In the Tanakh, Shiloh is an Israelite city in southern Samaria. Archeologists found a succession of settlements existing there for over 2500 years (from about 1600-1800 BCE to 700-900 CE), and exhibiting magnificent mosaics, coins, pottery, and places of worship (including an ancient synagogue). The remains from the Iron Age, which in Israel is around the First Temple era, led to the identification of the site with the Biblical Shiloh, where the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, stood for more than 350 years. Shiloh also appears on the Madaba map—a mosaic map depicting the greater Land of Israel and surrounding areas, found in Jordan and created in Byzantine time, around 600 CE—and the site is mentioned in the 14th century writings of the traveler Ashtori Farahi.
But in Shiloh, not only is the past famous and fascinating, but so is the present and possibly the future as well. For now red heifers are being raised there in hopes and prayer that, one day, there will be a Third Temple.
The parah adumah, red heifer, opens this week’s Torah portion, Chukat, and is considered one of the strangest chapters in the Five Books. A heifer, that is “red… without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid” (Numbers 19:2), is sacrificed and burned outside the camp. Cedar wood, an herb (ezov), and scarlet-dyed wool are added to the fire, and the remaining ashes are placed in a vessel containing pure spring water.
In order to cleanse a person who needs this process, water from the vessel is sprinkled on them using some of the ezov. This is done on the third and seventh day of the purification process. The kohen (priest) who performs the ritual then becomes ritually impure and must then wash himself and his clothes in spring waters. He remains impure until the evening of the day he sprinkled the water of purification.
We read this section twice over the course of the year. Once, when it appears in its Torah portion, Chukat, and once, on Shabbat Parah, the Shabbat of the (red) Heifer, when we declare the new month of Nissan. This is because the parah adumah procedure had to take place near the month of Nissan in order to purify the Children of Israel immediately after completing the construction of the Mishkan.
It is often accepted that the Red Heifer is one of those mitzvot that we just can’t comprehend, a chok. How can the same ashes that purify an impure person also make a pure person impure?
But another perspective is represented by the midrash. Midrash Rabbah Chukat 19:8 and Tankhuma Chukat 26 state that the mitzvot of the Red Heifer constitute a kind of correction for the sin of the Golden Calf:
It is a parable for the maid servant’s son who dirtied the king’s palace. The king said: Let his mother come and clean up the mess [lit. the excrement].
Thus said the Holy Blessed One: Let the Red Heifer come and atone for the act of the (Golden) Calf.
This midrash suggests that the parah adumah might have a discernible reason and explicit purpose. But what is it? Here are a few ideas that might help us understand and appreciate the connection drawn between the Red Heifer and the Golden Calf:
1. The mitzvah of the Red Heifer is called “chukah,” which is a word used for a law that is impossible to explain. Rashi writes that the language of chukah (Numbers 19:2) means that “it’s a decree before Me and you are not allowed to ponder after it.” At the incident of the Golden Calf, we thought and tried to understand godliness; we even tried to create it and worship it as we saw fit (through the golden sculpture). But the Torah teaches us that the opposite is true: Though we pursue our learning, there’s a limit to our knowing. Only when we surrender to God’s will, can we worship God wholeheartedly and completely. Sometimes, we must just submit to chok.
2. The CHiDA (Rav Chaim Yosef David Azulai, 1724-1806) explains that it is usually impossible to transgress the entire Torah all at once. For example, even if one eats chametz on Pesach or does not fast on Yom Kippur, those mitzvot are circumscribed to their place and time. Indeed, even as one transgresses either of those mitzvot, one might still observe many others. However, with regard to idolatry, one can transgress the whole Torah in one moment! The parah adumah is described as a “chukah of the Torah.” Therefore it can uniquely serve as atonement for idolatry, because through it we take upon ourselves the “chukah (law) of the [entire] Torah,” the explainable and unexplainable mitzvot before us.
3. Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch (1808-1888) looks at words and roots in Hebrew. The Hebrew word for calf, egel, shares its root with the word for circle, igul. The Golden Calf is even described as an egel masecha, literally, a “masked calf” or a “mask of a calf” (Exodus 32:8), possibly shaped like a circle. This interpretation can help explain what the Children of Israel did wrong at the Golden Calf.
Accordingly, it was their being in a state of an igul, a circle, going around and around, focusing only on themselves, ultimately reaching nowhere. While this might seem like a harmless pattern, the Torah tells us otherwise, Indeed, we were not given life in order to do nothing and go nowhere.
What is the solution, or the “atonement,” to this aimlessness? The heifer. How so? The Hebrew word for heifer, parah, comes from the same root used in pru u’rvu,“to be fruitful and multiply.” The parah symbolizes an energy of growth and development, and stands for generativity and creativity. It symbolizes our desire and need to contribute, to add in a positive way, and do good in the world. The solution to the calf’s “navel-gazing” is, therefore, the desire to give and do, to grow and create.
The Red Heifer still leaves much unknown. Perhaps, more than any one commentary, it reminds us to accept that we are not all-knowing; to remain curious and interested even when we cannot comprehend what is before us. Simultaneously, it also calls on us to step out of the calf’s insular, circular route. Although at this point in our history, we cannot partake in the ancient ceremony itself, we can raise our heads to see the other, and work jointly to engage fruitfully and productively to better our world.
From Haifa, Israel—Shabbat Shalom.
