<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#0000ff">In Avodah V42n49, R'Micha posts:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#0000ff"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">I was taken by R J Sacks zt"l's idea for what a choq is. See his essay</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">"Descartes' Error"</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><</span><a href="https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/chukat/descartes-error" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/chukat/descartes-error</a><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">>,</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">Much, and probably most, of the human decision-making process is not based</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">in the rational part of our brain. First, we get too many stimuli to be</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">fully aware of all the "inputs", never mind our thoughts about much of</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">it. And thus emotion is very involved. So RJS argues that this is why</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">some of halakhah is not aimed at rational comprehension.</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">    "There have been many interpretations of the chukim throughout the</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">    ages. But in the light of recent neuroscience, we can suggest that</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">    they are laws designed to bypass the prefrontal cortex, the rational</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">    brain, and create instinctive patterns of behaviour to counteract</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">    some of the darker emotional drives at work in the human mind."</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">And since their role is to ingrain habit and instinct, the word "choq"</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small">fits the /ch-q-q/ etymology.</span><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#0000ff"><snip></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#0000ff">---</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,255);font-size:large">However, as RMFirst (bcc:ed) notes (URL: </span><font color="#000000"><a href="https://jewishlink.news/what-is-the-meaning-of-chok-2/">https://jewishlink.news/what-is-the-meaning-of-chok-2/</a></font><font size="4" style="color:rgb(0,0,255)">) re other interpretations, this "create instinctive patterns of behavior" suggestion does not fit all the uses of "choq" in TaNaCH -- you can see all those examples in his article after he quotes RML:</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="4" style="color:rgb(0,0,255)">===</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);font-family:"PT Serif",sans-serif;font-size:17px">Fortunately, Rabbi Menachem Leibtag has discussed the meaning of חק in an article available online on the Orthodox Union website (“Chukat: Parah Adumah: What’s a Chok?”). He concludes that a חק is a law that is fixed and unchanging. (This would be a natural expansion from the original “engraved” meaning of the root.) He gives many arguments to support this understanding and I agree with him.</span><font size="4" style="color:rgb(0,0,255)"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="4" style="color:rgb(0,0,255)">===</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="4" style="color:rgb(0,0,255)"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="4" style="color:rgb(0,0,255)">All the best from</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><font size="4" style=""><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif" style="" color="#ff00ff"><i style="">Michael Poppers</i></font><font face="verdana, sans-serif" style="color:rgb(0,0,255)"> * </font><font style="" face="georgia, serif" color="#000000">Elizabeth, NJ, USA</font></font></div></div>