Parshah Summary – P’sha
The parshah opens with Moses receiving the enigmatic laws of the “red cow,” the פָרָה אֲדֻמּה parah adumah, whose ashes are used to purify a person who has been contaminated by contact with a dead body. The name of the parshah, Hukat, is a form of the word חוֹק hok, which means “decree” or “statute.” The hok referred to here is this opening passage about burning the red cow and making a magic purification potion from its ashes. Due to the particularly obscure and bizarre nature of this practice, the rabbis came to see the word חוֹק hok to refer to any of the mitzvot that don’t seem to make rational sense. Next, after forty years of journeying through the desert, the people of Israel arrive in the wilderness of Zin. Miriam dies, and the people thirst for water. Hashem tells Moses to speak to a rock and that water will emerge from it. Moses gets angry at the rebellious Israelites and instead strikes the rock with his staff. Water issues forth, but Moses is told that neither he nor Aaron will enter the Promised Land. Aaron dies at Hor Hahar and his son Elazar becomes the Kohein Gadol (High Priest). After yet another eruption of discontent from the people, venomous snakes attack the Israelite camp. Moses makes an image of serpent out of brass and mounts it upon a pole, after which all who gaze upon the brass serpent are healed. The people then sing a song in honor of the miraculous well which, in the merit of Miriam, had provided them water in the desert over their forty year journey, and of which the water from the rock was yet another manifestation. Moses then leads the people in battles against the Emorite kings Sikhon and Og (who seek to prevent Israel’s passage through their territory), and conquers their lands, which lie east of the Jordan.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
וַיְדַבֵּ֣ר יְהֹ–וָ֔ה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה וְאֶֽל־אַהֲרֹ֖ן לֵאמֹֽר׃ זֹ֚את חֻקַּ֣ת הַתּוֹרָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּ֥ה יְהֹ–וָ֖ה לֵאמֹ֑ר דַּבֵּ֣ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל וְיִקְח֣וּ אֵלֶ֩יךָ֩ פָרָ֨ה אֲדֻמָּ֜ה תְּמִימָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֤ר אֵֽין־בָּהּ֙ מ֔וּם אֲשֶׁ֛ר לֹא־עָלָ֥ה עָלֶ֖יהָ עֹֽל׃ Hashem spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: This is the decree of the Torah that Hashem has commanded, saying: “Speak to the Children of Israel, that they should bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid..”. -BaMidbar (Numbers) 19:1, 2 Parshat Hukat
לֹא־אָמ֥וּת כִּֽי־אֶחְיֶ֑ה וַ֝אֲסַפֵּ֗ר מַעֲשֵׂ֥י יָֽהּ׃
I shall not die but live and proclaim the works of the YAH! - Psalm 118:17 Rabbi Yitzhak of Vorki taught on this verse: “In order to really live, a person must imagine that they are on the verge of dying, and accept their own death. And when they do so, they discover not that they are about to die, but that now they can truly live.” This teaching of Reb Yitzhak is the polar opposite of the advice we receive from Dylan Thomas: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light… Surrender vs. Resistance – which is the proper path? The answer, perhaps, is dependent on how we understand “death.” וְיִקְח֣וּ אֵלֶ֩יךָ֩ פָרָ֨ה אֲדֻמָּ֜ה – they should bring you a red cow… Rabbi Mordechai Yosef (a.k.a. the Ishbitzer) taught that the red cow, the פָרָה אֲדֻמּה para adumah, represents death: it is a living creature that is completely burned up, it is red, the color of the blood that bleeds out of a slaughtered animal, as well as the fire that destroys the form of the animal. But, “Death” is also a metaphor; it represents the past, that which is no longer present; the past is over already; it is dead: הַנֹּגֵ֥עַ בְּמֵ֖ת לְכׇל־נֶ֣פֶשׁ אָדָ֑ם וְטָמֵ֖א שִׁבְעַ֥ת יָמִֽים׃ – Those who touch the corpse of any human being shall be tamei (ritually impure) for seven days. - BaMidbar (Numbers) 19:11. The state of being טָמֵא tamai, “ritually impure” represents anger or resentment about something from the past: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light…” This is because feelings of negativity and judgment about something that has already happened keep us stuck; they are an expression of resistance. That “holding on” is the טומאה tuma – the quality that makes one unfit for engagement with the sacred, which is by its nature a function of Presence. This is why the symbol of death, the פָרָה אֲדֻמּה para adumah, cures one from the טומאה tuma, the contamination of death: to be cured from our resistance, we must accept whatever we resist; we must embrace it. And so, paradoxically, it is in embracing the past that we let go of the past, because being “stuck” means holding on to an idea of how it should have been. When we accept what has been, we are “soaked with the ashes of the red cow,” so to speak – we can let go of it. Then we become, once again, טָהוֹר tahor – purified from that clinging, that holding on, so that we can come fully into the present, into the sacred dimension of simply Being. How do we do that? How can we accept whatever we are resisting, so that we may let go of it? In other words, what are the “ashes of the red cow” we can use today? There’s a Hebrew cipher known as אתבש Atbash, in which each Hebrew letter is connected with another Hebrew letter, so that the first letter, א alef, gets connected with the last letter, ת tav. The second letter, ב bet, gets connected with the second to last letter, ש shin, and so on. In this way, we can substitute letters in words to come up with new words. According to Kabbalah, words that are connected through אתבש Atbash have a connection in meaning as well. An אתבש Atbash substitution on the word טָהוֹר tahor hints at an answer to this question of surrender: טָהוֹר tahor means a state of being spiritually whole and pure. Through אתבש Atbash we can substitute a נ nun for the ט tet, making nahor. Rearrange the letters, and you have וְרִנָה v’rinah – “and song.” This is exactly the power of song and music in general – to transform negativity and resistance not necessarily by turning away from it, but by turning into it. Why? Because music makes it feel good to feel bad – hence the blues, as well as a lot of mournful Jewish liturgy, the krekh of the clarinet in Klezmer music, and a thousand other examples. This is the miracle of music – it makes it feel good to feel bad – it transforms negativity without negating it, allowing us to accept and even embrace whatever it is we are resisting. And out of that “letting go” naturally grows the recognition that there is only One Reality – not “me,” on one hand, and that “thing I am judging,” on the other, there is just What Is – there is just Hashem – Reality, Being, God. As Rebbe Nachman said, “The most direct means for attaching yourself to God is through music and song. Even if you can't sing well, sing. Sing to yourself. Sing in the privacy of your home, but sing.” But why? How does music work anyway? זֹ֚את חֻקַּ֣ת הַתּוֹרָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּ֥ה יְהֹ–וָ֖ה... – This is the decree of the Torah that Hashem has commanded… In other words, the power of music is the great חוֹק hok, the mysterious decree of Reality, that this enigma has the power to bring us deeply into the depths of meditation and open to the Wholeness that we are. In this Shabbat Hukat – the Sabbath of the Mystery – may we remember to use our voices in to bring us more deeply into our meditation and into sacred space of Presence: “Even if you can't sing well, sing. Sing to yourself. Sing in the privacy of your home, but sing.”
Read past teachings on Hukat HERE
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