה, עשה טוב. סור מרע, stay away from bad; עשה טוב, do good. Do the good things. That's kedushah. And then we have things which, even in the mitzvot, amongst mitzvot, which are mainly made to take secular things and elevate them. For instance, the mitzvah of שחיטה in itself. What's the mitzvah of שחיטה? There's no kedushah in the animal or anything. What it is is that when you take an animal to eat, you shall שחט it, and by שחט'ing it, you are elevating, you're doing something to the animal to make it higher. So, in the מצות גופא we have. But in general in the world, we have these three things. These are the three expressions that the Rambam uses. He says that we have to to not to have to feel around in the dark. Dark represents קליפה, that's dark. Then he says He gave us a candle To straighten out the crookedness, that refers to the middle, the neutral. The neutral, it's not bad, but it's not holy. So it's called crooked that needs to be straightened out. It's קליפת נוגה, needs to be elevated. So he gave us a candle to straighten out the crookedness, and then he gave us light to shine the יושר, that's kedushah, things which are light. אור is kedushah. And it's interesting that he uses in the second part, he uses the example of a candle, and the third, example of light. And we said that the candle represents when you light up the קליפת נוגה to elevate it, and the light is kedushah to begin with. When there's light, when you do a mitzvah, there is אור אין סוף, light of Hashem that shines. Why does he use these two expressions? Because a candle represents fighting the darkness. You light a candle when it's dark. Normally אור, light, means light of the sun. Light of the sun is when there is no, nothing to fight. There's nothing that you have to change. A candle changes a different status, different מצב, a different situation and makes it light. Light doesn't change anything. In using other words, a candle is שלילת החושך, and the light of the sun is העדר החושך. When the light of the sun comes, there is no darkness. When you bring a candle, you're pushing away the darkness. So when it comes to, and bichlal we see that in the candle itself, how does the candle light? By burning up fuel. The candle has to fight something, burn up something in order to give off light. The light of the sun doesn't have to fight anything, doesn't have to overcome something and make light. Why? Because a candle represents when you are involved in things that you have to work on elevating. You have to change them over. You have to fight the קליפת נוגה, and you change it over, and now you make it shine. But the light, the אור of the sun, that represents kedushah, that's to begin with light. It's similar to the pasuk where it says, כי נר מצוה ותורה אור. A mitzvah is like a candle, and Torah is like light. Why? So it says because mitzvot are all connected to גשמיותדיקע things, physical things. And you're changing the physical things to a mitzvah. It's like a candle that changes the darkness into light, a candle which changes the fuel into fire. But Torah doesn't involve, isn't involved in gashmiyut. Torah is a knowledge that we have, a seichel that we have in our head, and we're not involved like mitzvot we take a pair of tefillin, leather, and we change it to kedushah. So there it's so so. But the same idea here, not exactly the same, but we're saying the same three things here. So the Rambam says when it comes to the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם, that's where he refers to it. He says that Hashem saved us from טאפן in darkness, טאפן אין פינצטערניש, from feeling in darkness, which means that there are things which it helps, the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם teaches us in connection to things which are dark, which things which are bad, which are kelipah. Then we have the light ליישר המעקשים to straighten out the crookedness, which is elevating the gashmiyut, and then we have the light which lights this up. So the Rebbe says that these three things refer to the three things that we were talking about before. We're talking about things that you have to cover the blood because it is gashmiyut, and it is possible for it to pull you down. It's connected to choshech. So the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם is to make sure that you don't fall into the trap of choshech. So you have to cover the blood. When it comes to gashmiyut, cover the blood, the koach, the excitement that you have in the gashmiyut, cover it, shouldn't be there. Then we have the light that shines the path, that's kedushah. That's when we shachat a animal which is a korban, there you don't have to cover the blood. That's light. When it's light, then you should have the dam, you should have the koach, you should reveal the blood. And then you have the middle one, the candle that straightens out the darkness, that refers to the middle level where you also don't have to cover, but that's חולין שנעשו על טהרת הקודש, that we're dealing with chulin, secular things, that you elevated already to a level of kedushah, then you don't have to cover it. But the bottom line of everything that we've said and done, just to put it in a