Our Moses

The parashah This week's reading is called Jukat (the rule) and discusses, among other topics, the Red Heifer. It deals with a process through which impurity from the dead was ritually purified. When a person was in contact with a dead person, or under the same roof as a dead person, they became impure. parashah It describes the purification process, which involved making ashes from a red cow and sprinkling them on the impure person twice in a week, to purify them.

All matters of the Torah have a modern expression, that is, even when a precept cannot be observed because the necessary conditions are not met (for example, in this case we do not have a Temple) and even when the Torah itself determines that this precept cannot be fulfilled (that is, on the part of the person there are no impediments, but the Torah says that it should not be done), even so, its conceptual content remains valid.

The Midrashim relate that when God explained the laws to Moses tumat met, Regarding the impurity of the dead, Moses was surprised and asked, “How will one be purified?” God replied that it would be through the process of the red heifer. There are many different types of impurity in the Torah, each independent of the others and with its own purification process. But Moses was only surprised when God taught him about the impurity of the dead. Evidently, this is a very serious level of impurity (In fact, in the writings of our sages it is referred to as avi avot hatumá the father of the fathers of impurity).

Conceptually, a dead person is someone who has no life. The Torah says (Deuteronomy 4:4), “You are united with the Lord your God; you are all alive.” We learn from this verse that union with God generates life, the opposite of death. It follows, then, that the idea of tumat met It is the disconnection from God. This is one of the reasons why the Torah calls juká (Irrational rule) to the Mitzvah of the Red Heifer, because, rationally speaking, once a person has become impure with the impurity of the dead, the most serious level of impurity (disconnected from God), there is no going back. This precept comes along and teaches us that even in that case there is a way to reconnect.

The same name (jukat The irrational rule teaches us the system of reconnection: one must access a level of the soul that transcends the rational, a level beyond which the defects caused by actions in this world cannot reach. In other words, there is a level of the soul that is never impure, that is always connected to God. But this level, in many cases, remains hidden, and it is the task of each individual to reveal it and utilize it in order to live a life conscious of God and recognizing His greatness and goodness.

To reach that level of the soul, we need the guidance of Moshe, which is why the Torah commands bringing the Red Heifer to Moshe (Deuteronomy 19:2). While a Kohen prepared it in practice, Moshe provided the spiritual strength to do so. In every generation, there is a Moshe who guides the Jewish people and gives each individual the strength to reach their own essence. This Moshe is the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of blessed memory, whose death anniversary was this week (Tuesday, June 11). By studying his teachings and following his guidance, we can still awaken within ourselves. Jewish The further away, the soul, so that it may reconnect to God.