This week’s Torah Portion is Chukat. In it God instructs Moses and Aaron in the slaughtering of the red heifer. The ashes of the red heifer are to be mixed with water and used as a purifying agent for anyone in the community who has come in contact with a person who is dead. The law also says that anyone who is ritually clean who comes in contact with the mixture is then considered unclean for the rest of the day. This is a very mysterious portion of the Torah. The Rabbis could not explain how the ashes from the heifer could make the clean unclean and the unclean clean. We must remember Judaism is an ancient religion and we have lost the rationales for many of the passages in the Torah. We just don’t know ultimately what the story of the red heifer means. But God expected the Israelites to follow the laws of the Torah on faith. Faith is a cornerstone of religion. Sometimes we can not use our rational brain, we must tap into our spiritual self to get the most out of leading a religious Jewish life.
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