The Red Heifer: Do Chukkim have meaning?

This is the ritual law [chok, decree] that the LORD has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid.

...A heathen asked Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai: "These things that you do look like a kind of sorcery. You bring a cow and slaughter it and burn it and grind it and take its ashes and one of you becomes impure by contact with a corpse and you sprinkle two or three drops on him and say to him, 'you are purified.'

...

[Rabban Yochanan] said to his students: By your lives, a corpse does not make impure and water does not purify. Rather, this is the decree of the Holy One, Blessed be He. Said the Holy One, blessed be He, "I have set it down as a statute (chok), I have made it a decree, and you are not at liberty to transgress My decree." "This is the statute of the Torah" (Numbers 19:2)

The commandment of the red heifer: That Israel was commanded to burn the red heifer so that its ashes will be ready for anyone who needs it to be purified from the impurity of the dead, as it is stated (Numbers 19:2), "Speak to the Children of Israel and they shall take to you a red heifer," and it is written below this (Numbers 19:9), "It will be a safeguard for the Children of Israel."

Even though my heart has given me the gumption to write hints of the simple reasons for the previous commandments, with the excuse that [this] work is to instruct my son and his young friends, may God protect them; on this commandment my hands are weak and I am afraid to open my mouth about it at all, since I have seen that our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, spoke at length regarding the depth of its secret and greatness of its content; to the point that they said (Bemidbar Rabbah 19, Midrash Tanchuma 4:6:6) that King Solomon was able through his great wisdom to understand all the reasons of the Torah, except for this - as he stated about it (Ecclesiastes 7:23), "I have said that I will understand, but it is far from me." They also said in the Midrash Tanchuma 4:6:8, "Rabbi Yose BeRebbi Chanina says, 'The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moshe, "To you I will reveal the reason for the red heifer, but not to others."'

And there are many other similar statements. And now, the listener should not think that the matter of its secret and the matter of its being an arational commandment (chok) is that the ashes affect purification, as one will find a similar [process] with other sacrifices for the person with a discharge or a new mother, whose purification is completed by the offering of their sacrifices.

It is appropriate for a person to meditate on the judgments of the holy Torah and know their ultimate purpose according to his capacity. If he cannot find a reason or a motivating rationale for a practice, he should not regard it lightly. Nor should he break through to ascend to God, lest God burst forth against him. One's thoughts concerning them should not be like his thoughts concerning other ordinary matters.

See how severe the Torah rules concerning misappropriating sacred property. Now if wood, stones, earth, and ash become holy because the name of the Lord of the world was called upon them through speech alone and anyone who treats them as ordinary articles violates the prohibition against me'ilah and even if he acted unknowingly, he is required to secure atonement, how much more so with regard to the mitzvot which God ordained for us should a person not treat them derisively, because he does not understand their rationale.

He should not conjure up matters that are not true concerning God, nor should he think about them with his mind as he would ordinary matters. For Leviticus 19:37 states: "And you shall guard all My decrees and all My judgments and perform them." Our Sages commented:This adjures us to guard and perform both the decrees and the judgments. The meaning of "performing" is well known, i.e,. that one should observe the decrees. "Guarding" means to treat them with caution and not think that they are any less than the judgments.

The judgments are those mitzvot whose motivating rationale is openly revealed and the benefit of their observance in this world is known, e.g., the prohibitions against robbery and bloodshed and honoring one's father and mother. The decrees are the mitzvot whose motivating rationales are not known. Our Sages said: "I ordained decrees and you have no license to question them." A person's natural inclination confronts him concerning them and the nations of the world challenge them, e.g., the prohibition of the meat of a pig, milk and meat, the calf whose neck is broken, the red heifer, and the goat sent to Azazel. To what degree did King David suffer because of the heretics and the idolaters who would issue challenges concerning the decrees! As long as they would pursue him with false retorts that they would arrange according to man's limited knowledge, he would increase his clinging to the Torah, as Psalms 119:69 states: "Willful transgressors have stacked falsehoods against me, but I guard Your precepts with a full heart." And ibid.:86 states concerning this matter: "All of Your mitzvot are faithful; they pursue me with falsehood; help me."

All of the sacrifices are in the category of decrees. Our Sages said: "The world exists for the sake of the service of the sacrifices." For through the performance of the decrees and the judgments the righteous merit the life of the world to come. And between the two of them, the Torah gave precedence to the command for the decrees, as Leviticus 18:5 states: "And you shall heed My decrees and judgments which a person will perform and live through them."

