Parashat Chukat: Holy Cow!
This week’s Torah portion includes the confusing, fascinating laws related to the Red Heifer. If someone has inadvertently come in contact to a dead body, an act which renders someone ritually impure, then one must engage in the tasks laid out in the opening verses of our parsha (Numbers 19:1-22) in order to return to a state of purity.
We read this ritual, and we are left baffled. A great big, “Huh?” hangs over us. We ask – why, of all things, does the text require this strange ritual involving a perfect red cow?
Two different words are used in the Torah to refer to laws: chukim and mishpatim. Both are translated as, “laws,” but our Sages felt that they were two very different concepts.
Mishpatim refers to the laws that we can rationally understand. We know why God has commanded us to follow these particular laws. Even if our tradition hadn’t specifically commanded us to do/not do a commandment, we probably would have come up with it on our own at some point. For instance, many point out that the kashrut laws prohibiting the eating of pork make sense – avoiding pork helped us avoid trichinosis and other illnesses commonly caused by pigs.
Chukim, the word used for “law” here in Numbers 19, refers to laws that we cannot and do not rationally understand. These are God’s way of telling us, “Because I said so.” We can’t question these laws, and we must just follow them (according to tradition). Why are we commanded to build the tabernacle according to incredibly specific and detailed instructions? Because God said so.
These two concepts bring to mind the debates of 20th century Jewish philosophers Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, and I look forward to adding our own voices to their debate.
Rosenzweig strongly felt that we should observe Jewish laws at all times in the hopes that, at some point, they will become meaningful to us.
Buber, on the other hand, believed that we should only observe a particular law after it had become meaningful for us.
Do we observe Shabbat until it becomes meaningful for us, or do we wait to observe Shabbat until after we’ve decided that it is meaningful? Does “meaning” even matter?
Which resonates more for you?
