TORAH PORTION]
Affording the
best is not the
question . .
Finding the best is.
Trying To Understand
The Red Heifer
SHLOMO RISKIN
Special to The Jewish News
M
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FRIDAY ' J
any of us have had
the experience of
visiting someone in
the hospital who is in in-
tense pain. Our words of
comfort generally deal with
the fact that in a short
period, with God's help, this
difficult period will be over,
and, in the midst of renewed
vigor and activity, merciful-
ly forgotten. What the pa-
tient must be encouraged to
do "is hang in there."
But what do we say to
someone who knows he/she
is terminally ill, who has
been told by the doctors that
there is no prognosis for re-
covery? Where can such an
individual find the courage
and personal resources to go
on heroically, despite the
suffering and the
hopelessness?
To a certain extent, this is
precisely the situation fac-
ing the Jewish people in the
Torah portion. As a result of
the sin of the spies and their
faithless inability to conquer
the land, they have heard
the Divine decree that they
are all doomed to die in the
desert after another 38 years
of wandering. They are
trapped in an existential —
as well as geographic — no
man's land.
Refusing to resign them-
selves to such a bleak and
hopeless fate, they attempt
rebellion which may at least
change leadership and direc-
tion; this, too, fails as a
result of Divine intervention
and draws the generation
into even deeper despair.
What do they have left?
What can they draw upon to
provide them with the
strength to continue?
Chukat opens with the in-
explicable ritual of sacrific-
ing the red heifer, which
provides a message of
metaphysical healing for the
gaping wound which has
paralyzed the Israelites in
the desert.
According to the commen-
tators, this statute is the
most mysterious in the
Torah because of its inner
dynamic of purifying the
defiled while defiling the one
who administers the red
heifer's ashes.
The mystery will always
remain but we can lift some
Rabbi Riskin is chief rabbi of
Efrat, Israel, and the founder
and dean of Ohr Torah
Institutions.
of its veil if we view it from
the perspective of its mes-
sage to the generation born
to die in the desert.
My rebbe and teachei
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveit-
chik, once suggested noting C'
the different processes of
purification. In the Torah,' -‘
ritual impurity is called
tuma, and generally, after
immersion in the waters of--
the mikvah, one who is
ritually impure becomes
purified.
However, if one comes into
direct contact with a dead
body, immersing oneself in a
mikvah does not purify the
defiled. This is where the
ashes of the red heifer come
in. On the third and seventh
day of the defiled person's
Shabbat Chukat:
Numbers 19:1-22:1
Judges 11:1-33.
impurity, the kohen, or
priest, takes the ashes of a S
red heifer mixed with water
and sprinkles it on him.
But why do we need two ,1
different means of purifica-
tion — the mikvah and the
red heifer?
The mikvah embodies the
important theological prin--,
ciple that the human being
can redeem himself. When
one immerses himself in thei
mikvah waters, he emerges — 1
purified. In a sense, in enter-
ing and emerging from the
mikvah, the individual is
recreating himself. Purity is
thus being placed in our own
hands.
Judaism, a religion which (f,
places the potential for
redemption as close as the
nearest mikvah, is telling us
that we are responsible for
and capable of our own
purification. And a mikvah
has to follow exact laws, so
that when one enters a
mikvah he is, in effect, sym-
bolically entering the laws of
the entire Torah. And so
Judaism carries the message
that humanity can redeem
itself, that we are given a
entire fabric of command-
ments, and by following
these commandments we are
actively engaged in creating
the energy for our own self-
redemption.
However, there is one
aspect of life which cannot -
be redeemed by our actions I
alone — and that is death.
The mikvah does not purify c:
someone who has come into
contact with a dead body.
Death is the ultimate con-