[Avodah] Chukas

[Cantor Wolberg]

1) Four Torah laws cannot be explained by human reason but, being divine, demand implicit obedience: a) to marry one's brother's widow (Deut. 25:5); b) not to mingle wool and linen in a garment (Deut. 22:11); c) to perform the rites of the scapegoat (Lev. 16:26, 34); and d) the red cow.  Satan comes and criticizes these statutes as irrational. Know therefore that it was the Creator of the world, the One and Only, who instituted them.   Midrash (Numbers Rabbah 19:8).
 
2) [Ch.19:1]  "Hashem spoke to Moses and to Aaron saying:"  Symbolically the cow came to atone for the sin of the Golden Calf, as if to say let the mother come and clean up the mess left by her child. If this be the case, this explains why the commandment was directed to Aaron, the one who made the calf.
 
3) [19:2]  "Zot chukat ha-Torah...." This is the statute (also translated as "ritual law," or "decree") of the Torah......"  This unusual expression occurs only once more in Bamidbar 31:21. The rabbis have commented that it should have said “Zot chukat ha parah.” Why does it sound as if this chok is the whole Torah? There are several explanations such as only Jews can be ritually impure. A non-Jew cannot have tum’ah. Also, since a chok is incomprehensible, it is as if you have observed the whole Torah if you follow an irrational, illogical commandment.
 
4) The Midrash to this chapter focuses primarily on one paradox in the laws of the Red Cow: Its ashes purify people who had become contaminated; yet those who engage in its preparation become contaminated. I thought of a contemporary example of something that would appear just as paradoxical.  Radiation treatment is used to treat many forms of cancer, and yet, the same radiation can cause cancer. For someone who has no knowledge of medicine, this would appear as irrational as the paradox of the Red Cow. In a similar vein, the Midrash notes a number of such paradoxical cases of righteous people who descended from wicked parents, such as Abraham from Terach, Hezekiah from Ahaz, and Josiah from Ammon. The Talmud adds the paradox that it is forbidden to drink blood, but an infant nurses from its mother, whose blood is transformed into milk to become the source of life (Niddah 9a).    

 
You won’t go broke if you follow the chok. But if you don’t keep trying, you’ll end up dying.

 

 

 
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