פרשת חוקת תש"כ - פרה אדומה

'זאת חקת התורה אשר צוה ה, when the Torah in Nuimbers 8,7 had spoken of the need to sprinkle the waters of “chatat” on the Levites in order to purify them before they would begin their function newly assigned to them, our sages (Yuma 16) had already referred to the procedure as a chukkah, a statute, adding that these kinds of statute must not be questioned and probed as they are in the nature of a decree issued by G’d. The wise King Solomon, when mentioning that he had striven to unravel the wisdom in this legislation admitted that he had failed, that it was beyond him. (Kohelet 7,23). The thing which is most baffling in the red heifer legislation is that most who is ritually pure becomes ritually contaminated by direct contact with it, although the whole purpose of the red heifer, its ash, etc., is to purify the people who had been ritually contaminated prior to being sprinkled with spring water containing its ashes.
However, when we examine the entire commandment in detail we find that some of the people concerned with that red heifer from the moment it has been burned after having been slaughtered become ritually contaminated, i.e. the person burning its carcass, the person collecting its ashes, as well as the ones throwing the cedar wood as well as the one using the hyssop and crimson thread. into its burnt ashes. The same applies to all those either touching the remains or carrying them.
By contrast, the person performing the sprinkling with the mixture of the ash and water as well as the one sanctifying the location where the red heifer is to be burned and the one lighting the fire prior to burning the slaughtered red heifer are not contaminated by their activities.
One of the principal conditions concerning the red heifer is the requirement that it must not even have 2 hairs that are white or black. The symbolism of the colour red is supplied by the prophet Isaiah 1,18 who writes that even if your sins are as red as certain type or wool dyed red they can become white as snow under certain conditions of remorse.
Our sages considered this line so important that they used to tie a red string to the entrance of the Sanctuary when the scapegoat was thrown down on the Day of Atonement. This string would turn white as proof that the people’s sins had been forgiven. When this happened the people would rejoice for the remainder of that day, whereas when it failed to turn white they would be greatly saddened. (Yuma 67)
We must remember that seeing that in the words of Solomon (Proverbs 30,5) אמרת ה' צרופה, “everything G’d has said is absolutely pure, refined,” He has no doubt kept in mind that all extremes are looked upon with disfavour so that His legislation must represent what Maimonides called the “golden mean.” Solomon himself described any perversion as something deserving total failure. (compare Proverbs 28,18).
Furthermore, we must remember that when attempting to rectify something that has become bent out of shape by merely bending it in the opposite direction partially this will not restore it to its previous condition, but that it must be reversed completely in order to eventually be straight again. This is a principle applied by physicians in healing physical ailments, a principle described in Proverbs 20,30 as חבורות פצע תמריק ברע, “you must eradicate wounds and injuries by using (what appear to be) harmful remedies.” In other words, although the application of such remedies appears to run counter to the goal of preserving the golden mean, in such situations anything less drastic would never rectify the harm that had been caused by the injury. If similar means were to be applied to a completely healthy person they would, of course, be harmful instead of helpful.
A fifth consideration when contemplating the legislation in front of us is that the ash of the red heifer is effective in the context of ritual impurity only when the ritual impurity was caused by direct or indirect contact with a dead person’s body. Any other kind of ritual contamination, such as blood of menstruation, dead creeping things, and a number of other causes of such ritual defilements are not affected at all by the treatment here described.
We know that Torah by definition is designed to improve the quality of life of the people observing its laws. The Torah spells this out in Deuteronomy 32,47 by writing: כי היא חייכם, “for it is your very life.” Anyone deviating from the laws of the Torah either is on the way to spiritual and physical death or is already at the point where, although he is walking around he is legally considered as dead. This is what the sages meant when they said that “the wicked are considered as dead although to all intents and purposes masquerading as alive.” (B’rachot 18).
A sixth consideration we must bear in mind in connection with this statute is that our sages consider the cedar wood as a symbol of haughtiness, arrogance, whereas they consider the hyssop herb as a symbol of humility (Erchin 16). When the two are paired with the red wool known as תולעת שני, each alludes to something sinful. [the subject in the Talmud there is that a Torah scholar, though he needs to practice humility, nevertheless must maintain a certain amount of dignity so that people dealing with him do not get the impression that he is merely a “wimp,” a feeble ineffective personality. [Compare Sotah 5, discussing a saying by Rabbi Hunna son of Rabbi Joshua and the M’iri on that saying. Ed.] Excessive humility in a person charged with leadership is as counterproductive as arrogance in an individual who has not been called upon to serve as a model to anyone.