And the teacher (Rambam) said:

a) And don't answer me from the statement of the sages [that comes to explain] (Berakhot 33b), "We silence the one who says, 'Your mercy reaches the nest of the bird.' [is because this commandment is a decree that has nothing to do with mercy]," as this is one of two explanations - the explanation of the one to whom it appears that there is no reason for the commandments except for the will of the Creator - but we hold of the second explanation, [according to which] there should be an explanation for all of the commandments.

b) And a further challenge to him is that which he found in Bereshit Rabbah 44:1, "And so what does the Holy One, blessed be He, care whether he slaughters from [the front of] the neck or slaughters from the back - behold, the commandments were only given to purify the creations through them, as it is stated (Proverbs 30:5), 'Every word of the Lord is purified.'" And this matter that the teacher asserted is very lucid regarding commandments that have a reason, as there is in each one a reason and a purpose and a refinement for the person, besides their reward from their Commander, may He be blessed.

And the rabbis, may their memory be blessed, have already said (Sanhedrin 21b), "For what were the reasons of the Torah not revealed, etc." and they expounded (Pesachim 119a), "'Ancient covering' (Isaiah 23:18) - this is the one who reveals things that were covered by the One of ancient days; and what are they? The reasons of the Torah."

And they already expounded about the red heifer (Bemidbar Rabbah 19:3-4), that Shlomo said, "I have mastered it all, but about the topic of the red heifer, I have investigated, I have asked, I have searched - 'I said I will become wise, but it is far from me' (Ecclesiastes 7:23)." And Rabbi Yose beRebbe Chanina said, "The Holy One, blessed be He said to Moshe, 'To you do I reveal the reason of the red heifer, but to others it is a statute (without explanation),' as it is written (Zechariah 14:6), 'And it shall be on that day there will be no light, but heaviness and solidity' - it is written 'will solidify' (even though it is read 'and solidity,' such that the verse expresses a secondary meaning which is now elucidated): That which is covered from you in this world, will be visible in the world to come, like that blind man that [finally] sees.

There is no gain in the commandment for the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, may He be elevated; but [rather] the gain is for man himself - to prevent him from damage or a bad belief or a disgusting character trait, or to remember the miracles and wonders of the Creator, may He be blessed, and to know God. And this is [the meaning of] "to purify them" - that they should be like purified silver; as the action of a smelter is not without a reason, but [rather] to extract all the dross from it. And so [too] are the commandments to extract from our hearts every bad belief and to inform us of the truth and to always remind us of it.

Numbers 19,2. “This is the statute of the Torah which ‎the Lord had commanded, saying;”

We subscribe to ‎the rule that G’d did not reveal to us the innermost reasons for ‎the individual commandments of the Torah. Nonetheless, by ‎giving the Torah to us He also encouraged us to try and ‎understand as much as we could, as the better we understand the ‎meaning of the commandments the greater the love with which ‎we perform them. By introducing this portion with the words: ‎זאת חקת התורה‎, G’d hinted that we must remember that basically ‎the entire Torah consists of a string of commandments and that ‎all that has been revealed to us is what is needed to enable us to ‎perform these commandments in the proper manner. One reason ‎why the rationale for the commandments has not been revealed is ‎to ensure that we observe them because G’d has so commanded ‎us and not because we agree with G’d’s reasons.
This principle enables us to understand that the ashes of ‎the red heifer have been chosen to be the vehicle whereby we can ‎cleanse ourselves ritually after having become contaminated in ‎one way or another through contact with a dead human body. ‎

We have to remember also, that, due to the origin of our souls ‎being immediately below G’d’s throne in heaven, the soul is ‎naturally anxious to carry out all of G’d’s desires. The body, being ‎a product of the earth, opposes the urgings of the soul as a ‎matter of principle. Whenever we succeed in defeating the ‎opposition of our bodies to perform G’d’s commandments we ‎accumulate merits for ourselves.‎
The reason why the body opposes performance of the Torah’s ‎commandments is simply that it cannot fathom the reason for ‎these commandments. Had the body known the reasons for the ‎commandments it would certainly have cooperated with the soul ‎every step of the way.‎
In view of the above, when a person dies and his soul has ‎departed on its way to rejoin its Maker in the celestial regions, the ‎body has been bereft of every spiritual stimulus and becomes ‎ritually contaminated. This is also the reason why, according to ‎our sages, the bodies of the righteous do not confer ritual ‎impurity on people who contact them, as these bodies have ‎become refined already while the souls inhabited them, so that ‎they had become willing partners in performing the ‎commandments of the Torah. An allusion to this is contained in ‎the words: ‎זאת חקת התורה‎, i.e. “on account of the Torah being a ‎statute containing laws whose meaning has not been revealed, as ‎a result of which most bodies refused to cooperate with their ‎souls, these bodies are now ‘punished’ by becoming a source of ‎ritual contamination for people that come in contact with them.‎