Parshas Chukas 5761 Talk to Me
By Rabbi Joshua (talkatively known as The Heifer) Hoffman

  In this week's parsha, we are told of the laws pertaining to the Parah Adumah, the red heifer, whose ashes are used to purify someone who was defiled through contact with a dead person. Actually, these laws were given to Moshe on the first of Nissan of the second year in the wilderness, so one may ask why they appear in the Torah at this point. Another question, alluded to by the Ramban, is the wording of the verse that opens the presentation of these laws, " This is the statute of the Torah which God has commanded, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and they shall take to you a perfectly red cow....." (Bamidbar 19 : 2). The words 'speak to the children of Israel' seem to be out of place, and really belong before the words 'this is the statute of the Torah.' The Ramban, in fact, says that this is how it should be interpreted, through inverting the order of the verse. Rav Yitzchak Zev Soloveichick, the late Brisker Rov, explained the verse as it is written. He says its meaning is that the decision of when to go through the procedure of preparing a new Parah Adumah is determined by the great Sanhedrin. Thus, Moshe who stood in the place of the Great Sanhedrin, needed to tell the children of Israel that this parah was needed at that time. I would like to suggest another explanation, that will also account for the mention of these laws here, and their connection to the section of the Torah that follows. 

  The laws of Parah Adumah are viewed by the rabbis as the quintessential example of chukim, or statues, laws whose purpose is not readily discernable. On the other hand, Rashi cites Rabbi Moshe HaDarshan who says that Parah Adumah serves as an atonement for the worship of the golden calf. There are, in fact, different opinions concerning what the exact mystery of the Parah Adumah is. The most popular difficulty is that while the ashes of the Parah, combined in the mixture prescribed by the Torah, purify the ritually defiled person upon whom they are sprinkled, they defile the person who sprinkles them. I would like to suggest that it is the atonement for the sin of the golden calf that is actually the statute that cannot be readily understood. 

  As we noted in netvort to parshas Shelach two years ago, the Malbim says that after the sin of the calf, God answered Moshe's prayers and did not destroy the nation. However He gave them a suspended sentence, which was later imposed after the sin of the spies. Thus, the forty years of wandering in the wilderness were the culmination of the punishment for worshiping the calf. As Ramban notes in parshas Shelach, Moshe did not invoke all of God's thirteen attributes of mercy at that point because he knew that some of them had been suspended. Now, however, that the old generation had died out and the new generation was ready to enter the land, the residual stain of the golden calf still needed to be removed, at least to the extent that the people could indeed enter the land. Perhaps this itself was part of the chok aspect - to enable the nation to atone for the sin of the golden calf. God was telling Moshe that he must tell the children of Israel to take the Parah Adumah and perform the laws pertaining to it, and thereby achieve some atonement for the sin of the golden calf. Although Moshe had refrained from a full petition to God after the sin of the spies, he must know that atonement is possible, and he must tell this to the people. Thus, this section is reiterated at this point, even though it was given on the first of Nissan of the second year. 

  After the presentation of the laws of the Parah Adumah, the Torah tells us of the death of Miriam during the end of the people's stay in the wilderness. There was then a lack of water, because, as the rabbis tell us, the well of water that accompanied the people throughout their journeys was in Miriam's merit. The people then complained for water, and God told Moshe to take his staff, gather the people around a rock, speak to the rock and produce water. Moshe struck the rock instead of speaking to it and water came out, but Moshe was punished for not following God's precise instructions. Several commentators ask why God told Moshe to take the staff if Moshe was supposed to speak to the rock, and the Rashbam in fact explains that Moshe actually understood that he was supposed to hit the rock, because that is the way one speaks to a rock. However, the Netziv, Rabbi Naphtali Zevi Yehudah Berlin of Volozhin, explained otherwise. The midrash, he notes, says that Moshe was really commanded to speak to the people, teaching them a halacha and thereby causing water to emerge, or leading them in a prayer for rain. If that was not possible, then he was to resort to the use of his staff to bring forth water. Moshe however became angry at the people, felt they were not capable of following the route of being spoken to, and immediately hit the rock. 

  Following our explanation of the command concerning the Parah Adumah, perhaps we can find a common denominator between that section of the Torah and the section which describes Moshe's sin at the rock. In both cases, Moshe was told to speak to the people in a manner that highlighted their potential for spiritual improvement. God told him as a chok, a statue that he could not understand, that they could indeed achieve some atonement for the sin of the golden calf and proceed to enter the land. That lesson, that the people could grow spiritually, should have remained within when he was told to speak to the rock. Despite their continued complaints and impudence towards him, he should have had sufficient faith in their capabilities and attempted to reach them through study and prayer. His failure to do so signaled his loss of faith in the people, and was the cause of his inability to continue as their spiritual leader.