Weighted Down

Rashi says three interpretations in word קרך in parshas Zachor.  One peshat is מקרה, another is קרי וטומאה and the third is קור.  What is the connection between the fact the Amalek caused tumah and cooled off the greatness of Klal Yisrael?  The very fact that there is a coolness is a tumah.  When there is a lack of fire, of inspiration, it automatically leads to sin. 

Rabbenu Bechai asks why did Moshe break the luchos after the agel why did he not  give them back?  He explains that the "neshama" of the luchos, the letters flew up to the heavens by themselves and all that was left in Moshe's hands was the physical stones of the luchos.  Once the life force of the luchos left, they were no longer a "חי נושא את עצמו" and they naturally became a dead weight that was to hard to carry and slipped from his hands.  The Bechai concludes this is a principle found by all things when the life force, the fire, is removed, then it or a person becomes heavier. In other words, a lack of fire, a coolness, leads to heaviness which equates with death.  

The taharah of Parah comes to cleanse one's self from the sins brought about by Amalek.  The power of Amelek is he coolness, the dead weight, the breaking of the luchos.  The tikkun says the Sfas Emes (Parah 5634) is the fire necessary for the learning of Torah.  The fire, the energy, gives a person new life.  וע"י ההבל מהתורה שבלב כל איש ישראל שצריך עי"ז ההתלהבות לשרוף כח היצה"ר שבו כמ"ש בית יעקב אש כו' עשו לקש וע"י השריפה ניתן הטהרה.  One who becomes tumah through a dead body, one who becomes defiled by sin and becomes weighed down by sin, needs the taharah of the חוקת התורה, to give him new life. 

The Mikdash is called בית חיינו.  In a sicha, Rav Yaakov Shapira notes that we find the term בית חייהם associated both with Torah and tefillah.  Both of these aspects are present in the Mikdash.  As cited here from Rav Yaakov Katz, the essence of the Mishkan is to remind a person that the learning of Torah is a means of connection to Hashem.  As the Ramban says the Mishkan is a portable Matan Torah.  It is through the Mishkan that one can be come inspired to learn Torah as Tosfos Bava Bathra (21a) says.  The Mishkan is the antidote to the the sense of deadness brought about by sin and gives a person a new chiyus.  Hence it is called בית חיינו.