NALLEH.COM and YU TORAH Indulgence And Intellect Parshat Chukas 5775 By: Mrs. Shira Smiles

Parshat Chukas begins with a paradigmatic law known as a chok, consistently defined as a mitzvah to which we can ascribe no human, logical reason but which Hashem nevertheless requires of us. One must take a completely pure red cow, without blemish, and upon which a yoke has not come, and bring it to the kohain. The cow is then slaughtered and completely burnt. Its ashes mixed with water and a few other ingredients will then become the medium through which anyone contaminated through contact with the dead can become purified. The illogical element, though, is that while the ashes of the red cow will purify the impure, it will contaminate those who were involved in the preparation of its ashes. This defying of reason is perhaps the main reason parah adumah, the laws of the Red Cow are chosen as the model of a chok, and indeed of our acceptance of every mitzvah in the Torah, whether or not we understand it. Click here for Summary by Channie Koplowitz Stein.