Parashat Chukat: Finding the Balance Between Rational & Irrational

(2) זאת חקת התורה (Zot chukat haTorah) 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 chukah about it, implying: It is an enactment from before Me; you have no right to criticize it (Yoma 67b; cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Chukat 7).

(8) A pagan asked Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, "These rituals you do, they seem like witchcraft! You bring a heifer, burn it, crush it up, and take its ashes. [If] one of you is impure by the dead [the highest type impurity], 2 or 3 drops are sprinkled on him, and you declare him pure?!" He said to him, "Has a restless spirit ever entered you?" He said to him, "No!" "Have you ever seen a man where a restless spirit entered him?" He said to him, "Yes!" [Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai] said to him, "And what did you do for him?" He sad to him, "We brought roots and made them smoke beneath him, and pour water and it flees." He said to him, "Your ears should hear what leaves from your mouth! The same thing is true for this spirit, the spirit of impurity, as it is written, (Zachariah 13:2) "Even the prophets and the spirit of impurity will I remove from the land." They sprinkle upon him purifying waters, and it [the spirit of impurity] flees." After he left, our rabbi's students said, "You pushed him off with a reed. What will you say to us?" He said to them, "By your lives, a dead person doesn't make things impure, and the water doesn't make things pure. Rather, God said, 'I have engraved a rule, I have decreed a decree (chukah chakakti, gezeira gazarti), and you have no permission to transgress what I decreed, as it says "This is a chok (rule) of the Torah."

Chukat haTorah, “a statute of the Torah.” The various commentators understand the word as meaning: ‘statute; royal decree.’ In other words, a law which defies understanding by the subject to whom it is applied. People asked to obey it constantly wonder why they have to obey such a law. The details of the red heifer legislation are not only devoid of logic but appear to defy logic in that contact with that cow defiles the ritually pure while purifying the ritually impure.
The truth is that the red heifer is one of the statutes which defies our understanding. Still, the principal meaning of the word chok is derived from the word chakika, something that is “indelibly engraved in a rock.” like a picture. God hinted to the Children of Israel that their image is indelibly engraved in the celestial regions. In other words, seeing there are no rocks to inscribe things on in the celestial regions, the word chakika is a simile for immutable concepts, as basic to God’s legislation as if their counterpart had been engraved in rock in our terrestrial universe. This is why a certain group of the commandments is known under the heading of chukim. It is significant that the expression chukat haTorah appears in connection with our legislation here, whereas in connection with the legislation involving the scape-goat the Torah defines this as chukat olam, whereas in connection with kilayim, the prohibition to mix species which God wanted to keep separate, the Torah simply writes et chukotai tishmoru, “observe My statutes.” Whenever the Torah refers to a commandment as having an aspect of chok, this is its way of reminding us of the immutability of such a commandment.
Another reason why the term chok is applied to certain laws is that the word means g'vul, “limitation,” such as when the prophet Jeremiah describes the sand on the beaches of the sea as the limit to the ocean’s power of expanding into the area designated as “the dry land.” The wording there is: asher sati g'vul l'yam chok olam v'lo ya'avarneihu, “who set the sand as a boundary for the sea as a limit for all time not to be transgressed.” Other examples of the meaning of the word chok being “boundary,” are Jeremiah 31,35: chukka yarei'ach v'kochavim l'or laila, “the laws of moon and stars for light by night.” In other words, sun and moon respectively serve as boundaries of day and night respectively.
The philosophical aspect of the meaning of “boundary” for the word chok in connection with this legislation is that there are limits, boundaries, to the extent to which we may employ our investigative faculties in probing its meaning. We have to discipline ourselves in acknowledging that God clearly did not want us to probe beyond a certain point.