Job and the Red Cow

^{9 Tamuz 5778 | June 22, 2018}

Parshat Chukat

Rabbi Dr. Devorah Schoenfeld

Advanced Kollel: Executive Ordination Track

Class of 2019

Parshat Chukat begins with the ritual of the Parah Adumah, or red cow, which is part of the process of purification from tumah acquired through contact with death. Bamidbar Rabbah, in its eight midrashim on the Parah Adumah, emphasizes over and over again how difficult this mitzvah is to understand. It begins its discussion, in Bamidbar Rabbah 19:1, by connecting the mitzvah of the red cow with a quote from Job 14:4:

Job here is rebuking his friends who are blaming him and his sin for the death of his children. Like Job, the person coming to be purified has encountered death, since only (direct or indirect) contact with the dead gives the kind of tumah that is purified through the Parah Adumah. Perhaps the hesitation about explaining the Parah Adumah is that it could come too close to explaining the reason for death and falling into the same mistake as Job’s friends.

But why is it that the Parah Adumah can’t be understood? On this the Bamidbar Rabbah presents different approaches. Is it simply arbitrary? Or is there a moral lesson contained in it that we need to work to understand?

One possibility is that the mitzvah of Parah Adumah is in principle not rational. This is the approach that Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai teaches his students in Bamidbar Rabbah 19:8:

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai here rejects all rationales not only for the purification process of the Parah Adumah but for the entire system of tumah and taharah itself. There is no meaning to being tameh and no moral judgement attached to it.

But Midrash Rabbah, as it often does, presents different approaches. At the conclusion of 19:8 we see an example of an opposite approach, that sees tumah as connected to sin:

In this approach the Parah Adumah functions specifically to atone for the sin of the Golden Calf. Tumah isn’t morally neutral, it is very explicitly connected to sin, even if it is a sin that the tameh people did not themselves commit.

Another approach is to see the Parah Adumah as a mystery that God understands, and maybe Moshe does as well, even if the rest of us can’t. We see this approach in Bamidbar Rabbah 19:6:

In this last approach there is hope that even if one generation does not understand, a future generation can. We know that this is possible because it has happened already, Rabbi Akiva has understood things that Moses never understood.

In this last approach we return to the story of Job. The last quotation is from a speech by Job, again in response to his friends, about the human search for understanding:

Humans here are so powerful, able to carve through rocks and overturn mountains, and constantly searching for understanding. But can it be found? Not in land of the living, not completely, but we can strive towards it, and sometimes hidden things can be brought to light, as they were by Rabbi Akiva.

The person undergoing the process of purification through the Parah Adumah has encountered death and comes to be healed from this encounter. Is it a time for explanations? Bamidbar Rabbah, in its different interpretations, honors all the different possibilities. Sometimes there is no explanation that is possible, and even the thought that an explanation might be possible feels horrifying. Other times an explanation might help. Sometimes there is no explanation, but it is good to know of our own power to move mountains, and to discover new sources of wisdom. Even if there are things that we don’t understand now, the thought that future generations might understand more can give us hope.