The red heifer: A statute with a cause - opinion

Parashat Chukat opens with the strange ritual of the red heifer, perhaps the quintessential example given of a statute (chok) for which, according to the sages, there is no rational explanation, only obedience. What makes the red heifer particularly perplexing is that its ashes purify those contaminated by death impurity while simultaneously making those who handle it during the ritual impure.

It is so unknowable, suggests the following midrash (rabbinic commentary), that God studies the Torah portion with the halachic (according to Torah law) interpretation brought in the name of Rabbi Eliezer – although in an earlier passage, God reveals the reason for the law only to Moses

“Rabbi Acha, in the name of Rabbi Hanina, said: At the time when Moses ascended to the heavenly heights, he heard the voice of the Holy One, Blessed be He, who was sitting and studying the Torah portion of the Red Heifer and uttering a halacha in the name of the one who spoke of it: Rabbi Eliezer said a calf is one year old, and a cow is two years old” (Bamidbar Rabbah 19:7).

This midrash can be read on several levels. First, the image of God studying the Torah shows the preciousness of the Torah in heaven even after it has been given to the Children of Israel. Second, once the Torah is given, it is no longer in heaven, and God seeks out the Torah of the beit midrash. The midrash suggests that this Torah portion is so complex that God is studying it in a havruta (study partners) with the sages of the academy, choosing to incorporate the position to Rabbi Eliezer as Halacha (Torah law).

In the next passage (Bamidbar Rabbah 19:8), Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai engages in a discussion with an idolator about the red heifer:

“A certain idolater asked Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai: ‘These actions that you perform seem to be a type of sorcery. You bring a heifer, burn it, crush it, and take its ashes. One of you becomes impure from a corpse; one sprinkles upon him two or three drops, and you say to him: You are purified.’ He said to him: ‘Has a spirit of insanity never entered you?’ He said to him: ‘No.’ ‘Have you seen a person into whom a spirit of insanity has entered?’ He said to him: ‘Yes.’ He said to him: ‘And what do you do to him?’ He said to him: ‘We bring roots, smoke them beneath him, and sprinkle water on it, and it flees.’ He said to him: ‘Let your ears hear what you express from your mouth. The same is true of this spirit, this spirit of impurity, as it is written: I will remove the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land (Zechariah 13:2). We sprinkle upon it the water of sprinkling, and it flees.

“After he left, his students said to him: ‘You rebuffed this one with a reed. What do you say to us?’ He said to them: ‘As you live, it is not the corpse that impurifies, and it is not the water that purifies. Rather, the Holy One Blessed be He said: I instituted a statute, issued a decree; you are not permitted to violate My decree, as it is written: This is the statute of the Torah.”

Rabbi Yohanan tries to prove to the idolator that nothing is without reason in the Torah, defending its integrity to those looking from the outside in. However, to his students, he is forced to admit it is a statute, with no further explanation possible. Despite this, the interpretation of every word in the related biblical text and every aspect of red heifer laws continues over myriad pages of Talmud (and subsequent commentary). Defining something as a chok does not preclude the ongoing examination, exploration, and definition of law, including possible reasons for its existence.

In fact, in Guide 3:26, Maimonides states that chukim have a rational purpose that eludes our intellectual understanding:

“All of us, the common people as well as the scholars, believe that there is a reason for every precept, although there are commandments the reason of which is unknown to us and in which the ways of God’s wisdom are incomprehensible...There are commandments that are called chukim, “ordinances”... but our sages generally do not think that such precepts have no cause whatever and serve no purpose, for this would lead us to assume that God’s actions are purposeless. On the contrary, they hold that even these ordinances have a cause and are certainly intended for some use, although it is not known to us, owing either to the deficiency of our knowledge or the weakness of our intellect.”

Maimonides would be pleased to discover that 1,000 years later, the quest to interpret and understand Torah continues. Modern biblical scholarship suggests that the red heifer was organic to the world of sacrifice and well known to the generations of Temple ritual, yet foreign to those who lived in the aftermath of destruction. Professor Jacob Milgrom wrote extensively on how the ritual of the red heifer made sense in symbolic language of the sacrificial chattat (sin offering) system, including “contaminating” those who handled the ashes while purifying those imbued with death impurity. It was part of a conscious ritual proclaiming the commitment of God and the holy Tabernacle to help the individual fight off the frightening encroachment of death and redirect him toward embracing life, a mandate reinforced throughout Torah – to choose life.

As a people bound to our Jewish texts, we question and delve into the unknowable to understand our relationship to God and mitzvot (Torah commandments) more fundamentally. Like Moses, we yearn for God to hear us learning Torah; perhaps up in heaven, one of our explanations enhances God’s Torah study, as suggested by the midrash!

Women finding a seat at the table of halachic discourse

It is in this vein that I am proud to announce the publication of my book Uncovered: Women’s Roles, Mitzvot and Sexuality in Jewish Law (Urim Publications). It is the result of decades of immersion in the vast sea of Torah and Talmud texts as an observant Jewish woman, gradually moving from frustration to acceptance to empowerment by finding a “seat at the table,” so to speak, of halachic discourse. Having come of age in the second half of the 20th century, I am acutely aware of the enormous privilege I have enjoyed, with opportunities to study Torah as a woman available at every stage I sought them out.

The topics in the book cover some of the most “popular” issues that have engaged women as they try to understand the context of a religious system of legislation that is 3,000 years old, developed in a world where women’s roles were vastly different. They include women’s exemption from time-caused mitzvot, Torah study and leadership roles, dress code laws, and laws of sexual intimacy grounded in the observance of family purity laws. The final chapter addresses the challenges facing single men and women today in premarital relationships. My approach involves historical and textual contextualization as I trace the evolution of each specific topic from the earliest to the most contemporary of sources. 

As with the red heifer, not every question has a clear answer, but in the words of Ben Bag-Bag (Avot 5:22): “Turn it [words of Torah] over, and [again] turn it over, for all is therein. And look into it; and become gray and old therein; and do not move away from it, for you have no better portion than it.” ■