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The Red Heifer: Where
Knowledge Meets Faith

RABBI MORTON F. YOLKUT

Special to The Jewish News

T

here are some religions
in the world today
which do not permit
questions about their rites
and rituals. There are other
religions which claim that
answers to questions are on-
ly revealed to a special group
or caste.
Judaism has never
discouraged its adherents
from asking questions or
seeking answers. She'al
avicha vayagedcha, "ask your
father and he will tell you"
has always been the Jewish
response to those who wished
to understand our faith. Read
our Talmudic literature or the

Shabbat Chukat:
Numbers 19:1-22:1
Judges 11:1-33

of
philosophic works
Maimonides, Saadia Gaon,
Yehuda Halevi, and you will
see that the great thinkers of
Israel taught that there are
no answers that are revealed
only to a certain group, but
that all can search and quest,
reflect and inquire.
One important corollary
must be added, however.
While Judaism has always
encouraged questions from its
practitioners, it also em-
phasizes with equal convic-
tion that man is man, and not
God. And as human beings
we shall not always find
answers to our questions.
There are certain areas in life
and in our religion which will
always remain a mystery to
us, for in those instances God
has chosen to conceal rather
than reveal.
A classic example of this
principle can be found in the
law of Parah Adumah, the
Red Heifer, recorded in the
beginning of this week's
Torah portion. This ordinance
is one of the most mysterious
laws found anywhere in Scrip-
ture. A person who has
become ritually unclean
through contact with a dead
body was to be purified by the
ashes of a red heifer.
This is the mystery: The
person who was ritually
unclean, as a result of this
ritual becomes clean. But the
person who was involved with
the preparation of this for-
mula and was clean, now

Morton F. Yolkut is rabbi at Cong. B'nai
David.

,

becomes unclean. The red
heifer purifies the impure and
simultaneously renders im-
pure the pure.
So mysterious and incom-
prehensible is this law of the
Torah that it is_called a chok,
a statute given without
reason or explanation. In-
deed, our rabbis teach: "The
ritual of the Red Heifer is a
decree of the Almighty and
we humans are not able to
penetrate its essence."
The Red Heifer legislation
teaches that there are times
when the things we have to do
and the events we have to ac-
cept are to be done and ac-
cepted without explanation
and without knowing the
answers.
For modern Jews, this an-
cient law has special
relevance. - We are a genera-
tion that has had its intellect
pampered, believing that
everything can be known and
understood given sufficient
time and effort and applica-
tion. We need the law of the
Red Heifer to remind us of the
limits of the mind and the
boundaries of intelligence. By
remaining puzzled and
mystified, overwhelmed by
the reality of our own ig-
norance, we learn to curb our
presumptuousness and sub-
mit to the greater in-
telligence of our Creator.
The wearing of the Kipah,
the skull cap, Chasidim main-
tain, is not only for respect
and reverence, but also as a
sign of modesty. Just as we
wear clothing,over other parts
of the body for this reason, so
does the kipah covering the
brain, testify to the wearer's
awareness that his own in-
tellectual faculties are finite.
Can we observe command-
ments — like many of the
kashrut laws - which, we do
not fully comprehend? Can
we accept other critical areas
of Jewish practice on faith
value alone? It is, in fact, not
an easy doctrine to accept or
- practice.
That is precisely what the
law of the Red Heifer teaches
us. There are laws of the spirit
— as there are laws of nature -
- that remain forever beyond
the inquisitive grasp of man.
Perhaps the ulimate test of
the impact of Torah on an in-
dividual may be gauged by
his readiness to recognize the
limitations of his own in-
telligence, and by his accep-
tance of even those aspects of
Judaism that transcend his
understanding and
comprehension.

n
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33