Our sages quote as an example of excessive humility by a person in public life the humility of Israel’s first King, King Sha-ul, who was punished by G’d for not displaying authority when it needed to be displayed and allowed the common people to get away with making insulting remarks about him without disciplining them. (compare Yuma 22, reference to Samuel I 10,27- 11,13). Even later on in his reign when he excused himself for not having killed the best livestock of the Amalekites, Sha-ul cited his “fear” of the people a the reason why he did not protest the people’s taking these as loot, something which had been forbidden (Samuel I 15,17). The prophet upraided him for behaving with his customary humility in public life, in the discharge of his duties as King.
Having said all this we come to the conclusion that although the whole red heifer legislation is a statute, a decree by G’d which must not be questioned, and we must not, G’d forbid, arrogate to ourselves to judge this legislation as suitable or not, seeing that everything G’d has said is pure and refined, it does teach some exceptionally valuable lessons even when looked at superficially as we have done. Although people like Moses and others on a high level of wisdom may have had an insight into the deeper meaning of this statute, we must learn what we can from what meets the eye.
An important lesson of value to every penitent for every sin committed appears to be the one that in trying to rectify one’s error, one must not content oneself to bend the “bent iron” back with the same amount of force it took to bend it out of shape in the first place, but one must strive to bend it beyond that so that in the future the likelihood of committing the same sin again will be reduced. {We encounter many בעלי תשובה in our daily lives who appear to relate to certain commandments with what appears to be exaggerated stringency. No doubt they have taken to heart what our author just explained about how to straighten out what has been bent out of shape. Ed.]
The red heifer legislation and its details appears among other objectives to indicate a path for the penitents how to make their repentance effective and lasting. The principal element is a complete reversal of the path in life which led him to commit the sins he became guilty of in the first place.
One of the lessons we learn from the details of this legislation is that whereas the method described in our portion is effective for the sinner who wishes to cleanse himself of his sins, i.e. to address himself to his problem by using extreme measures, such extremism when used by anyone other than a repentant sinner would have the opposite effect, i.e. it would make out the previously unblemished, pure, ritually clean person the very reverse, would contaminate him with ritual impurity (a euphemism for his sins.) The sinner is permitted, nay encouraged, commanded to use extreme measures in order to eventually achieve the balance represented by Maimonides’ ideal, the golden mean.
The Talmud Taanit, 11 in describing the procedure of the Nazir terminating his vow (Numbers 6,11) questions the line וכפר עליו מאשד חטא על הנפש, “he will thereby atone for the sin against his soul,” wanting to know what sin such a Nazir could possibly have been guilty of? The answer given is that during the period of his abstinence from wine the Nazir experienced great distress over having to abstain from wine etc. It is reasoned that if the Torah describes a person who causes himself unnecessary distress in one small area of life as a sinner, how much more so will it consider a person who abstains from all food and drink a sinner? [the paragraph commenced with the sage Sh’muel describing people who voluntarily practice fasts as sinners. Ed.]
Consider the fact that the instrument the Torah provides for ritually cleansing the person who had become defiled through contact with a deceased person as a mixture of spring water and ash from the red heifer. This mixture is composed of two extremes, i.e. residues of pure water and fire. Merging these two extremes appears (symbolically) is an excellent way of regaining the path known as the golden mean. Using this combination teaches us that this golden mean is what G’d considers as טהרה, ritual purity, as spelled out in the Torah’s description of the function of the Day of Atonement, מכל חטאתיכם לפני ה' תטהרו “you will become purified from all your sins before (against) the Lord,” (Leviticus 16,30).
We have to contemplate the fact that the Torah decrees that a person who has been defiled by contact with a dead person must not touch the Tabernacle of the Lord, (verse 13) and that he must not enter the airspace of the Tabernacle on pain of contaminating it, (verse 20). I believe the hidden meaning of this regulation is that anyone who has been in too close contact with the vanities of the terrestrial universe (to use the phraseology employed by Solomon in Kohelet again and again) automatically will confer some of the pollution represented by these vanities to sacred things he comes into contact with. He will therefore taint the צלם אלוקים, the Divine image in which he has been created. As a result, he must repair, remove such a taint in order to regain his former stature as an אדם.
