Torah Posting: חקת
We’ve gotten into the distinction between חקים (hukim, “decrees”) and משפתים (mishpatim, “judgments”) several times now, but we’re in another parashah with hok in the title, so let’s recap: Mishpatim are the laws that proceed from a rational principle and imply their own explanation. Hukim are the ones that have a mysterious basis, and contemplating them doesn’t help us understand the laws themselves so much as the particular character of the Divine Lawgiver who spoke them into being.
This is a pretty good demonstration of how different the indigenous Jewish religion is from the human-led philosophical approaches that would come in later via world-spanning empires, where you have to start from some abstract idea that God must be some kind of geometrically perfect surface of complete understanding, supremely logical to any human being who thinks about it, and not a character in a particular cultural story with perspectives and motivations and qualities. If you’ve been spacing out for the entire year so far reading along with me here, the Torah is about the latter.
And this parashah should make that quite clear, as we have one of the more famous hukim right at the beginning. It’s called חקת התורה — “hukat ha’Torah” — which feels a bit emphatic. The implication is probably mainly that it’s part of the Teaching, i.e. the download, which Mosheh received on the mountain, the core instructions. But there is a way to read it that means it is the key law or the emblematic law of the Torah. And it’s kind of a strange choice to our contemporary eye. What could it mean for this ritual law to be so significant?
The people are to bring to the Mishkan a red cow without blemish or defect, who has never borne the yoke of work. El’azar, Aharon’s son, shall be the supervising priest. The cow shall be slaughtered in his presence. El’azar shall sprinkle its blood seven times at the front of the Tent of Meeting, and then the cow’s entire body shall be burned. The priest shall add cedar, hyssop, and some dyed crimson wool — the same ingredients as in the ritual for purifying a victim of צרעת, leprosy — to the fire. Then the priest and the one who performed the burning shall wash their garments and bodies. They can reenter the camp after that, but they shall remain ritually impure until evening.
Someone else, who is ritually pure, then gathers up the ashes and deposits them outside the camp in a pure place. These ashes are to be kept for inclusion in water of purification, to be mixed in for ritual use. After that task, this person must also wash and remain impure until evening.
The text then returns to a subject we’ve seen before — the impurity incurred by touching a dead body — now specifying that these ashes are a required ingredient for re-purifying oneself after that. That impurity lasts for seven days, and it also fills the room where a person dies and any vessels therein. All of this needs to be purified by dipping a branch of hyssop in this water and sprinkling it on the impure people and objects on the third day and the seventh day. The person who does the sprinkling also becomes impure until nightfall as a result.
What does this add, and why is it held up as so significant? We’ve seen most of this before; the new part is the red heifer ashes in the purification water. The Talmud — famously — spends an inordinate amount of time parsing exactly how many white hairs or what-have-you are allowed before a red heifer is disqualified. The significance of this is the rarity of such a creature. It’s hard to maintain a supply of the ashes necessary for ritual purification before making offerings. This creates a delicate material balance that must be maintained in order for the children of Yisra’el to make offerings to our God at all.
With this parashah established as containing significant teachings about the spiritual importance of the purity of water, we turn back to the narrative. It’s the first New Moon of the 40th year (the dating for this is provided later, in the complete chronicle of the timeline of this book at the end) since the people left Mitzrayim to wander in the wilderness, and as promised, the first generation to leave is not going to make it. And sadly, at this point, the time has already come for Miryam the Prophetess, sister of Mosheh, to be called back to her Creator. She had, after all, displeased her Creator (and her brother) recently.
The text does not give the prophetess her due time here, though she is deeply elementally entwined with the action. Her name, at least in its Hebrew connotations (different from the Egyptian ones), is connected to the water. It means “bitter sea.” And here in the wilderness of Tzin, where she dies, the bitter waters overwhelm the people.
Actually, at first, the problem is the people have no water. Pretty serious problem. And once again, they rise up against Mosheh and Aharon, blaming them for leading everybody out here into the desert to die of thirst. This time, not only are they lacking in grain and figs and grapes and pomegranates, they don’t even have water.
