Passivity in the Torah (the word is cheress) refers to a person who gives up taking the initiative, instead preferring to wait and see what happens next. So, for example, Avraham’s servant goes to find out if Rebecca is the right woman for Isaac.
And the man wondering at her held his peace (cheress), to know whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not.
The servant is waiting and seeing.
Similarly, as Jacob grows older, he passes the torch, whether on purpose or not, to his sons, when his daughter, Dina is raped. Instead of acting, Jacob chooses the same path: cheress.
And Ya῾aqov heard that he had defiled Dina his daughter: now his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Ya῾aqov held his peace (cheress) until they were come.
This is the turning point of Jacob’s life. Before this, he was a man of action and initiative. But after this event, Jacob is only reactive – he is not the protagonist in the stories of Joseph or Judah or the brothers.
This word is used, throughout the text, to suggest the passive would-be actor, buffeted by the forces around him. For example, the word is also used for “ploughing” or “engraving,” reflecting the inherently concave nature of cheress.
The problem, as the text tells us, is that once a person chooses passivity, cheress, then they are rendered permanently altered by events. A woman who is suspected by her husband of infidelity undergoes a ritual that involves a cheress pot – her actions (and the ritual itself) have permanently changed her. So, too, the ritual of a metzora, someone who has been spiritually blocked, include a cheress bowl for the same reason: we must understand that certain events leave an indelible impression on us. We can find a way to move forward, but the past remains irrevocably stained.
The permanent quality of the absorptive material or person explains why vessels that are cheress and then touch something that blocks spiritual elevation must be destroyed. e.g. And the vessel of cheress, that he who has the issue touches, shall be broken. The Torah is teaching us that there are enduring consequences for choosing to be the nail instead of the hammer.