D'var Torah: A Great Parah Dox
Rabbi Andy Shapiro Katz, Conservative Yeshiva Director of Engagement
Death is everywhere in Parashat Hukkat. There are great military victories (Arad, Sihon, King of the Amorites, and Og, King of Bashan), the passing of great and beloved leaders (Miriam and Aharon), and a great plague. So it should be no surprise that the parashah opens with the laws of the Parah Adumah (Red Heifer) - the sole remedy for those who have "tumat met" - ritual impurity from contact with a dead body.
The Parah Adumah is one of the Torah's great oddities. It must be entirely red (no other sacrifices specify color), female (sin offerings are male animals), and cannot have done any work (a unique requirement). It is sacrificed outside the camp and not on the altar. Its entire being - hide, flesh, blood, and dung - is turned to ash as part of the sacrifice. Its ashes are then mixed with various red-colored substances (cedar wood and hyssop) that are usually burnt as part of the ketoret ha-samim. And this ash mixture, when combined with water, is sprinkled on any vessels, structures, or people who have this ritual impurity to purify it.
And Parah Adumah's oddness becomes more pronounced the more one thinks about it. Tending to a dead body to maintain its purity makes one ritually impure, but this impurity can only be removed by contact with the dead body of an animal! And most perplexing, the priests involved in the entire process of producing, transporting, and storing the purifying ashes are themselves rendered impure!
But much like Job, our questions are met with a stern silence. Parah Adumah is introduced by the words "Zot Hukkat HaTorah" - THIS is the ordinance of the Law that the Lord has commanded. A hok/ordinance is a Torah law whose goodness is not self-evident, and whose authority is entirely dependent on law-giver. Thus Rashi explains that both Satan and the nations of the world would mock Israel because of the seeming heathen magic or ridiculousness of the Parah Adumah, asking: "What is this command and what reason is there for it?" But because it is a "hok" neither we nor they have a right to question it, criticize it, or even ponder it too deeply.
But something does not have to be explainable to convey a message. Instead of asking "What does it mean in and of itself?" we can ask "What does it say to us?" And Parah Adumah, and this parashah in general, speaks volumes about the paradoxical nature of our existence. It says to us that defilement and purity, illness and cure, are intertwined - a message echoed elsewhere in our parashah (Bemidbar 21:5-9) when the Israelites complain again about their hunger and God sends venomous serpents to bite them. When Moshe prays for God to heal them, he is instructed to make a serpent and put it on a pole. Whoever then looked at the Nahash Hanehoshet - the Copper Serpent - was healed. Things that heal us can hurt us, and things that hurt us can heal us. This is just as true in medicine as it is in social policy.
It says to us that leadership, or simply doing good in the world, can be bad for you. Miriam, Aharon, and soon Moshe die in the wilderness, having led the people to a place they themselves cannot enter. When God is angry with the people, they get God to forgive them, but when they lose their temper, as they did with the Waters of Meribah, they are not forgiven. We need power to do good, but that power can easily corrupt us, and battle against its influence damages us in other ways.
But to me it says most clearly that life itself is the greatest paradox. We have souls that long for purity and eternal divine connection, but our souls animate imperfect and easily defiled earth-bound bodies that are driven by hunger and a desire for sensory pleasure. If all souls are destined to return to heaven, why are they subjected to such a challenging existence on earth? Why struggle, when our struggles are ultimately doomed to failure?
The potential for despair is ever-present, and yet we persist. There may not be a rational reason to do good, to lead, and ultimately to live, but we do anyway. Our lives are the real hok - inscrutable mysteries handed down from above. And here too the best question is not "What does my life mean, in and of itself?" but "What will my life say to me, to others, and to those who will come after us?"
May our lives speak volumes.