Contact with the dead, results in an awareness of the transience of the lives of all of us, makes us aware of the negative aspects of our lives in this world; this is bound to leave a mark on our personality, one that may even border on considering life on earth as an exercise in futility, as indicated by Solomon when he speaks of such matters in Kohelet. The “world” Kohelet describes, i.e.תחת השמש, as if it exists only beneath the sun, a material world only, would indeed lead its inhabitants to such conclusions.
We who believe in a world מעבר לשמש, beyond that serviced by the sun, fortunately have something better to look forward to if we prepare ourselves for this. [I have added remarks of my own to the words of the author but I am certain that these remarks reflect his message. Ed.]
When the Torah speaks of וכל הבא אל האהל, “anyone entering the tent wherein the deceased is kept,” this may be understood allegorically as anyone coming under the influence of the הבלי העולם, the vanities of this terrestrial world, the ultimate uselessness of an existence premised on this being all there is to life.
Our chapter, when read as a simile, reminds the reader of what the task of an עם קדוש, a “holy nation” is, that it cannot be combined with the pursuit of merely secularly oriented pursuits, they are literally a “dead alley.” The expression משכן ה' in verse 13 would be the human body, whereas the expression מקדש ה' would refer to our soul. The author, following the view that gentile corpses do not confer ritual impurity when merely in the same airspace with a Jew, understands this halachah as reflecting the fact that only the body, the physical raw material is called upon to perform the commandments.
Seeing that even being in the same airspace as a dead person confers ritual impurity, it is not difficult to understand that people who engage in sprinkling the waters of the red cow and its ash on a person so contaminated, will in turn be affected by such contact with him, and will themselves absorb a degree of impurity, though much less severe, one that can be cleansed by immersion on a ritual bath the same evening.
People engaged in indirect procedures preparing the מי נדה will not become ritually impure as they were not in contact with the party to be purified at all. We see that there are many aspects of this commandment which yield valuable lessons for us the readers even if we do not penetrate to the innermost meaning of the legislation.

'זאת חקת התורה אשר צוה ה, when the Torah in Nuimbers 8,7 had spoken of the need to sprinkle the waters of “chatat” on the Levites in order to purify them before they would begin their function newly assigned to them, our sages (Yuma 16) had already referred to the procedure as a chukkah, a statute, adding that these kinds of statute must not be questioned and probed as they are in the nature of a decree issued by G’d. The wise King Solomon, when mentioning that he had striven to unravel the wisdom in this legislation admitted that he had failed, that it was beyond him. (Kohelet 7,23). The thing which is most baffling in the red heifer legislation is that most who is ritually pure becomes ritually contaminated by direct contact with it, although the whole purpose of the red heifer, its ash, etc., is to purify the people who had been ritually contaminated prior to being sprinkled with spring water containing its ashes.
However, when we examine the entire commandment in detail we find that some of the people concerned with that red heifer from the moment it has been burned after having been slaughtered become ritually contaminated, i.e. the person burning its carcass, the person collecting its ashes, as well as the ones throwing the cedar wood as well as the one using the hyssop and crimson thread. into its burnt ashes. The same applies to all those either touching the remains or carrying them.
By contrast, the person performing the sprinkling with the mixture of the ash and water as well as the one sanctifying the location where the red heifer is to be burned and the one lighting the fire prior to burning the slaughtered red heifer are not contaminated by their activities.
One of the principal conditions concerning the red heifer is the requirement that it must not even have 2 hairs that are white or black. The symbolism of the colour red is supplied by the prophet Isaiah 1,18 who writes that even if your sins are as red as certain type or wool dyed red they can become white as snow under certain conditions of remorse.
Our sages considered this line so important that they used to tie a red string to the entrance of the Sanctuary when the scapegoat was thrown down on the Day of Atonement. This string would turn white as proof that the people’s sins had been forgiven. When this happened the people would rejoice for the remainder of that day, whereas when it failed to turn white they would be greatly saddened. (Yuma 67)
We must remember that seeing that in the words of Solomon (Proverbs 30,5) אמרת ה' צרופה, “everything G’d has said is absolutely pure, refined,” He has no doubt kept in mind that all extremes are looked upon with disfavour so that His legislation must represent what Maimonides called the “golden mean.” Solomon himself described any perversion as something deserving total failure. (compare Proverbs 28,18).
