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Chukat, 5770
Chukat: Ta'amai Hamitzvot--Rationales for the Commandments by Yoel H. Kahn
Parashat Chukat by Michael S. Friedman

June 14, 2010 Week 344 Day 1 2 Tamuz 5770

Chukat, Numbers 19:1?22:1

Shabbat, June 19, 2010 / 7 Tammuz, 5770
The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pp. 1,145-1,164; Revised Edition, pp. 1,022-1,042
The Torah: A Womens Commentary, pp. 915936
Haftarah, Judges 11:1-33
The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pp. 1,268-1,271; Revised Edition, pp. 1,043-1,046

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D'VAR TORAH |

Chukat: Taamai HamitzvotRationales for the Commandments

Yoel H. Kahn

Rabbi Ben Bag-Bag, a Tanna (Mishnah-era rabbi), taught about the Torah: Turn it and turn it,
for everything is in it.1 If we only look hard enough and are creative with our interpretation, the
Rabbis taught, ever-wider and deeper meanings and insight will be revealed. The Rabbis could
not imagine the idea that any verse in the Torahlet alone an entire episodedid not have
enduring spiritual purpose or ultimate meaning. Just keep looking, they might say.

This weeks Torah portion, Chukat, details what to later generations is surely one of the most
inscrutable and strange rituals of biblical religion. Numbers 19 is devoted to the ritual of the
parah adumah, the red heifer. An unblemished, healthy heifer of an unusual and symbolically
significant color is ritually killed and burned along with aromatic wood and spices. The ashes
are then mixed with pure water and used in a purification rite to ritually cleanse people who
have touched a human corpse. This mixture is so powerful that the priest who performs the rite
is himself rendered temporarily impure through contact with the ashes and water.

The familiar expression chukim umishpatim, laws and rules, first appears in Deuteronomy
4:5. In rabbinic teaching, the mishpatim are the Torahs teachings whose purposes are obvious
and that Judaism shares with all other legal systems; these are sometimes called the rational
laws. The chukimand the law of the red heifer is considered the ultimate exampleare those
mitzvot that do not appear to have a particular purpose and whose meaning, as far as we can
discern, is in its performance; the fulfillment of the prescribed act is its own reward (Sifra,
Acharei Mot 10). Yhudah HaLevi (c.10751141) called these commandments divine laws and
explained that the purpose of such mitzvot as the prohibition on mixing linen and wool, or the
laws of kashrut is to enhance communion with God, and that they are beyond reason.2 Many
of these instructions that HaLevi considered to be divine laws were dismissed by early Reform
Jews as purely ritual.

Maimonides, always a rationalist, insisted that the distinction between rational mishpatim and
irrational chukim is a false one. If we could only understand the social circumstances in which
they came about or their psychological underpinnings, then all of the mitzvot could be
explained. For Maimonides, the distinction between chukim and mishpatim refers to our human
understanding of the utility of the mitzvot, not to their ultimate value (Guide to the Perplexed
3:2728, 3132). Maimonides approach to Torah reminds me of Einsteins approach to the
unknown in science: there is a logic and sense to everythingwe just have yet to figure it out!
Others claim that we cannot purport to compare our own wisdom with Gods and that is human
hubris to try to do so. The chukim, they teach, are acts of love; for example, we honor the
sometimes irrational requests or apparently random quirks of family memberscooking a
favorite dish, setting something down justso on the left or right side of the plateand take
pleasure in expressing our love and caring in these ways. So we can fulfill the mitzvot in the
same fashion.

Contemporary Reform Jews fulfill the mitzvot for many of the same reasons as prior
generations have done. We may choose to honor and take on a historical mitzvah because it is
part of our Jewish identity, and links us to history and community. This is a common reason
among many Reform Jews for why they choose to maintain some level of kashrut observance;
attention to the mitzvahis a daily reminder that one is a Jew and can link us to the generations
before and the wider Klal Yisrael (household of the Jewish people). My personal observance of
many mitzvot is motivated, in large part, by my understanding that this is what Jews doand
my own personal actions, of course, contribute to the enduring validity of such a statement; as
a Jew, therefore, this is what I do (see Eugene Borowitz, The Autonomous Jewish Self,
Modern Judaism 4:1 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, February, 1984], pp. 3957).

