Numbers Cycle Three Chukoth 19:1 to 22:1

Chukoth

I'm posting this d'var Torah in honor of Rabbi Mel Gottlieb (a great teacher and a friend) who shared the wisdom that set the spark for this teaching.


In the parsha Chukoth there is a momentous occasion. Moses and the Israelites cross the Arnon brook. In Deuteronomy 3:26 they do the same. This is what we expect in Deuteronomy, a book that reflects Exodus and Numbers in the perspective of Moses himself. What’s important though is not so much the crossing of the brook as the conversation that comes afterwards. Here, Moses begs God to let him into the Promised Land. And God responds rav lecha. Enough of this. Enough for you. You have taken on enough.

Rav lecha. This, in my opinion, is the mantra for Chukoth. To prepare us, in Korach we find this expression used twice, from Korach to Moses and from Moses to Korach. You might say this is where the volley begins before the ball goes bouncing into Chukoth. And where does it land? Into the very word chukoth, into the ritual around the red heifer, into the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, the thirst and complaining of the Israelites, the water from the rock, the madness caused by the snakes, and (last here but there are more) into Zered where the generation finally dies off so that, according to God’s word, we can enter the Promised Land.

Rav lecha. Here’s a more interpretive meaning. It’s time to stop, re-evaluate the situation. It’s time to breathe into a transition, to let go of our human instinct and to rise or fall into faith. It is a sharp reminder of our spiritual work on this earthly plane. Perhaps, we are being told, to get over it, to stop clinging to our body with all of its emotional/intellectual chains.

In terms of the idea of chukoth, rav lecha infers the necessary faith we must show in the face of a rule that we can’t momentarily grock. Let’s compare the chukoth to the mitzvoth. The first we do even if we think we don’t get it. The second we do because we think we get it. In truth, the words from God are often so far above our level that trying to wrap our brains around them is like stepping into a cesspool of ego. A chuk sometimes is not about us now. It’s about what we might do in a year or another lifetime or a past lifetime or in the world to come. The object is to bring in these statutes, drink them and trust they are not poison. This alone is holy work.

As for the red heifer, this chuk is the archetype of faith. Supposedly, even King Solomon didn’t understand it. After all, it’s paradoxical. Why should that which purifies the dead…ie the priest…become impure? Why a red heifer? Why a heifer at all? Just a little research into talmud and we are flooded with interpretations. In the long run, in traditional Judaism the law of the red heifer is the one that does not have a reason to it. Dance around it as we might, we are (for the most part) not tzaddicks or prophets. We want to learn to say rav lecha to our minds that want to play tricks and wind around an animal that can’t speak for itself, explain its reason for being while still providing the purification that we so desperately need. We want to take part in the rites (their meaning concealed) simply to fall into the flow of a higher offering and share in the push and pull of divine sparks between the dead and the living. We want to honor and be in the process of God even if, God forbid, we don’t know what God means.

The whole idea of mortality has the idea of rav lecha integrated into it. At some point, our bodies need to accept that they have done the work, that it is time to let the soul return to a heightened plane. We need to allow a communal cleansing, the dying out of our very generation so that we can enter the Promised Land. We need to realize that while the very essence of God can come from a physical action (ie hitting a rock for water) this is really only a rough attempt. The higher we can propel our energy, the higher realms we will reach (Rabbi Nachman). We need to say rav lecha to the stick and the rock and focus on the mind’s eye, the inner light, the glory of a radiance that can pierce a well so deep from God’s lips that sticks and rocks are placed aside forever. We need to understand that the embracing of rav lecha is a great healing, from madness, from our egos, our obsessions. In the end we need to know when to say rav lecha to rav lecha. After all, without one there is not the other. Without life there isn’t death. Without Moses there isn’t Korach. And perhaps that’s what Moses fails to realize and why, in the long run, he can’t enter the Promised Land.

So, may we all look forward to learning about the red heifer when we enter the realm of angels. May we enjoy our banter about her for now and take part in the mystical for the sake of God. May we cross brook and land in our Torah so that one day we may carry enough knowledge concealed within us to stand before the throne. And may we laugh and cry with joy when yes, we finally know what we no longer feel the need to know. And simply shine with love.