{"id":59261,"date":"2019-07-11T11:07:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T08:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=59261"},"modified":"2022-08-11T16:41:40","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T13:41:40","slug":"mourning-song-and-paradoxical-decrees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/mourning-song-and-paradoxical-decrees\/","title":{"rendered":"Mourning, Song And Paradoxical Decrees"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[484,817,752,448],"acf":{"old_id":"59261","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36663,"related_cahpter":"1052","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Perhaps not everything is meant to be explained or understood","content":"<p>The Talmud contains a lovely principle, that for the Jews, God created the cure before the disease (Megillah 13b) so that even when there is something difficult or perplexing there is a way to heal from it.\u00a0Perhaps that is the spirit to guide our understanding of this inexplicable and paradoxical law of the \u201cred heifer\u201d with which the portion of Chukkat (Numbers 19: 1- 22:1) opens.<\/p>\n<p>One of the things that we can learn from the &#8216;decree&#8217; of the red heifer (19:2) is that not everything is meant to be explained.\u00a0This\u00a0is hard for us humans, who want rational explanations and big data to back up decisions and understanding of things. But sometimes it is better to just accept that there are aspects of the law that are beyond our full understanding.\u00a0The ashes of the heifer have the capacity both to make someone unclean (19:9-10) as well as to cleanse them (19:11-12).<\/p>\n<p>Rabbi <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.timesofisrael.com\/answered-prayers\/\">Jeffrey Woolf notes<\/a> the necessity of involving others in our mourning process, that just as the ritual describes the necessity for the clean person to sprinkle water upon the person defiled by death (19:19), those in mourning need others to help lift them out of their despair and grief.<\/p>\n<p>Moses and Aaron are struck by the death of their older sister Miriam immediately after this ritual (20:1).\u00a0Perhaps the awareness of death and the required ritual for how to cleanse and heal from it helped prepare them for the death of their sibling?\u00a0Aaron too dies in this portion as punishment for his cooperation with Moses in failing to sanctify God\u2019s name at the waters of Meribah (20:23-29).\u00a0Aaron\u2019s death, being stripped of his garments and left on Mount Hor to die of exposure, seems cruel. The details given contrast with the simplicity of the report of the death of Miriam in Kadesh, \u201cshe died there and was buried there\u201d (20:1).<\/p>\n<p>And yet,\u00a0enigmatically,\u00a0there is also the Song of the Well, the sole poetry in this part of the Torah, in Numbers 21:17-18: \u201cThen Israel sang this song: Rise up well, answer to it.\u00a0The well hewed out by princes which the nobles of the people began to dig with their own staffs.\u201d\u00a0The word for \u201cstaff\u201d is \u201c<em>mechokek<\/em>\u201d which is translated by Qumran texts (cited by Jacob Milgrom in his JPS commentary), as \u201cinterpreter of the Torah.\u201d <em>Mechokek<\/em> shares the two root letters \u201c<em>chet<\/em>\u201d and \u201c<em>kuf<\/em>\u201d with \u201c<em>chukkat<\/em>\u201d suggesting a connection between decrees we can\u2019t understand and the ability to sing, in song and poetry.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Among the grieving in this portion &#8212; for Miriam and Aaron and the accounting of the final sin that causes Moses to die before entering the land of Israel \u2013 there is also song, incomprehensible as it may be.\u00a0 Some things just can\u2019t be explained.\u00a0 Perhaps that is a significant aspect of being mortal and human.<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":94156,"id":94156,"title":"job13-faith understanding questions","filename":"job13-faith-understanding-questions.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/job13-faith-understanding-questions.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-need-to-understand\/job13-faith-understanding-questions\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"job13-faith-understanding-questions","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":94140,"date":"2021-06-12 20:53:34","modified":"2022-08-11 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