Maimonides is emphatic that while every mitzvah has an overall purpose, there is no rational
reason for the specific how to details (Guide to the Perplexed 3:26). For the Rambam, the
overarching purpose of the mitzvot is the perfection of the human soul, and all of the
commandments ultimately serve this purpose. For us, too, we are motivated to fulfill the mitzvot
because they are good for us and help us grow in holiness and character; thus, for example,
Judaisms strict rules about what is and is not appropriate speech (lashon hara and shmirat
halashon) are sometimes hard for me to honor but I know that the discipline that these mitzvot
ask of me do indeed help me to become the person I seek to be.

A third reason liberal Jews honor the mitzvotis because we find in them a path to spiritual
fulfillment, and a route to intimacy and closeness with God. When we are seeking to improve
our skills with the goal of competing or performing, we engage in practicethis practice is in
preparation for, and different from, the performance. Yet many of us also have a practice
whose entire purpose and realization is found in the practice itself; as the Rabbis taught, the
reward of a mitzvah is the mitzvah (Salomon Buber, ed. Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus, chapter
5).

I, like you I suspect, am not always consistent about what motivates my Jewish commitments;
at different times, I can give varying explanations for my various practices. Further, rarely are
these differing reasons exclusive; often, all three factors, to different degrees, are present for
me. Yet I have also noticed that I can be quick to judge others when their motivations and
reasons for fulfilling specific mitzvot strike me as inappropriate or wrong; although I may myself
use a differently nuanced version of the same value in a different context. Do you ever find
yourself evaluating and critiquing others explanations for their own choices and standards of
observance?

As for the red heifer, it is reported that King Solomon could explain the basis for all of the
mitzvot except this one (Bmidbar Rabbah, Chukat 19).

Rabbi Yoel H. Kahn is the rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Berkeley, California.

1. Mishnah, Pirke Avot 5:22, see Pirke Avot: A Modern Commentary on Jewish Ethics, trans.
Leonard Kravitz and Kerry M. Olitzky (New York: UAHC Press, 1993), p. 89

2. Kuzari 1:98 c.f. "Commandments, Reasons for," Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Michael
Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, sec. ed., vol. 5 (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007) pp.
8590

DAVAR ACHER |

Parashat Chukat
Michael S. Friedman

In his commentary, Rabbi Kahn focuses on the concept of chukim, which he adroitly defines as,
those mitzvot that do not appear to have a particular purpose and whose meaning, as far as
we can discern, is in the performance; the fulfillment of the prescribed act is its own reward.

However, while Rabbi Kahn uses kashrut as a blueprint for how to find meaning in a chok,
law, the red heifer is quite a different story. There are many who have found meaning in
observing the mitzvah of kashrut, even if we dont know why we are commanded to observe it.
However, the mitzvah of the red calf is impossible to fulfillboth because no red calf has been
found in Israel in 2000 years and because the Temple no longer stands. We cannot perform
this ritual no matter how much we may desire to. So how are we to find meaning in a chok
when we simply cannot fulfill the prescribed act? By definition, the performance of the red
heifer ritual cannot be its own reward, as Rabbi Kahn says, if it cannot be performed.

Perhaps this is not as much of a problem as we might think. In fact there are a number of
mishpatim (teachings whose purpose are obvious, according to Rabbi Kahn) that are also
extraordinarily difficultif not impossibleto fulfill. For example, a reasonably conscientious
person can observe most of the first nine commandments without too much difficulty. But the
tenth commandment begins with the injunction, You shall not covet . . . (Exodus 20:14). Most
of us avoid murder, theft, adultery, and idol worship. We do our best to honor our parents and
to observe Shabbat in one way or another. But who among us can say that he or she does not
covet? I wonder if we could go a single day without coveting something that someone else has.
The injunction to avoid coveting is as difficult to fulfill as the ritual of the red heifer. But
nonetheless a life lived without coveting is a life lived well. As the Mishnah teaches us, Who is
rich? One who is satisfied with his portion (Mishnah, Avot 4:1, translation by author). As with
the red heifer, in the attempt to avoid coveting, the fulfillment of the prescribed act is its own
reward.

Rabbi Michael S. Friedman serves as associate rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York, NY