There is a kind of magical thinking that emerges twice in our Torah portion and understanding the role and place of the magical, the paradoxical and inexplicable in the Torah, can help us correctly diagnose and evaluate some contemporary issues too.
We read this morning of Moshe’s mysterious sin which results in his being denied the opportunity to enter Eretz Yisrael. This episode is treated described than once in the Torah itself and has filled pages and pages of commentary through the centuries. This vast literature was condemned by Abarbanel. If the theorists are correct in their understanding, they are clarifying and exposing a sin which the Torah itself preferred to keep quiet. If, on the other hand, they are incorrect, then they are responsible for spreading malicious and false rumors about none other than Moshe himself! This did not stop the Abarbanel, however, from offering his own understanding of Moshe’s sin and so it won’t stop us!
Moshe is told to take his staff, to gather the people along with his brother Aharon and to speak to a rock in their presence and it will give forth water. Moshe instead strikes the rock after challenging the people.
שִמְעו־נָא֙ הַמֹר֔ים הֲמִן־הַסֶ֣לַע הַזֶ֔ה נוצִ֥יא לָכֶ֖ם מָֽיִם׃
“Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?”
Moshe then strikes the rock twice and water emerges. God then responds with a harsh decree:
יַ֚עַן לא־הֶאֱמַנְתֶ֣ם בִ֔י לְהַ֨קדִישֵ֔נִי לְעֵינֵ֖י בְנֵ֣י יִשְראֵ֑ל לָכֵ֗ן ל֤א תָבִ֙יאו֙ אֶת־הַקָהָ֣ל הַזֶ֔ה אֶל־הָאָ֖רץ אֲשֶר־נָתַ֥תִי לָהֶֽם׃
“Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them.”
How does the punishment fit the crime? What is the crime? Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explained in his Torah commentary that Moshe turned what was meant to be a faith-building exercise in God’s wise guidance into merely an impressive magic show highlighting a miraculous intervention
By striking the rock with his staff, a staff that had been resting unused for nearly 40 years, Moshe gave the impression that the water only came forth from the rock as a result of a miraculous intervention, provoked by their own cries and angry accusations against Moshe. In contrast, had Moshe faithfully obeyed God’s instructions and merely spoken to the rock without striking it, the people would have understood that God had lead them to a spot where water already existed underneath that very rock and their doubts and complaints were baseless.
The pedagogy that was demanded at that moment depended on Moshe showing that the water was there – without a miracle. Striking the rock with Moshe’s miracle-causing staff, gave the impression that this was a magical miraculous intervention – the wrong message at this time.
Parashat Hukkat begins with something mysterious, paradoxical and somewhat magical.
זֹ֚את חֻקַ֣ת הַתור֔ה אֲשֶר־צִוָ֥ה ה׳ לֵאמֹ֑ר דַבֵ֣ר ׀ אֶל־בְנֵ֣י יִשְראֵ֗ל וְיִקח֣ו אֵלֶיָ֩ פָר֨ה אֲדמָ֜ה תְמִימָ֗ה אֲשֶ֤ר אֵֽין־בָה֙ מ֔ום אֲשֶ֛ר לא־עָלָ֥ה עָלֶ֖יהָ עֹֽל׃
״This is the Torah’s rule – זֹ֚את חֻקַ֣ת הַת֔ורה – that the LORD has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid.״
This red cow, the parah adumah, is then ceremonially burned and its ashes are used to prepare a special liquid or paste that is uniquely capable of removing the most severe form of ritual impurity that is contracted through contact or proximity with a corpse. Since all of us have been in proximity or have had contact with a corpse, or been in contact with someone who has, like a physician, each one of us now has this ritually impure status and that is why the Temple Mount is halakhicly off- limits to Jews, even in the absence of the beit hamikdash. We show our respect for the location’s enduring sanctity by staying away. Interestingly enough, you can see videos on YouTube and elsewhere of young cows that are being prepared for becoming the next parah adumah, the first in centuries. I have heard rumors that the Mossad is prepared to assassinate these cows, lest apocalyptic fervor ignite a global religious war.
