This Shabbat, abroad, is Parshat Chukat. The red heifer, one of those laws that you have no understanding of what it’s about. How could a red heifer with no blemish attain atonement for the Jewish people?
How could one who came in contact with a dead body become pure, but he who prepared it becomes impure?
The first word of the parsha reveals what it’s about. The parsha’s full of mystery, things we don’t understand. Moshe Rabeinu for 40 years was the most loyal leader and he took the Jewish people out, did all the miracles for them. But he makes one mistake and he can’t go to the Promised Land and he’s punished.
Aaron and Miriam died in this week’s Torah parsha. They don’t make it to Eretz Yisrael. The whole generation that left Egypt and was in bondage in Egypt all die out.
But there’s another part of this parsha that’s a chok we can’t understand, beyond our comprehension. And that’s anti-Semitism.
The Jewish nation is traveling to the Holy Land. They want to pass through the land of Sihon. They want to pass through the land of Edom. They ask permission.
Everyone in the world knows tourism is good economics. It’s good for business. Am Yisrael promises, “we disturb your peace, derech hamelech nelech, we’ll take the main path. We won’t deviate to the right or the left.”
But Sihon didn’t let. Edom didn’t let. And that intense hatred, to cut your nose to spite your face, was already around then.
We see today all around the world the rampant anti-Semitism in America, all throughout Europe. This is part of the chok of this week’s parsha, of something beyond our comprehension, something we can’t understand.
We’re praying and hoping God should reveal to us the end game finally. We should be privileged to get that pure water that will bring back life to the Jewish people, the Jewish nation, and God willing we’ll be able to have revealed to us all that we went through and all that the Jewish people had to go through.
And, God willing, we’ll be privileged to celebrate this coming Thursday instead of the fast, it will turn to sasson v’simcha, to great, great joy.
Shabbat Shalom.
