This led Rabbi Wolf Kelman, of blessed memory, to suggest that the law of the Parah Adumah, the red heifer, is a classic example of a PARA-dox! The sages explain that the Parah Adumah is a Khok, a statute or a law that we observe despite the fact that we can’t offer a logical explanation for its existence. We do it simply because God says so.

Many of the laws of the Torah are obvious and self-evident. We don’t have to dwell too long on “You shall not steal” or “Love your neighbor as yourself” to understand why we are told to observe these laws. Certain laws, on the other hand, defy logic. Why can’t I wear a mixture of linen and wool? What difference does it make whether or not I eat the meat that comes from an animal with a cloven hoof and that chews its cud?

This idea, of observing a commandment simply because the Torah says so, flies in the face of our modern sensibilities. We don’t like the idea of being told to follow a rule without a good explanation for its existence. We stopped doing that when we reached adolescence or maybe even before. Unquestioningly following God’s commandments appears to us as blind faith and superstition especially when the law is so “Para”doxical. It reminds us of fanaticism. So we feel torn. Reason demands an explanation for the things we do. Faith challenges us to trust powers greater than ourselves. We live in a state of tension. Which path should we follow?

So we wonder - why does the Torah contain this category of laws in the first place? What can we learn from the law of the Parah Adumah, the red heifer? I’d like to suggest that to understand the Parah Adumah we need to look at it in the context in which it is found. The Law of the Red Heifer only makes sense in the context of this entire Parshah. It can teach us something about living with contradictions.

If there was an English name for Parshat Hukkat it would be ‘Transitions.’ Here we move from the beginning to the end of Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness. What stands out in this Parshah is the death of Miriam as well as God’s decree that Moses and Aaron should die in the wilderness. It’s here that we’re told that Israel’s two great leaders can never enter the Promised Land.

Of course, there is a great deal of speculation about why Moses and Aaron were so punished. Many of us know the story well: The people come to Moses yet again complaining about the lack of water in the wilderness. God tells Moses to go take his staff and ‘talk to a rock.’ I can only imagine what Moses must have thought: “Talk to the rock? Now God wants me to talk to a rock? That doesn’t make any sense at all.” Moses did as he was told but in a moment of frustration and fury, he calls the people a bunch of rebels and he strikes the rock twice with his staff. God immediately responds: “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 I have given them.”

The story reads like a set up. After all, God had already sent Moses years before to get water from the rock and the first time God had told him to strike the rock with his staff. So why not do that again? God had even instructed him to bring his staff again this time. To what purpose, if he wasn’t going to use it?

God’s condemnation seems awfully harsh. After all, this is Moses and Aaron, two men who had given their entire lives to the people of Israel. And what you might not know is that in the verse immediately before this incident, we’re told in passing of the death of their beloved sister, Miriam. This was Miriam who had saved Moses’ life, who had been his confidant, and who stood at his side all these years. It’s easy to understand why Moses would go ballistic – he had not even gotten up from Shiva when the people started to complain. It is completely understandable why he would loose his temper. Yet God condemns him and Aaron to die in the wilderness. Just a few verses later God tells Moses to take his brother up on the mountain, to have him turn his priestly vestments over to Eleazar because Aaron is going to die.

Can you imagine how alone Moses must have felt? His sister was gone. His brother was dead. Moses was all alone. It would have been so easy for him to give up. He could have complained and said, “Life’s not fair. Why do I have to die? Why did my brother and sister have to be taken away from me? They were the only ones who really understood me. And now I’m alone to lead these people to the Promised Land – and even then I won’t get to enter the land. I’ve been condemned to die in the wilderness. It just doesn’t seem right.”

And God might have said: “That’s right Moses. Life is not fair or logical. I never said it was.”

You have to admit it’s terribly hard to like this God!

Maybe that is why the law of the Parah Adumah appears at the beginning of Parshat Hukkat. It teaches us that life is filled with mysteries and contradictions, and death is the most powerful one of all. Why do we have to die? With age comes loss – yet it is in age that we most need the ones we love. It seems so terribly unfair to rob the elderly of their loved ones. And how about those who are young – who are robbed of life before their time? No matter how you cut it life is unfair – it is full of bitter contradictions. Yet faith demands that we learn to go on living despite these contradictions.

The truth is, the commentators do offer a number of explanations for the Parah Adumah. Rashi quotes Rabbi Moshe HaDarshan, who explains that the Red Heifer was an antidote for the sin of the golden calf. “Let the mother come and repair the damage that the offspring has done.” Since the worship of the golden calf occurred because the people lacked faith in God – they must now repair their previous sins by accepting this law which is based on complete faith. Israel’s faith is their atonement. In other words, the whole point of the Parah Adumah is that it has no rationale – there are things in life that we must accept on faith, with trust in God. But the people could only see that once they had carried out the rite of the Red Heifer.

Human mortality is a mystery. It is filled with contradictions. It seems so terribly unjust. Why? Why do people have to get sick? Why do young people sometimes have to die? And why, having lived a full life, must someone spend their final years suffering? There are no answers to these questions, no inner logic or consistency to the way things turn out. Life just is.

And the only way to live life is to simply accept life as it is, even when it seems contradictory, sometimes even bitter. No one ever promised us that life could be lived without suffering and pain. Life doesn’t come with a 90 year guarantee.

Having said that, the Torah teaches us that there is still hope. In the end Moses rises up from his losses, his sorrows and disappointments and he continues to lead the Jewish people to the Promised Land. He knows that there are still challenges to be faced along the way. The people still complain, but he perseveres. And he comes to recognize that what counts is each moment. He listens as the people sing at Be’er, and rejoices as the people begin to succeed in their first acts of conquest. Moses, the stutterer, even learns to speak for himself.

The Hasidic master, Rabbi Yerachmiel Danziger, compares life to a piece of string which we stretch out and measure with our hand. The only part we can measure at any given moment is the section we hold in our fist. What has past is gone forever and what is yet to take place is not yet ours. All we have is the little bit of life in our hands – and we must make the best of it. We must learn to live with life’s contradictions just as the Kohanim had to learn to live with the Parah Adumah. Sometimes there is comfort in our ability to accept certain things as they are.

But what contradictions do we accept and which ones should we challenge? I always think of the well known prayer that is used in Alcoholics Anonymous:

God, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the
pathway to peace.

There is something supremely sensible about those words. They suggest that contradictions and hardships are not an anomaly or an injustice but a fact of life. Even they can be used to sanctify life.

Shabbat Shalom