Chukat

There have been many attempts to find a red heifer that is suitable for the temple service spoken of in the Torah portion of Chukat. This is being done even in cooperation between Jews and Christians. This can be seen as a sign of the soon coming Messianic era. The Temple Institute is preparing everything for the rebuilding of the sanctuary. This includes preparing all the vessels for the temple, the vestments for the priests, and also looking for a suitable red heifer for purification. Prophetically, this can only be done fully by King Messiah with divine help.

Bamidbar/Numbers 19:2 says,

Chukat means “statute of”. A statute, in Hebrew, is a chukah or a chok. There are three different words for types of commands in the Torah - 1) a ‘chukah’ or ‘chok,’ usually translated as ‘statute,’ 2) a ‘mitzvah,’ usually translated as ‘commandment’, and 3) a ‘mishpat’, or a ‘judgment.’ The Hebrew word, chok or chukah has a connotation of permanence, like something etched in stone, much like a statue. Rabbis often teach that a chukah is a type of command for which we can not understand it’s purpose. We must simply accept it.

Our sages say that the laws concerning the red heifer are extremely difficult to understand, so much so that the Midrash Tanchuma says that the wisest man on earth, King Solomon, even found them baffling. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai said that it sounded like magic - to burn a red heifer and mix its ashes with living water, and sprinkle the water for ritual cleansing. Kabbalists teach that when Mashiach comes, He will teach us the Torah of Mashiach, also known as the New, Heavenly or Inner Torah. This supernal Torah of Mashiach will explain fully all the statutes, including the mysteries of the red heifer.

The Chabad Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, dared to look into the meaning of the mysteries of the red heifer even before the revelation of Mashiach’s Torah. He taught that just something is called a chok, chukah, or statute, that doesn’t mean that we can’t know anything about its inner meaning, even if we may not understand everything fully. The first statute given to the children of Yisra’el is the statute of Passover sacrifice. We know much about the meaning behind it. The Rebbe taught that just as the Passover sacrifice alludes to the redemption from Egypt, the red heifer alludes to the final redemption and the resurrection.

The red heifer was actually sacrificed outside the temple. It’s ashes were mixed with living water, and then this mixture was used to sprinkle in ritual ceremony to purify those that were made ceremonially unclean by direct or indirect contact with a corpse.

Most of the sacrifices are forbidden outside of the sanctuary, however, the red heifer is different. It is actually a sacrifice that is not dependent on the temple. On the contrary, the temple is actually dependent on the red heifer sacrifice. Uncleanness from a corpse is transferred from even being in the same building as a corpse, as well as touching people who are unclean in this way. Therefore Jewish law renders everyone unclean from birth, especially in these days when we have no red heifer to make the special purifying waters. The sacrifices and services of the temple require the ashes of the red heifer for both the priests and the worshiper who is giving the sacrifice.

Before we can reinstitute the temple services, we must be ceremonially clean. Before we can be ceremonially clean, we must be sprinkled with the water with the ashes of the red heifer for purification. But before we can make this water of purification, we need a priest who is ceremonially clean. But we can’t have a priest who is ceremonially clean without the red heifer! This is quite a paradox, with no obvious resolution. I have come to the understanding that whenever we come to a situation that is seemingly impossible, it is another sure sign of our need for divine intervention, our need for Mashiach. This is exactly how Rambam solves this problem, by saying that the next red heifer will be prepared by King Messiah.

Rambam states that,

Our Torah portion also states in Bamidbar/Numbers 19:9,

A Hasidic Jewish commentary, Tzemach David in Yalkut Mashiach, Chukat, states,

“And I will forgive your sins, as though you had been purified by the waters of sprinkling and by the ashes of the heifer sin-offering, and you shall be cleansed of all your defilements.”