CHUKKAT

FROM TALMUD AND MIDRASH

Pesikta Rabbati 14:65a
Why the Parah Adumah?

“The ashes of the red cow
shall be used for water that removes impurity,
as a statute for all time.”
(Numbers 19:21)

A gentile once asked Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai:  The things that you do with the parah adumah (cf. Numbers 19:1-22) seem like magic.  You obtain a cow, burn it, crush it, and pour water over its ashes.  If one of you is defiled by a human corpse, you sprinkle two or three drops and declare, “You are pure!”

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai asked the gentile:  Have you ever been invaded by a bad spirit?  No, said the gentile.  Well, then, asked the Rabbi, have you ever seen what they do to cure one who has been?  The gentile answered: They turn roots into smoke under him, pour water upon him, and the bad spirit goes away.  Said the Rabbi: Do your ears hear what your mouth is saying?  The bad spirit is the spirit of impurity, as is written: “I shall also make the false prophets and the impure spirit pass away from the Land” (Zechariah 13:2)!

When the gentile left, his students said to him: Rabbi, you refuted him with a reed, but how would you answer us?  The Rabbi said to them:  A corpse does not defile, and water does not purify.  Rather, it is simply a statute of God.  The Holy One, blessed be He, said:  I have made a statute, issued a decree, which you are not permitted to transgress—“This is a statute (chukkat)  of the Torah which the Eternal has commanded…” (Numbers 19:2)!

Another question about parah adumah:  While all the other offerings are male, why is this one female?  Said Rabbi Ayvu:  It may be likened to a handmaiden’s child who soils the palace of the king. Says the king: Let the mother come and clean up her child’s mess.  Thus said the Holy One, blessed be He: Let the cow come and atone for the incident of the calf (cf. Exodus 32)!