The Parah Adumah We Still Have

 By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah (www.bircas.org)

The parsha opens with the words “This is the chok – decree – of the Torah.” The mitzvah being introduced is parah adumah, the red heifer. A person who became ritually impure through contact with the dead would be purified by having the ashes of the red heifer mixed with water and sprinkled upon him. Yet those who prepared the purification water themselves became impure in the process. It purifies the impure and makes the pure impure. No logic can explain it.

Rashi (Bamidbar 19:2) says the word chok signals that this is a mitzvah we cannot understand. The nations of the world and the yetzer hara — our evil inclination — taunt us: “What kind of mitzvah is this?” The Torah’s answer is: we do it because Hashem commanded us, not because we understand it.

The Beis Halevi is troubled by a question. If parah adumah has no reason, why does Rashi himself later (Bamidbar 20:22) bring the Midrash which seems to say that it has a reason. The Midrash says that it serves as an atonement for the sin of the Golden Calf? If there is a reason, how can we call it a chok with no explanation? Furthermore, the parah adumah was given even before the sin of the Golden Calf.  Rashi (Shemos 15:25) says that the mitzvah of the parah was given in Marah before they reached Sinai. How can it atone for something that hadn’t happened yet?

The Beis Halevi’s answer goes to the heart of the whole parsha. He explains the deeper message of the parah adumah. It not only teaches us about this particular mitzvah but on all the mitzvos. When one does mitzvahs, even the ones that seem to have a reason should not be performed because of that reason.  They should be done because Hashem commanded them and we want to do Hashem’s will. If a person does a mitzvah because it makes sense to him, then when his reasoning fails him, or when his logic leads him somewhere else, he will follow his own understanding instead of Hashem’s. The parah adumah — a mitzvah that visibly defies logic — stands as the reminder: we do what Hashem says, not what we understand.

This is also the connection to the sin of the Golden Calf. When Moshe Rabbeinu did not return from Har Sinai at the expected time, the people panicked. They had relied on Moshe as their connection to Hashem. Without him, they thought, how would they connect? So they did what seemed logical to them: they built the Golden Calf, which is one of the four figures of the Kisei HaKavod, the Divine Throne. They genuinely thought they were finding a path to connect to Hashem. But that was exactly the sin. You cannot connect to Hashem through your own logic. Hashem could only provide the way to connect to HIM. The parah adumah is a tikkun — a rectification — for that sin, because it trains a person to do something without understanding it, to follow Hashem’s will rather than his own.

Rav Shimshon Pincus adds that the Golden Calf involved a second sin. The pasuk says “the people rose up to make merry” (Shemos 32:6) — and Rashi explains this included immorality and bloodshed. The people were also following their physical desires. Rav Pincus explains that the red color of the heifer represents physical and material drives. Burning the heifer is an act of rejecting those desires. It is a tikkun for the pursuit of self-indulgence — declaring that we nullify our desires before the will of Hashem.

So parah adumah stands for two things: nullifying our own thinking in front of Hashem’s wisdom, and nullifying our own desires in front of Hashem’s will. How does a person actually get there?

The Rebbe of S’lonim gives us some advice. He says, make sure your deepest ratzon — your core desire — is to do the will of Hashem. A person has many smaller desires pulling at him from different directions, but underneath it all, there should be one dominant desire: to serve Hashem. The Gemara in Brachos expresses this beautifully in the words of the Amoraim: “It is our will to do Your will. What gets in the way? The yetzer hara and the pressures of exile.” The core desire is already there. We just need to cultivate it.

The Ramchal, in his Derech Etz Chaim, writes that the most powerful remedy against the yetzer hara is to pause a few times each day and ask yourself: Why am I here? What does Hashem want from me? What is the purpose of my life, and what will become of me in the end? The more a person thinks along these lines, the stronger his ratzon to do Hashem’s will becomes.

The Rebbe of S’lonim added something more. The Mishnah in Avos (2:4) says: “Make your will like His will, so that He will make His will like your will. Nullify your will before His will.” These are two levels. First, “make your will His will” which means when you do a mitzvah, don’t do it out of habit or routine. Put your heart into it. Think about how much you love Hashem and how much you want to do His will. Do it with full feeling. Once you have trained yourself to invest your heart in mitzvos this way, the second level becomes reachable. “Nullify your will before His will” — even when your own desire pulls you somewhere else, you can override it, because your connection to Hashem is already strong.

The parsha gives us another powerful insight. In the very section dealing with parah adumah, there is a pasuk that reads “This is the Torah: a person who dies in a tent” (Bamidbar 19:14). Chazal in Brachos (63b) famously derive from this that Torah is only acquired by someone who “kills himself” over it — meaning exerting yourself fully in Torah even when it’s difficult.

What does this have to do with parah adumah? Rav Dovid Cohen explains that the Torah is placed here intentionally. Torah learning is itself a path to nullification. The Mishnah in Avos (sixth chapter) lists what Torah requires: minimal pleasure; minimal sleep; giving up on comfort and personal convenience. This is a way of subjugating our desires for Hashem

The Rambam, at the end of Hilchos Shemitta V’Yovel (13:13), describes someone who pours himself into Torah and lets go of all his other calculations — all his schemes for getting money or building a career. He trusts that Hashem will provide. He does not carry the world’s worries. He says that such a person becomes kodesh kodashim — “holy of holies” — and Hashem is with him always, giving him strength. This is a form of nullifying his thoughts before Hashem. He lets go of his own strategies and relies completely on Hashem.

Even if we do not have the parah adumah today, we have Torah. When one devotes himself totally to Torah, he gets the same tikkun that the parah adumah represents. Even besides that the Rambam added that he becomes very holy and close to Hashem.

When we were newly married, our father encouraged us to devote all our energy to learning. He discouraged us from pursuing material comforts, such as a car or a large house. “Live simply,” he would say. Live close to your Yeshiva so you can maximize your learning time. “Don’t let your mind become preoccupied with making money. Rely on Hashem.” At the time it seemed challenging, but we understood he was simply trying to help us reach a higher level.

May we be zocheh to have our thoughts and our desires fully aligned with the will of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.