Furthermore, we must remember that when attempting to rectify something that has become bent out of shape by merely bending it in the opposite direction partially this will not restore it to its previous condition, but that it must be reversed completely in order to eventually be straight again. This is a principle applied by physicians in healing physical ailments, a principle described in Proverbs 20,30 as חבורות פצע תמריק ברע, “you must eradicate wounds and injuries by using (what appear to be) harmful remedies.” In other words, although the application of such remedies appears to run counter to the goal of preserving the golden mean, in such situations anything less drastic would never rectify the harm that had been caused by the injury. If similar means were to be applied to a completely healthy person they would, of course, be harmful instead of helpful.
A fifth consideration when contemplating the legislation in front of us is that the ash of the red heifer is effective in the context of ritual impurity only when the ritual impurity was caused by direct or indirect contact with a dead person’s body. Any other kind of ritual contamination, such as blood of menstruation, dead creeping things, and a number of other causes of such ritual defilements are not affected at all by the treatment here described.
We know that Torah by definition is designed to improve the quality of life of the people observing its laws. The Torah spells this out in Deuteronomy 32,47 by writing: כי היא חייכם, “for it is your very life.” Anyone deviating from the laws of the Torah either is on the way to spiritual and physical death or is already at the point where, although he is walking around he is legally considered as dead. This is what the sages meant when they said that “the wicked are considered as dead although to all intents and purposes masquerading as alive.” (B’rachot 18).
A sixth consideration we must bear in mind in connection with this statute is that our sages consider the cedar wood as a symbol of haughtiness, arrogance, whereas they consider the hyssop herb as a symbol of humility (Erchin 16). When the two are paired with the red wool known as תולעת שני, each alludes to something sinful. [the subject in the Talmud there is that a Torah scholar, though he needs to practice humility, nevertheless must maintain a certain amount of dignity so that people dealing with him do not get the impression that he is merely a “wimp,” a feeble ineffective personality. [Compare Sotah 5, discussing a saying by Rabbi Hunna son of Rabbi Joshua and the M’iri on that saying. Ed.] Excessive humility in a person charged with leadership is as counterproductive as arrogance in an individual who has not been called upon to serve as a model to anyone.
Our sages quote as an example of excessive humility by a person in public life the humility of Israel’s first King, King Sha-ul, who was punished by G’d for not displaying authority when it needed to be displayed and allowed the common people to get away with making insulting remarks about him without disciplining them. (compare Yuma 22, reference to Samuel I 10,27- 11,13). Even later on in his reign when he excused himself for not having killed the best livestock of the Amalekites, Sha-ul cited his “fear” of the people a the reason why he did not protest the people’s taking these as loot, something which had been forbidden (Samuel I 15,17). The prophet upraided him for behaving with his customary humility in public life, in the discharge of his duties as King.
Having said all this we come to the conclusion that although the whole red heifer legislation is a statute, a decree by G’d which must not be questioned, and we must not, G’d forbid, arrogate to ourselves to judge this legislation as suitable or not, seeing that everything G’d has said is pure and refined, it does teach some exceptionally valuable lessons even when looked at superficially as we have done. Although people like Moses and others on a high level of wisdom may have had an insight into the deeper meaning of this statute, we must learn what we can from what meets the eye.
An important lesson of value to every penitent for every sin committed appears to be the one that in trying to rectify one’s error, one must not content oneself to bend the “bent iron” back with the same amount of force it took to bend it out of shape in the first place, but one must strive to bend it beyond that so that in the future the likelihood of committing the same sin again will be reduced. {We encounter many בעלי תשובה in our daily lives who appear to relate to certain commandments with what appears to be exaggerated stringency. No doubt they have taken to heart what our author just explained about how to straighten out what has been bent out of shape. Ed.]
The red heifer legislation and its details appears among other objectives to indicate a path for the penitents how to make their repentance effective and lasting. The principal element is a complete reversal of the path in life which led him to commit the sins he became guilty of in the first place.
One of the lessons we learn from the details of this legislation is that whereas the method described in our portion is effective for the sinner who wishes to cleanse himself of his sins, i.e. to address himself to his problem by using extreme measures, such extremism when used by anyone other than a repentant sinner would have the opposite effect, i.e. it would make out the previously unblemished, pure, ritually clean person the very reverse, would contaminate him with ritual impurity (a euphemism for his sins.) The sinner is permitted, nay encouraged, commanded to use extreme measures in order to eventually achieve the balance represented by Maimonides’ ideal, the golden mean.