Be that as it may, the parah adumah is not just an inexplicable mitzvah, one among many such mitzvot. The parah adumah ritual is an internal paradox. To paraphrase Winston Churchll, the parah adumah is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” The Torah’s system of purity regulations is a riddle. What do they mean? Why do some natural phenomenon and bodily functions push us away from sacred spaces or sacred objects? The red cow itself is a mystery. Why is there a need for such a rare animal – only a handful have been down to exist in all of Jewish history – in order to accomplish such a mundane and common ritual need? And the enigma is observed in the way in which the ritual itself is performed. The one who burns the cow and creates the purifying ashes becomes impure himself through his role in the manufacturing process. It is a purity ritual that creates impurity.
We’ve spoken before about how the mitzvot of the Torah belie simple characterization. Ethical, ritual, communal mitzvot are presented in the Torah in a glorious mosaic of topics and themes and genres. And yet, through the centuries, scholars have indeed tried to characterize the mitzvot so that we can understand the contours of our relationship with God and with one another.
Rav Saadia Gaon, the tenth century Babylonian scholar and philosopher divided the mitzvot of the Torah into two categories. Those which we would have discerned using our intellects alone, and those we would not have known about without revelation. But, as my teacher Rabbi Yitzchak Blau has written, those two categories exist in dialogue with one another. Even those mitzvot that we would not have intuited on our own, can still have some rational purpose. Shabbat, for example, builds community and promotes rest, but we would not have known about Shabbat without revelation. And mitzvot that we would have known about without revelation, the prohibition against murder, for example, can be clarified through revelation, for example concerning morally ambiguous grey areas like abortion or euthanasia.
In contrast, Rashi, writes about a category of commandments, the “hukkim” – of which the parah adumah is a paradigmatic example, which cannot be comprehended by human reason, and indeed have no reason other than an opportunity to obey the will of God.
In the early- modern period, the Jewish philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn, in his book Jerusalem, explained that all religions share common principles and all rational human beings will come to accept the same fundamental truths about ethical living. The genius of the Torah, according to Mendelssohn, was to provide for a system of mitzvot and observances that uniquely enable us to transmit our formulations of those universal truths to future generations.
This distinction is helpful because we sometimes conflate universal rights and particular Jewish goods. I’ll share one, hopefully non controversial, example of this distinction, and then share two more controversial examples. Well, actually, I think one controversial example will be enough for one Shabbat.
As you may know, the laws of yom tov differ from Shabbat in that cooking is permissible on yom tov even while it is forbidden on Shabbat. However, one cannot cook on yom tov whenever and however he wishes. It is only permissible to cook on yom tov if one is cooking to prepare a yom tov meal. One cannot cook on yom tov for a meal that one will eat when yom tov is older. Similarly, one can cook on yom tov so that you, or another Jewish person can eat a yom tov meal. One cannot cook on yom tov for someone who isn’t Jewish. The Torah only allows cooking on yom tov so that Jews can celebrate yom tov. Is this discriminatory? Is this unfair? Not in the least! There is a universal human right to food. There is a universal human right to healthcare. And the Torah indeed obligates us to care for those in need whatever their religion. But a yom to meal is a particular Jewish good and not a universal human right. We support the hungry and the poor and the needy whomever they may be, but our yom tov tables are designed for Jews.
And finally, we come to this week’s tempest-in-a-teapot concerning the Israeli government’s abandonment of a pledge to create a more diverse and pluralistic prayer experience at the Kotel. There already exists a prayer-space off to the South of the main Kotel plaza where non-Orthodox worship can take place. The government had pledged to connect this plaza to the main Kotel plaza so that visitors would find a men’s section, a women’s section, and a mixed section. That plan has been abandoned.
And here too, I think we would be better served if we clarified our language. There is a discourse centered on the universal human right to freely practice one’s religion. That right has nothing to do with the Kotel because nowhere in the world is the freedom of religion interpreted to mean that I can practice my religion, in the way that I think is correct, in any location I find meaningful. Nobody’s human rights are impinged upon if the democratically elected government of Israel decides to designate the Kotel as an Orthodox synagogue under the auspices of a rather closed-minded rabbi.
However, maintaining the status quo and alienating those who wish for a more pluralistic and diverse Kotel experience may nonetheless be dangerously mistaken policy. Access to the Kotel, like a yom tov meal, may be a particular Jewish good and not a universal human right. But just as we all care so much that every Jew has a place to sit at the Passover seder, we should strive to create an architecture and set into place policies that enable all Jews to connect at the Kotel to their people, to their history, to the city of Yerushalayim, and ultimately to God.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 