Parshas Chukas: Parah Adumah and the Return to True Life

(1) The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: (2) This is the law of the Torah 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. (3) You shall give it to Eleazar the priest. It shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. (4) Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting. (5) The cow shall be burned in his sight—its hide, flesh, and blood shall be burned, its dung included— (6) and the priest shall take cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson stuff, and throw them into the fire consuming the cow... (11) He who touches the corpse of any human being shall be unclean for seven days. (12) He shall cleanse himself with it on the third day and on the seventh day, and then be clean; if he fails to cleanse himself on the third and seventh days, he shall not be clean... (17) Some of the ashes from the fire of cleansing shall be taken for the unclean person, and you shall put living water on them in a vessel.

Contact with a dead body is the most severe impurity. It is caused by the body disconnecting from the soul, which is the source of life. The method of purification is to return the soul to its prominence over the body. This occurred at Har Sinai when the Jewish people became immortal (until it was lost after the sin of the golden calf). The purpose of all mitzvos is to connect the body to the soul. This is reflected in the verse (Numbers 19:17): "and you shall put living water on [the ashes of the red heifer] in a vessel." And this is hinted to in the mixture of ashes and water, connecting the soul and body. And this is why this section of the Torah begins with "this is the law of the Torah", because the Torah is what allows to return to our living soul.

(12) Words of Torah are not sustained in one who is lax regarding them, and not in these who learn in the midst of enjoyment or eating and drinking, but rather in one who kills himself [figuratively] over them and cause his body distress constantly and does not give sleep to his eyes or slumber to his eyelids. The Sages said in the way of a hint: "This is the teaching (Torah) of the person who dies in a tent" (Numbers 19:14) - the Torah is not sustained other than in one who kills himself in the tents of the Sages. And so said Solomon in his wisdom: "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small" (Proverbs 24:10), and he also said: "even my wisdom remained with me" (Ecclesiastes 2:9) -[which can be read as] the wisdom that I learned in anger is what remained with me. The Sages said: a covenant was established that any who exhausts himself with his Torah in the house of study will not forget quickly and any who exhausts himself in his study in private is made wise, as was said: "but with the modest is wisdom". And any who makes his voice heard and the time of his study, his learning is sustained in his hand, but the one who reads quietly forgets quickly.

(1) This is the ordinance - As it is said verse (Job:14): Who gave (brought forth) purity to one who is impure? , such as Abraham from Terah, Hezekiah from Achaz, etc , Israel from the nations of the world, the world to come from this world. Who did so, who commanded so, who decreed it so, if not The One! (the world's only!) ....! There we learned (Parah 4:4): those who occupy themselves with the Parah from beginning to end, impurify their clothes, but it makes clothes Pure. God said: I carved a law (into the fabric of creation), a decree i made, you have no ability to transgress (override) My law!

Rabbi Aivo said: [The law of the red heifer] is compared to the son of a maidservant that soiled the palace of the king. The king says, "let the mother come and clean it up]". So to Hashem said, "Let the cow come and atone for the sin of the golden calf."