This is why King Solomon said (Eccle-siastes 7:20), ¨DThere is no righteous person in the world who can do good and do no wrong.¡¬ The Alter of Kelm used to remark that it is possible to find someone who can do no wrong; all one has to do is lock oneself in a closet and this guarantees that he or she will do no wrong. What is im-possible, however, is for a person to ¨Ddo good¡¬ in the world and to never do wrong in the process.
Our goal is therefore to not only subdue our speech by killing the bird, but to also take a living bird, a bird which represents our future speech, and send it out ¨Dupon the field.¡¬ This field is the one about which Solomon said (Song of Songs 7:12), ¨DCome, my beloved, let’s go out to the field.¡¬ The Talmud (T.B. Eruvin 21b) comments that ¨Dgoing out to the field¡¬ refers to the Torah scholars, who forsake the
prosaic activities of the city slickers, the business wheelers and dealers, and in-stead remove themselves from the daily grind to study Torah.
This is also the reason why, before set-ting the live bird free, one must dip it in the blood of the slaughtered bird (v. 6). This demonstrates that as one proceeds with one’s future speech, one does so with caution, always remembering the errors of one’s past, which are represented by the blood of the slaughtered bird.
By connecting the two birds – the live one with the dead one – we are also acknowl-edging that the mouth is a powerful double-edged sword. Rabbi Shimon b. Yochai once stated (Yerushalmi Berachot 1:2): ¨DHad I been at Mt. Sinai, I would have demanded that G-d make man with two mouths – one for speaking Torah and the other for his prosaic needs.¡¬ Rabbi Shimon later recanted his words, realizing that it is impossible to bifurcate one’s life between the holy and the mundane. One must train oneself to use those very same faculties for both holiness and mundanity, so that even during the most common conversations of one’s life, one is reminded of the holiness of every second of life.
May we merit to fill our mundane lives with holiness, and make the holy compo-nents of our lives part of our mundane living.
