Saturday 8th July 2022 10th Tamuz 5782
Parashat Chukat
Numbers 19:1-22:1; Judges 11:1-33; John 3: 10-21
We are in the last year of Israel’s forty year sojourn in the wilderness. Our parasha this Shabbat is called Chukat:
Num 19:1-6
2. This is THE DECREE of the Torah, which Hashem has commanded, saying - Speak to the Children of Israel, and they shall take to you a completely red cow, which is without blemish, and upon which a yoke has not come:
Moses is taught the laws of the red heifer, whose ashes purify a person who has been contaminated by contact with a dead body. Death is the most defiling of all contaminations because our God is the God of life!
The mystery of the ordinance of the Parah Adumah – the Red heifer – is that when applied according to the prescribed methodology, it can restore someone who has been contaminated by death. Yet, simultaneously, every priest who was involved in its preparation of this cleansing mixture, is themselves rendered unclean. It is a conundrum, a chukah, which defies logic and human understanding. You just obey because God says obey!
Erev Shabbat - OUR SPEAKER: Rabbi John Fischer
Shabbat Torah Service Shiur teacher: Arnold Salmonson