“And God spoke to Moshe and Aaron saying: This is the
statute of the Torah which God commanded, saying: Speak to the children of
Israel that they take to you a red cow, perfect, without a blemish, upon which
no yoke was placed.”
~ BaMidbar 19:1-2
This is the statute (Chukas) of the Torah.
Because Satan and the nations of the world taunt Israel, saying: “What is this
commandment? What is the reason for it?” Therefore the Torah refers to it as
Chukas, a statute. I decreed it and you are not permitted to question it.
~ Rashi on BaMidbar 19:2
Rashi’s comment instructs us that the commandment to take a
pure red cow, burn it, and use its ashes to purify those contaminated through
contact with the dead (19: 3-22) is offered without any explanation or
symbolism as to why the ritual effects purification. The strangeness of the
ritual, and its lack of rationale, has been used by other nations as a reason
to mock the Jews.
This brings to mind, for me, the mishnah in Pirke Avot:
“Antignos of Socho received the tradition from Simon the Tzadik. He used to
say: Be not like servants who serve the master on the condition of receiving a
reward. Rather, be as servants who serve the master without the condition of
receiving a reward. And let the fear of Heaven be upon you. “ (1:3)
It may well be that part of the reward for observing many
mitzvot is the knowledge that there is a satisfying reason for the commandment.
For example, we show kindness to strangers because we were strangers in Egypt,
we honor our parents because we are instructed that this is linked to the
prospects of long life, etc. Looking through the prism of the above cited
mishnah, we can see that one possible lesson of a commandment such as the one
to prepare the ashes of the red cow may be that we should aspire to a higher than
usual level of service to God – one in which any ‘reward’ of rationale is
absent. Such service may be less reassuring (because we don’t know why we’re
doing it) but, conversely, it demonstrates much greater dedication.
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