nutshell, is very simple. When you ask me what is the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם, what is it supposed to represent? It's not something for the mitzvah of the blood itself, an individual mitzvah, it teaches us a way of life. It teaches us like this, that when it comes to inyanim of kedushah, the blood has to be open. You have to demonstrate your blood, you have to demonstrate your chayut, you have to demonstrate your kochot, your your your your koach and your life and everything that you have. When it comes to things which are not shayachut to korbanot, which are not kedushah, כיסוי הדם, the mitzvah is to cover the blood and it has to be covered be'afar with bitul, that you have to have the bitul and not to get shlept into the idea of getting involved. involved in gashmiyut. And the truth is, getting involved in gashmiyut, it says, a mashal is like quicksand. If you start giving in and getting involved, it schleps you more and more and more. You get addicted to it, and it has a כח המושך. It pulls, there's a gravity there that pulls it, and you get involved more and more. So you got to, to begin with, stay away from it. In kedushah, yes, it'll get pull you more and more, but that's okay. It'll pull you more and more to kedushah. So there you davka have to demonstrate the דם. But when it comes to ענינים of עולם, there we shouldn't demonstrate the דם. There's a mitzvah of כיסוי הדם בעפר. And this is the kavanah that we're supposed to have when we do the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם בעפר. If we can't do it bagashmiyut too often, but beruchniyut we could do it constantly, every day, every time we sit down to eat, we have to remember we are fulfilling now the mitzvah of כיסוי הדם. We have to cover up the koach that we have. We sit down to eat matzah, we have to be fulfilled the other part of כיסוי הדם, that we don't cover the דם, but we're going to do the mitzvah with a koach, and we're going to eat the matzah with a geshmak. And even על פי הלכה it says that on Erev Pesach we can't eat matzah, the reason is, so when you come to the matzah, you should enjoy the matzah. Enjoy the matzah? Yes, because it's a mitzvah, when you eat in the sukkah or any other mitzvah that we do. And if we enjoy the mitzvot and don't demonstrate our enjoyment when it comes to the gashmiyut, from the gashmiyut part of it, but for the kedushah of it we do, then Hashem gives us the gashmiyus because He sees that we're doing it in the proper way. Yes. But that's more kodesh. It's a mitzvah. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Actually, what we usually do, cover with sawdust. It says anything that's dust, anything that's... Has... No, you can't, right, you can't a cloth and you can't have a piece of, even of of sand, but a thick, a piece of of hardened, גוש, hardened, you can't, you have to, has to be dust, has to be... It says you could even cover it with gold dust. Gold dust is also called עפר. עפרי זהב, that you could do. But it has to be dust, such as ashes are good, sawdust is good, but it has to be something like that that sprinkles, that that... But you could, but you have to break it up. But if it's a piece, a hard piece... Hardened, you can't, like you can't use. Has to be powdered. Yes. You think of kaparos, yes. No, but that's not a korban, it's just a remez, it's just a hint. It's not, chas v'shalom to say it's a korban, because if it would be a korban, it's asur! It's kodashim bachutz to call it. A korban outside of the Beis HaMikdash is forbidden. So it says we should not at all have in mind that this is a korban. It says that some people used to have a minhag by kaparos, that they used to put their hands on it, semichah, like they used to do by korbanot, and it says don't do it. Why? Because it looks like a korban. It's just a remez, we're showing Hashem that we hope Hashem will, asking Hashem to take away our sins and put it on the chicken and let it die, but it's not, not this is a korban to Hashem. It says that you should give the chicken away to poor people, so the mitzvah of tzedakah will help you be a kaparah, and it's all remazim. On Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, this time of the year, we do so many things which are remez, like on Rosh Hashanah at night we eat we eat tzimmes, meren, because it's supposed to be a remez of something. Same thing here, it's a remez, it reminds us of like like a korban, but chas v'shalom it's not a korban. A korban, so it's not kedushah, it's, it's a remez, it's a minhag. And so we do כיסוי הדם. Yes. Yes. Sometimes people could make a mistake and think that a convert is not, that's why many, many pesukim it says that. Some people think that converts are second-class citizens, and therefore certain mitzvot don't apply to them and it's only for... So the pasuk keeps on saying, reiterates again, and the convert, and the convert, and the convert, so that we should know that they're all the same. It's for the opposite, it's for the opposite. Because because there are some people who would look down on them, so the pasuk says don't look down, they have the exact same din, they're exact, and everything is the same.