Okay, folks, I understand that the mysterious mitzvah of the Parah Adumah, the Red Heifer, is a chok, a law beyond our full understanding. But why does it have to be introduced with the title, "This is the statute of the Torah" ("zot chukat haTorah")?
If we are choosing one aspect of the Torah to be representative of the whole document, why not pick something more famous, more dramatic? Like Shabbat, perhaps, or love of G-d. Why choose something so oblique that even the wise Solomon couldn't grasp it?
But that is precisely the point. The Torah wants to send us the message that the Torah is beyond logic, beyond science, beyond human reasoning, beyond the laws of probability. It cannot be presumed, assumed, second-guessed or second-nature.
It comes from HaShem and, like HaShem, it is essentially unknowable and not bound by the laws of empirical knowledge. HaShem defies logic and so does His Torah.
Logic tells us that the more advanced and enlightened a civilization becomes, the more virtuous it should be. So, go explain Rome or Germany. Logic dictates that sinful parents should beget sinful children. So, go explain Rivka and Rachel. Logic says that that people will always choose opulence over obligation. So, explain Moshe Rabbeinu. (Logic also says that any given baseball team will eventually win the World Series. So, explain the beleaguered Cubbies!)
Logic would have serious problems with life and purity emanating from a dead animal, but this is exactly what happens in the course of the Parah Adumah ritual of our sedra. While we cannot predict it or fully explain it, we do observe the model it creates: The tahor - pure - derives from the tamei - impure.
And so, Avraham can come from idolater Terach and Ruth from incestuous Moav. So, Moshiach may ultimately emanate not from the tzadik with the longest beard, but from the least likely source we might possibly imagine. The blackest dirt, say chazal in an apt summation, produces the richest fruit.
So, do not be too swayed by what society thinks is "right", by what pundits say is inevitable, or by what science insists is inescapable. HaShem has his own plan, and it will surely prevail.
Divine logic? The Torah wrote the book on it.
If we are choosing one aspect of the Torah to be representative of the whole document, why not pick something more famous, more dramatic? Like Shabbat, perhaps, or love of G-d. Why choose something so oblique that even the wise Solomon couldn't grasp it?
But that is precisely the point. The Torah wants to send us the message that the Torah is beyond logic, beyond science, beyond human reasoning, beyond the laws of probability. It cannot be presumed, assumed, second-guessed or second-nature.
It comes from HaShem and, like HaShem, it is essentially unknowable and not bound by the laws of empirical knowledge. HaShem defies logic and so does His Torah.
Logic tells us that the more advanced and enlightened a civilization becomes, the more virtuous it should be. So, go explain Rome or Germany. Logic dictates that sinful parents should beget sinful children. So, go explain Rivka and Rachel. Logic says that that people will always choose opulence over obligation. So, explain Moshe Rabbeinu. (Logic also says that any given baseball team will eventually win the World Series. So, explain the beleaguered Cubbies!)
Logic would have serious problems with life and purity emanating from a dead animal, but this is exactly what happens in the course of the Parah Adumah ritual of our sedra. While we cannot predict it or fully explain it, we do observe the model it creates: The tahor - pure - derives from the tamei - impure.
And so, Avraham can come from idolater Terach and Ruth from incestuous Moav. So, Moshiach may ultimately emanate not from the tzadik with the longest beard, but from the least likely source we might possibly imagine. The blackest dirt, say chazal in an apt summation, produces the richest fruit.
So, do not be too swayed by what society thinks is "right", by what pundits say is inevitable, or by what science insists is inescapable. HaShem has his own plan, and it will surely prevail.
Divine logic? The Torah wrote the book on it.