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June 25, 2004/Tamuz 6 5764, Vol. 56, No. 40
Assume the risks of responsibility
Torah study
RABBI SHLOMO RISKIN
Chukat/Numbers 19:1-22:1
One of the mysteries of the Torah is the law of the red heifer, a ritual by which an individual who has become ritually defiled by contact with a corpse is purified by a Kohen, priest. The Kohen sprinkles him with a mixture of the burnt ashes of a red heifer, water, cedar wood, hyssop branches and a scarlet woolen thread. (Numbers 19:1-6)
Even stranger than the ingredients is that while the person upon whom the mixture is sprinkled emerges purified, the priests involved performing the ritual become defiled. It is no wonder that the Talmudic Sages applied the words of King Solomon: "I attempted to be wise, but it only moved further away from my understanding" (Kohelet 7:23) to the mystery of the red heifer.
Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik compares the ritual of the red heifer to an individual drowning in quicksand. The rescuer who lifts the victim up from the quagmire will become soiled in the process. Those who prepare the mixture of purification are themselves defiled by it. Is it fair, my teacher asked, that those who attempt to purify become impure themselves? He explained that had religious leaders uplifted humanity to higher spiritual and ethical attainments in the first place, people would not become contaminated. Our leaders must leave the ivory tower of the bet midrash, study hall, and reach out to people wherever they are and in whatever state they are living.
As God tells Moses when he is spiritually ensconced in the ethereal realms of the heavens receiving the oral law: "Go down, descend from your supernal heights, because your nation is acting perversely with the golden calf; if your nation is sinning, what do I need you for?" (B.T. Berakhot 32a)
Religious leaders must assume responsibility for the sorry state of Jewish morality and sanctity. The heifer or calf, normally a symbol of maternal concern, commitment and nourishment, is described not as white and pure but as blood red and sinful.
Humans became vulnerable to death in the Garden of Eden as punishment for straying beyond the boundaries of conduct set by God. The worship of the golden calf, the sins of the lazy scouts in the desert, are acts of impurity that lead - at the very least - to spiritual death.
Such was the destiny of the desert generation. Why did these freed, empowered slaves opt to remain in the desert rather than conquer the Promised Land? They chose not to assume responsibility. As they wandered in the desert, manna descended from heaven to nourish them, divine rays of splendor gave them shelter, and a "cloud by day, pillar of fire by night" directed them when to proceed and where to rest.
Conquering Israel meant growing up, taking risks, assuming responsibility for the nation's destiny and fulfilling its mission to the world. Some of the Israelites felt too spiritually elevated to dirty their feet in the trenches (symbolized by the too-proud cedar tree); others lacked the courage and strength to face the unknown (symbolized by the too-humble hyssop). All were guilty of sin (symbolized by the scarlet wool). Moses, who had courageously struck a threatening Egyptian taskmaster at the beginning of his career, near the end of the journey was reduced to striking an inanimate rock in displaced anger against his complaining and rebelling nation.
The story of the red heifer offers a timeless message to every Jewish leader in every generation: Assume the risks of responsibility.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is the spiritual leader of Efrat, Israel.
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