Beyond logic, toward holiness

This Shabbos we read the combined Torah portions of Chukat and Balak.

Our Sages teach that there are three categories of mitzvot.

The first are known as Mishpatim, commandments that are readily understood by human reason. Even without the Torah, a civilized society would recognize (we’d hope) the importance of prohibitions such as murder, theft and similar laws governing human conduct.

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The second category is Eidut, commandments that serve as testimony to our relationship with G-d. These include mitzvot such as observing Shabbos and the festivals, putting on tefillin and other practices that express our faith and identity as Jews.

The third category is Chukim, from which this week’s Torah portion takes its name. These are commandments whose reasons lie beyond human understanding. Examples include the prohibition of shatnez (the mixing of wool and linen) and the laws of the Parah Adumah (Red Heifer), which are discussed at the beginning of this week’s parshah. In this mitzvah, the ashes of the Parah Adumah are mixed with water and sprinkled upon a person who became impure through contact with a dead body.

The mitzvah of the Parah Adumah is particularly striking because it appears to defy logic. Those involved in preparing its ashes become ritually impure, yet those same ashes are used to purify someone who is impure. It is a mitzvah that transcends human reason and reminds us that our relationship with G-d is not limited by what we can understand.

In the second parshah, Balak and Bilam also behave in a way that goes beyond reason, but in a negative sense.
After witnessing the Jewish people’s miraculous victories, Balak enlisted Bilam to curse them. Bilam understood full well that he could not act against G-d’s will, yet he persisted, motivated by hatred and the hope that he might somehow succeed, nonetheless.

In the end, however, Bilam was compelled to bless the Jewish people instead, uttering some of the most beautiful and powerful blessings recorded in the Torah.

This Shabbos also coincides with the 12th of Tammuz, the day the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, was released from Soviet imprisonment after being arrested for his efforts to preserve and spread Jewish life under communist rule.

He tirelessly established chadarim (Jewish schools) and mikvaos (ritual baths), which were outlawed by the communist regime, and many of his followers involved in this work were sent to Siberia, or killed.

His courage and self-sacrifice reflected the same message embodied by Chukim: that a Jew’s commitment to Torah and mitzvos is not dependent on logic, convenience, or circumstance, but on a deep and unwavering bond with G-d. At a time when the Soviet regime sought to uproot every trace of Jewish observance, he stood firm and refused to yield and the effects are felt until today.

The connection between these themes is powerful. There is a form of transcending reason that is rooted in arrogance, stubbornness, or hatred, as seen in Balak, Bilam and the communist opponents of the Rebbe. Yet there also is a holy form of going beyond reason — one rooted in holiness, faith and submission to G-d’s will. That is the spirit of Chukah.

This week’s parshah reminds us that we each possess the ability to live with that strength: to rise above obstacles, doubts and calculations, and to remain steadfast in doing what is right, deepening our connection with G-d through Torah study and the observance of mitzvos.

Good Shabbos. PJC

Rabbi Shneur Horowitz is the director of Chabad Lubavitch of Altoona, Pennsylvania. This column is a service of the Vaad Harabonim of Greater Pittsburgh.