Chukat
Numbers 19:1 - 22:1
This week’s portion is called Chukat, which refers to the ritual law that God commands surrounding purification from contamination by a corpse. Contamination that results from contact with a corpse is mentioned elsewhere in the Torah, but here, the Torah prescribes the method of purification. In this rite, the blood on an all-brown ("red") cow is not offered on the altar. Rather, it is burned together with the cow’s body, so that the ashes may be used as an ongoing instrument of purification. While this was clearly an important issue to God and the Israelites, it is not one that we can readily identify with today.
The theme of death and dying, however, becomes a central theme far beyond simply that of contamination and purification. You see, over the course of this portion, Miriam dies, Aaron dies, and Moses is sentenced to die without reaching the Promised Land. We begin to see a real transition taking place among the generations of the Israelites. Little by little, the focus of our story has moved farther away from Sinai and closer to the challenge awaiting the Israelites of conquering the Promised Land. Most importantly, soon there will be no Israelites left who actually stood at Sinai, only Israelites who have heard about it from parents and grandparents. It is through their stories that our heritage remains alive.
In our personal lives, stories and memories stay alive through their transmission between family and friends. These historical nuggets often become an engrained part of our personal history so much so that we often recall things that we may not have actually experienced. We have heard the story so many times and seen pictures that we start to feel in our core that we were there and that we lived through that moment. This kind of “false memory” is an integral part of our experience as Jews.
As Jews we enact rituals so that we can create the memory of having experienced them originally. We listen to the sounding of the shofar just as our biblical ancestors heard the great blast of the ram’s horn. We gather at Passover to symbolically reenact the Exodus from Egypt. We observe Shabbat every week as a memory of God’s creation of the universe. Twice a year, when we read the Ten Commandments, we stand to hear them chanted just as the Israelites stood at Mount Sinai to hear their transmission. In fact the memory of this occasion is thought to be so strong that the Rabbis teach that we were actually all there at Sinai. All of us standing together. Hundreds of generations of Jews. Jews by birth and those who have converted as well as all the Jews to come. We were gathered together to hear God’s word. Is this a part of your memory? I was there, were you? Do you remember me? I think I remember you.
Shabbat Shalom,
Cantor Korn
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