Chukat
Numbers 19:1-22:1
Judges 11:1-33
The name of this week’s Torah portion, Chukat, is a word that refers to a mitzvah (commandment) that cannot be logically explained — in this case, the law of the ritual purification process involving a red cow.
Many mitzvot appeal to our senses of morality, of justice or of decency. When we adhere to such commandments, we accede to their usefulness or importance; we acknowledge them as necessary or meaningful acts.
But when it comes to a Torah law that defies rational explanation, our deference to such a law is not based on a subjective appreciation for the particular mitzvah, but rather is the expression of our innermost, essential bond with the One who has given us this mitzvah.
When we embrace a mitzvah that has no comprehensible explanation, we most purely express the core of our relationship with G-d. He is our G-d; we are His people. Our inextricable bond transcends rhyme or reason.
The Torah is not just our ethical mandate or just our religious code. The Torah is one with our very essence — each and every one of us — as Jews.
Note that the word chukat not only means “a supra-rational law” but also “an engraving,” for every single Jew is like a set of Moses’ stone tablets into which the word of G-d has been carved. The Torah is not something additional to what we are, but our very essence and being as Jews.
We are all aware that every Jew has a letter in the Torah. The name “Yisroel” is an acronym of the words “yesh shishim ribui osios latorah” (“there are 600,000 letters in the Torah”).
The number 600,000 constitutes the totality of the Jewish people when they became a nation upon leaving Egypt. Each letter represents a Jewish individual.
Greater bond
However, in our portion, the Torah tells us of the bond of a Jew and the Torah that is even greater.
In a Torah scroll, the ink is a separate entity from the parchment. The engraved letters of the tablets are not distinct from the stone. So too, the Torah is indistinguishable and inseparable from the essence of a Jew.
This week precedes the 14th yahrzeit of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of blessed memory, to be observed on 3 Tammuz (falling this year on July 6).
The Rebbe served as a model of the essential, seamlessly integrated Jewishness described above. In observing his conduct and studying his teachings, Jews couldn’t help but feel that Judaism is not something supplemental to their identity but the core of who they really are.
One understood that Torah observance is not mere external compliance to rules but an honest, heartfelt expression of one’s deepest and truest self.
Doing a mitzvah, it became clear, is the purest, most natural demonstration of our innermost self, an action that flows organically from our essence.
And this is not subject to change. It is who we are as Jews, regardless of the situation in which we may find ourselves.
In a century that saw two World Wars, the rise and fall of Communism, mass emigration of Jews to America, establishment of the State of Israel, the space age, the computer age and the information revolution, the Rebbe’s vision remained steady and constant.
He also imparted pure, deep and strong faith in all who listened to him. Even under the harshest oppression, under brutal Communist regimes, Chasidim survived and flourished.
One also notes the spirit of dedication that the Rebbe imparted to his followers, his shluchim (emissaries) and their children born and raised in remote communities. Looking at them, one marvels at their faith and steadfast Chasidic way of life.
Throughout the ages, great Jewish leaders have inspired their people to summon their potential for self-sacrifice in the face of persecution, poverty, and discrimination.
The Rebbe, however, aroused a sense of self-sacrifice even among Jews who enjoyed unprecedented freedom. He empowered them to withstand not the test of poverty but the test of affluence and comfort.
The Rebbe’s message was consistent: irrespective of conditions of time and place, the essence of a Jew, his or her Jewishness, does not change and is constant under all conditions and everywhere.
Rabbi Israel Shmotkin is director of Lubavitch of Wisconsin.
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