CHUKAS, NUMBERS 19:1–22:1
This week’s Parshah, CHUKAS is difficult; we learn about:
1. The laws of the red heifer, whose ashes purify a person who has been contaminated by contact with a dead body.
2. The death of Miriam and the people’s thirst for water.
3. Moses is commanded to speak to a rock and command the rock to give water. Moses strikes the rock instead. Water gushes forth, but Moses is told by Hashem that neither he nor Aaron will cross the Jordan and enter the Land.
4. Aaron passes away, and the Israelites mourn his death.
5. Snakes attack the camp. At Hashem’s direction, Moshe fashions a bronze snake that protects and heals the people. A thousand years later King Hezekiah destroys this serpent.
6. Moses leads the people in battles against Sichon and Og and conquers their lands.
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In the Parshat Chukat at 19:2, Moshe and Aaron are commanded regarding a type of statute known as a חוק
זֹ֚את חֻקַּ֣ת הַתּוֹרָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּ֥ה יְהֹוָ֖ה
“This is the statute ( חוק ) of the Torah which the Lord commanded…”
A חוק is a law that has no rational basis, such as the Laws of Kashrut. We keep kosher because Hashem commands us to do so. We do it out of love, as a means of coming closer to Hashem. Perhaps in the future as our understanding grows, it is possible that we will comprehend the basis for the חוק. And then what was once a חוק will now be Mishpatim, laws that have a rational basis.
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In the Parshah at 20:8,
קַח אֶת-הַמַּטֶּה, וְהַקְהֵל אֶת-הָעֵדָה אַתָּה וְאַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ, וְדִבַּרְתֶּם אֶל-הַסֶּלַע לְעֵינֵיהֶם, וְנָתַן מֵימָיו; וְהוֹצֵאתָ לָהֶם מַיִם מִן-הַסֶּלַע, וְהִשְׁקִיתָ אֶת-הָעֵדָה וְאֶת-בְּעִירָם.
“Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and speak unto the rock before their eyes, that it gives forth its water; and you shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock; so you shalt give the congregation and their cattle drink”.
We needed water, but how much?
Our encampment looked something like the Azraq temporary refugee camp in Jordan.
The Azraq temporary refugee camp provides a good approximation of what is needed in terms of basic human requirement.
The camp houses about 35,000 people, half of which are children. The camp is divided into four districts.
Thirty five liters of water per person per day is needed to meet daily needs. Water comes from a well and is delivered by trucks. Women line up at the water distribution points
Families live in temporary dwellings. There is no cement or concrete construction. Each dwelling has a floor space of 24 square meters and can take a maximum of five refugees. Each group of six dwellings share lavatories. Boredom is a big problem.
It was probably the same back then.
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In the Parshah at 21:33 we learn that the Bnei Yisrael fight against King Og of Bashan, the giant. Og is huge and sleeps in an iron bed that measures 13 feet long by 6 feet wide.
We are yet in the final years of the Bronze Age. It will take the materially more advanced Philistines several more years to bring iron into our Land. And we did not yet possess the know how to smelt iron from iron ore.
So where did Og get enough iron for his special bed? Part of the answer is found in Egypt in the tomb of a Bronze Age pharaoh known as King Tut. In his tomb is found a dagger made of iron, a special kind of iron only found in meteorites.
We will learn in Devarim at 8:9 that our Land contains stones of iron
This must be the same source of iron from which Og's iron bed was fashioned.
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In the Parshah at 20:12 we learn that Moshe will not be entering the Promised Land. I think that Moshe, a matchless charismatic leader who led us from slavery and out of Egypt and who truly loved the Bnai Yisrael has lost much of his following. The ten spies exhibited a loss of confidence in him, likewise the Korach rebellion shows the discontent among the Tribes, of the firstborn, of the Reuvenites, of Dathan and Abiram, of the Leviim and in all of the Bnai Yisrael across the board.
Tragically the time for a new leader is approaching.
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At Numbers 21:1 we learn that the Canaanite king of Arad waged war against us. And he took captives. We wanted to fight back, but first we made a vow to Hashem…Hel[p us and whatever cities we capture we will consecrate them to the Lord. Hashem heard our voice and we defeated the King of Arad.
In this instance the Israelites did not have to fight for themselves, something of a new situation. We had to fight the enemy without having a miracle, completely naturally.
Do you think this change advantageous or disadvantageous for the nation?
What we understood was that although victory could not be attained without God’s help, in war we have to fight on our own with natural tools, a test of our independence.
The bottom line is victory can only be achieved if we remember the source of our strength and success.
The Haftarah portion is from Judges 11:1-33. It is the story of Jephthah, a renown warrior from the land of Gilead which is under attack from the Ammonites. Gilead is east of the Jordan River and is the portion given by Moses to the Tribes of Reuven, Gad and the half Tribe of Manasseh. Gilead had been taken from Sichon and Og.
Jephthah had been driven out of Gilead by his brothers, 1:3:
וַיִּבְרַח יִפְתָּח מִפְּנֵי אֶחָיו, וַיֵּשֶׁב בְּאֶרֶץ טוֹב; וַיִּתְלַקְּטוּ אֶל-יִפְתָּח אֲנָשִׁים רֵיקִים, וַיֵּצְאוּ עִמּוֹ.
“Then Jephthah fled from his brothers, and dwelt in the land of Tob; and there were gathered to Jephthah men with nothing to lose, and they went out with him”.
If Jephthah and his men will fight against the Ammonites, and will be successful, he will be the leader of the Gileadites...and so it happened.
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ASSIMILATION: A CONSEQUENCE OF EXILE
This week we begin the month of Tammuz, a month named for a Babylonian deity. It is an example of how assimilated we became when we were exiled to Babylon in the 6th century BCE.
Psalm 137 tells of our profound sadness and longing for Jerusalem at that time.
I like Boney M's rendition:
Tammuz is the god of the harvest; he was loved by the goddess Ishtar. She was known as the goddess of prostitutes, and her alternate names of Har and Hora gave rise to the terms “harlot” and “whore”.
Tammuz was killed by a boar. Ishtar was devastated by his death. When Tammuz died, all vegetation died. Humans animals would no longer mate, and the Earth, herself, was dying. Ishtar journeys to the netherworld and revives Tammuz saying: "Great Tammuz is reborn, the fruits of the Earth are ours once more. Bring them forth, let us enjoy them!"
You can see the inroads of assimilation in our texts at least as far back as the prophet Ezekiel. In the Book of Ezekiel at 8:14 consider this verse:
וַיָּבֵא אֹתִי, אֶל-פֶּתַח שַׁעַר בֵּית-יְהוָה, אֲשֶׁר, אֶל-הַצָּפוֹנָה; וְהִנֵּה-שָׁם הַנָּשִׁים יֹשְׁבוֹת, מְבַכּוֹת אֶת-הַתַּמּוּז
Then He brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat the women weeping for Tammuz."
At that time Jewish women were ceremoniously mourning for the pagan god Tammuz..shame on us.
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