Mosheh and Aharon retreat to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and fall on their faces, and God appears to them. God instructs them to take the rod — the one famous for other Mosheh miracles such as splitting the sea — assemble the community, and then order the rock to produce water, and it will. Mosheh takes the rod as commanded, and he and his brother gather the people in front of the rock.
Mosheh admonishes the people, calling them “המרים” — “ha’morim,” rebels, which could also be read as “the bitter ones.” He sort of boastfully proposes to get water for them out of the rock, and then he strikes the rock, twice, with the rod. Water pours out, and everyone drinks, but God is displeased. God didn’t say to hit the rock; God said to verbally order the rock to produce water. Because Mosheh did not have faith in God’s instructions, God matter-of-factly lays down one of the most consequential judgments in the Torah and the history of the Jewish people: Mosheh and Aharon will not lead the people into the land God promised them.
This place is then deemed the Waters of Merivah (מריבה), referring to the rebellion but also bringing in that pun on bitterness and the name of Miryam. A bitter sea indeed.
From here, the people need to cross the territory of Edom (Red), the descendants of ’Esav, brother of Ya’akov, who was renamed Yisra’el. Where we last left things with Edom was an uneasy peace between brothers. Mosheh, knowing the history, sends out messengers to tell them the whole sob story of their “brother, Yisra’el.” The messengers tell of the hardships and slavery in Mitzrayim and the miraculous liberation by God, and they request permission for the people of Yisra’el to cross ’Edom’s territory, promising not to go through fields or vineyards or drink water from their wells. ’Edom refuses them on pain of violence. No deal is possible. So ends the uneasy peace between brothers.
The children of Yisra’el take the long way around and arrive at Mount Hor. There, God informs Mosheh and Aharon that Aharon is now to die. He is not to enter the promised land, as we have recently learned, but the breaking news is that he is to die now. Mosheh is to take Aharon and Aharon’s son, El’azar, up the mountain. Mosheh shall strip Aharon of his priestly vestments and put them upon El’azar, the new high priest. After that, Aharon will die. The whole community watches them go up, and all this comes to pass. The whole house of Yisra’el mourns Aharon for thirty days. These thirty days — the idealized solar month — are a cultural standard for mourning observed in Jewish law.
This somber period ends decisively when the Kena’anite king learns the people of Yisra’el are coming. He attacks, and war for the land begins. Yisra’el — the nation personified — vows that the Kena’anite towns will be proscribed, wiped out, not even pillaged, in exchange for victory, and God heeds that prayer.
The journey must continue by a roundabout route to avoid the land of ’Edom, and once again the people rebel. This time, God punishes them by sending שרפים — venomous snakes associated with fire — which bite the people and kill many. This is enough to drive the people to repent and beg Mosheh to intercede, which he does. God then instructs Mosheh to make a copper figure of the snake and mount it, and anyone who was bitten will recover if they look at it. This works, and it also seems like some good desert magic to have on hand going forward.
The people continue their winding path into the land, and they’re getting into crowded territory. Here, the text refers to a Book of Wars that chronicles these places; that text is lost to time. Nearby is a place where God instructs Mosheh to gather the people for another miraculous production of drinking water. This time, the people sing a song, which is recorded here in the text, also naming these places, as though to encode the importance of these places and this geography to these people in law.
The next king Mosheh must entreat for passage is Sihon, king of the Emorim, a name that is infamous in Jewish liturgy. Mosheh offers Sihon the same deal he offered ’Edom: straight, quick passage without touching agriculture or wells. Sihon responds by attacking. Yisra’el defeats him and conquers his land. A song of victory is sung, also enumerating the places conquered. Then on to Bashan, and its king, ’Og, whose name is reviled in the same breaths as Sihon. Bashan is conquered as well. Then they march on and encamp in the steppes of Moav, which is across the Jordan River from the consequential city of Yeriho. Word spreads through the land that the children of Yisra’el are coming.
🐂
