Chukat - Megadeath
Recognizing death as the gateway to life.
Sadly, the loss of life has become a daily reality in Israel. With the ongoing war in Gaza in the south, the constant barrage of missiles from Hezbollah in the north, and daily terrorist attacks from all sides and the inside, many of us are no longer shocked to hear about the deaths of our soldiers or civilians. And yet, the Jewish people can never become complacent about these losses because, unlike our enemies, we deeply cherish and respect life.
It's fitting that Parshat Chukat is permeated with the theme of death. It begins by detailing the laws of tumah, which require purification after coming into contact with a corpse or entering a tent where a corpse is present. A famous verse in this section, “adam ki yamut baohel” (a man who dies in a tent), is interpreted by our Sages to mean that for Torah learning to endure, we must "kill ourselves" over its study, dedicating ourselves with utmost intensity, even to the point of self-sacrifice. Thus, even the study of Torah is connected to the concept of death.
The Parsha also jumps to the 39th year of the Jewish people’s journey through the desert, where we are told that most of the generation that fled Egypt had already died.
The Parsha tells us about Miriam’s death, followed by Aaron’s death, which causes the loss of the protective Clouds of Glory, making us vulnerable to a lethal attack by Amalek. Moreover, the Jewish people are afflicted by a plague of venomous snakes, which symbolize death in the Torah.
In a less obvious way, the Parsha also deals with failure. The red heifer used for purification is considered an atonement for the sin of the golden calf, the ultimate failure of the Jewish people. We also read about Moshe’s failure to sanctify God’s name when he responds to the demand for water, a failing that leads to his death in the desert instead of reaching Eretz Yisrael. Moreover, the Sages in the Midrash reference Adam’s sin in this section, an act that represents the ultimate failure of humankind.
The title Chukat holds the key to why the Parsha revolves around failure and death. The word chok signifies a mystery, a mitzvah whose purpose we don’t understand. And for all of us, failure and death are the deepest sources of mystery. But as Jews, we don’t glorify death or take a nihilistic perspective. While we don’t deny death, we intentionally find ways to affirm life. We seek to purify ourselves after contact with a corpse to transcend the vacuum left by death, using Mayim Chayim, spring water, literally “waters of life”, as an antidote to death.
Our Parsha conveys the paradoxical message that without death, life cannot exist. To illustrate this idea, when God sent deadly snakes to punish the Jews for their behavior, Moses erected a copper snake. Those who were bitten but looked up at the copper snake would live, symbolizing that the very representation of death could bring about life.
In the Garden of Eden, the embodiment of Creation, there were two trees: the Etz Hachaim, the tree of life, and the Etz Hada’at, the tree of knowledge. But da’at/knowledge is a word that sounds like death, and fittingly, the etz hada’at brought death to the world. As the Zohar explains, Adam and Chava ate from the tree of da’at/death when they should have first eaten from the tree of life. However, even though they could have done things differently, that failure ultimately gave them a meaningful life. Adam and Chava aspired to be independent of God, achieving autonomy by choosing death. Ironically, without failure, death, chaos, darkness, and chukim—laws like the Red Heifer that represent the mysteries of life—we have no opportunity for personal growth. If we thought we’d live forever, our existence would lack the urgency and passion that make us fully alive. As we have often repeated, the book of Bamidbar tells how we learned to develop as individuals within the framework of a unified people. Chukat shows that we cannot create our unique identities within our nation without the specter of death.
We live in a time of deep exile when God is hidden from us; despite witnessing miracles since Israel’s inception to this day, we are surrounded by suffering and death. As the Chofetz Chaim noted, this dark time, before the era of Mashiach, is our greatest opportunity to exercise free will at the highest level. If we cope with life’s painful mysteries by choosing spiritual life—Torah, mitzvot, and support for the Jewish people and Israel—our choices will be to our credit more than at any other time in history. We must stay strong in the face of death, knowing that God’s ultimate purpose is to give us life.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Eliezer Hirsch