Shmini (Parah) - "Holy Chok, Batman!"

Most of Comic Book superheroes - created by Jews
1) Superman - Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster:
18th April 1938 in Action Comics #1 (sold rights to DC for $130 - $2,225 today)
2) "The" Batman - Bob Kane (nee Kahn) and Bill (nee Milton) Finger:
DC # 37 March 1939 (dated May)
3) Spider-Man: Stan Lee (nee Liber) [and Steve Ditko non Jewish]
Amazing Fantasy #15 August 1962

Backstories:
1) Superman
Perhaps the most important link to a Hebrew superhero is Superman’s identity as a partially assimilated immigrant. The 1930s New York that produced the world’s first modern superheroes was awash in recent Jewish refugees fleeing the pogroms of 19th century Europe.
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were the children of those immigrants.

• Inspirations for Superman - leaving Krypton for a new world - echoes of Moses, sent in a basket to be saved
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• The Golem - the S looks like a Lamed!
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• The outsider hiding his identity - Clark Kent

2) Batman

• Sees his parents being murdered...this comes in the wake of Kristallnacht
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• He is tormented soul - like Jews in the 1930s
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• He has another secret identity - the outsider - Bruce Wayne

3) Spider-Man

• Spider-Man is considered to be the character most likely to be Lee’s alter ego.
• Peter Parker is (one more time) a nebbishy, scrawny, bespectacled, brainy Jewish/immigrant stereotype.
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• He is a “good, smart boy” living with his aunt and uncle in Forest Hills, Queens, a neighborhood that had and still has one of the largest Jewish communities in New York.
  
• His classmates despise him. The reason for this dislike is never articulated. It seems to come out of nowhere — unless you read Peter as Jewish, or as an immigrant outsider. Then suddenly, the classmates unmotivated animosity resolves into prejudice.
  

Rabbi Hertz (Hertz Chumash p.674
"Israel has always been a people apart, a people isolated and distinguished from other peoples by its religious and moral laws....."

Two Categories of laws - Mishpatim and Chukim
1) The mishpatim are mitzvot such:

• The commandment to give charity
• or the prohibitions against theft and murder - whose reason and utility are obvious to us, and which we would arguably have instituted on our own if G‑d had not commanded them.

2) The chukkim - (statutes - Divine Decrees) are those mitzvot, include:

• the dietary laws - kashrut
• the laws of family purity
• Shatnez - mixing wool and linen
• The Red Heifer - despite their incomprehensibility and — in the most extreme of chukkim — their irrationality.

A third category, the eidot ("testimonials"), occupies the middle ground between the chok and mishpat
A testimonial is a mitzvah which commemorates or represents something —

• e.g., the commandments to put on tefillin,
• rest on Shabbat,
• or eat matzah on Passover. These are laws which we would not have devised on our own, certainly not in the exact manner in which the Torah commands; nevertheless, they are rational acts.

This week's parsha contains two chukkim/statutes that separate us from the Gentile nations - the laws of Kashrut and the Red Heifer (Parshat Parah)
Why are we given the laws of Kashrut?
What is the section about the Red Heifer about?
Sprinkling the ashes on a person who is tamei
Fact: Most of the people involved in preparing the ashes become tamei, but the one who sprinkles the water with the ashes does not (https://www.ou.org/torah/machshava/tzarich-iyun/tzarich_iyun_the_parah_adumah/)

Could it be that the chukim are designed to keep us apart from the other Nations? That we need to be the outsiders, to fulfil our role as "a light to the Nations"?
We may not understand why we keep certain laws, like Kashrut, but they ensure that our communities can continue to thrive throughout the world
Maybe, the Jewish Superheroes make more sense and achieve more, because they are different and distinct? Surely, it can't be a coincidence that they are valued so highly, specifically because they will always be seen as the "outsiders", living by their own rules, yet dedicating themselves contributing at the highest level to Society?
Isn't that the Jewish story in a nutshell?

Conclusion
Billions of $ and £ have been made through the Marvel Universe and DC Comic movies - Superman, Batman and Spider-Man are more popular than ever - the creations of the children of Jewish immigrants - the outsiders whom people can relate to.
This week's parsha, gives us a glimpse of what makes us outsiders - the Chok of Kashrut - food - which impacts on the lives of millions of Jewish people around the world. We may not understand why we keep these laws (particularly the Red Heifer!) but in doing so, perhaps we are delivering a message - sometimes, it's the outsiders who have the greatest impact on the wider world.
Shabbat Shalom.