Parshas Mattos
The Torah tells us in this week’s Parsha that Pinchas lead the war against Midyan. The Ramban explains, this is because since Pinchas started this whole thing with killing Zimri and Kozbi (last week) he should have the honors to finish the job. In this week’s Parsha the B’nai Yisroel are faced with a dilemma. After defeating the Midyanim in the previous battle the B’nai Yisroel took the spoils and riches. Moshe informed them that they were not permitted to cook in those pots and pans they took until they Kasher (make kosher) them. To do this they would take those cooking utensils and immerse them in a Mikveh. This was necessary because the Midyanim cooked non-kosher foods in those pots consequently making them unfit for the Jewish people to cook and eat out of them. Nowadays, we also required to Toivel (dip) our new dishes. What we do is go to the public dish mikveh and immerse our new dishes seven times while reciting a B’racha (blessing). A mikveh is an area with a certain amount