The Talmud Taanit, 11 in describing the procedure of the Nazir terminating his vow (Numbers 6,11) questions the line וכפר עליו מאשד חטא על הנפש, “he will thereby atone for the sin against his soul,” wanting to know what sin such a Nazir could possibly have been guilty of? The answer given is that during the period of his abstinence from wine the Nazir experienced great distress over having to abstain from wine etc. It is reasoned that if the Torah describes a person who causes himself unnecessary distress in one small area of life as a sinner, how much more so will it consider a person who abstains from all food and drink a sinner? [the paragraph commenced with the sage Sh’muel describing people who voluntarily practice fasts as sinners. Ed.]
Consider the fact that the instrument the Torah provides for ritually cleansing the person who had become defiled through contact with a deceased person as a mixture of spring water and ash from the red heifer. This mixture is composed of two extremes, i.e. residues of pure water and fire. Merging these two extremes appears (symbolically) is an excellent way of regaining the path known as the golden mean. Using this combination teaches us that this golden mean is what G’d considers as טהרה, ritual purity, as spelled out in the Torah’s description of the function of the Day of Atonement, מכל חטאתיכם לפני ה' תטהרו “you will become purified from all your sins before (against) the Lord,” (Leviticus 16,30).
We have to contemplate the fact that the Torah decrees that a person who has been defiled by contact with a dead person must not touch the Tabernacle of the Lord, (verse 13) and that he must not enter the airspace of the Tabernacle on pain of contaminating it, (verse 20). I believe the hidden meaning of this regulation is that anyone who has been in too close contact with the vanities of the terrestrial universe (to use the phraseology employed by Solomon in Kohelet again and again) automatically will confer some of the pollution represented by these vanities to sacred things he comes into contact with. He will therefore taint the צלם אלוקים, the Divine image in which he has been created. As a result, he must repair, remove such a taint in order to regain his former stature as an אדם.
Contact with the dead, results in an awareness of the transience of the lives of all of us, makes us aware of the negative aspects of our lives in this world; this is bound to leave a mark on our personality, one that may even border on considering life on earth as an exercise in futility, as indicated by Solomon when he speaks of such matters in Kohelet. The “world” Kohelet describes, i.e.תחת השמש, as if it exists only beneath the sun, a material world only, would indeed lead its inhabitants to such conclusions.
We who believe in a world מעבר לשמש, beyond that serviced by the sun, fortunately have something better to look forward to if we prepare ourselves for this. [I have added remarks of my own to the words of the author but I am certain that these remarks reflect his message. Ed.]
When the Torah speaks of וכל הבא אל האהל, “anyone entering the tent wherein the deceased is kept,” this may be understood allegorically as anyone coming under the influence of the הבלי העולם, the vanities of this terrestrial world, the ultimate uselessness of an existence premised on this being all there is to life.
Our chapter, when read as a simile, reminds the reader of what the task of an עם קדוש, a “holy nation” is, that it cannot be combined with the pursuit of merely secularly oriented pursuits, they are literally a “dead alley.” The expression משכן ה' in verse 13 would be the human body, whereas the expression מקדש ה' would refer to our soul. The author, following the view that gentile corpses do not confer ritual impurity when merely in the same airspace with a Jew, understands this halachah as reflecting the fact that only the body, the physical raw material is called upon to perform the commandments.
Seeing that even being in the same airspace as a dead person confers ritual impurity, it is not difficult to understand that people who engage in sprinkling the waters of the red cow and its ash on a person so contaminated, will in turn be affected by such contact with him, and will themselves absorb a degree of impurity, though much less severe, one that can be cleansed by immersion on a ritual bath the same evening.
People engaged in indirect procedures preparing the מי נדה will not become ritually impure as they were not in contact with the party to be purified at all. We see that there are many aspects of this commandment which yield valuable lessons for us the readers even if we do not penetrate to the innermost meaning of the legislation.

וזאת חקת התורה THIS IS THE ORDINANCE OF THE LAW — Because Satan and the nations of the world taunt Israel, saying, “What is this command and what reason is there for it”, on this account it (Scripture) writes (uses) the term חקה about it, implying: It is an enactment from before Me; you have no right to criticize it (Yoma 67b; cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Chukat 7).