Parashas Chukas

This week’s parashah begins with the laws of Parah Adumah, the red cow used to cleanse those who were t’mei’ei meis.

Why did the Torah choose to teach us this halachah at this point? It would seem that it was actually taught – and the Parah Adumah was brought – earlier, because we find that when the Bnei Yisrael were commanded to bring the Korban Pesach, some of them were impure. The Gemara (Succah 25b) tells us that their “eighth day,” the day on which they would have been able to bring the Korban Pesach – presumably the day after their second sprinkling with the ashes of the Parah Adumah – was a day after the korban was brought.

In last week’s parashah, following Korach’s uprising, we find that Hakadosh Baruch Hu  showed Klal Yisrael that He had in fact selected Moshe and Aharon for theit leadership roles. This responded to Korach’s primary complaint.

But Korach had done more.

He had publically mocked and derided the halachos Moshe had taught, insisting that they made no sense (see Rashi, 16:2).

Hashem therefore placed this parashah here: זֹאת חֻקַּת הַתּוֹרָה אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה ד' לֵאמֹר, These are the decrees that Hashem taught,  and as Rashi comments: There are those who will mock you… but this is a decree from me, and you  have no right to doubt it.

The laws are not Moshe’s, they are from Hashem. And He, in His Wisdom, issued them.

Even as we explore the taamei hamitzvos and the lessons we can learn from them, we must always remember that, in their essence, they are inscrutable to the human mind.

This parashah is the end of Hashem’s response to Korach, and it should echo to us, as we confront the mockery of Korach’s many contemporary heirs who deride the teaching of the Torah as transmitted by our chachamim.

May we be zocheh to the geulah sheleimah, when  all the Torah’s secrets will be laid before us to understand.

Gut Shabbos.