[Ed. Note] Out of the respect and recognition of the impact made by longtime BJL friend and contributor, Reb Shaya Gross, z’l, we will maintain a living memoriam to Shaya through the sweet words and thoughtful insights of his Divrei Torah. BJL readers will remember his weekly column on the Parsha and on various Torah ideas and concepts. These meaningful words will help us remember this special young man who will be sorely missed and for those who did not merit to know him, this will be the most appropriate way for them to become familiar with who he was.
The Mitzva of Para Aduma discussed in our Parsha is the quintessential chok; a Mitzva that to us doesn't make any sense. One aspect that clearly seems incomprehensible is that it is used to purify impure people, but those involved in the process become impure themselves!
In fact Shlomo Hamelech writes in Koheles that he understands the entire Torah except for Para Aduma. In addition, the Medrash tells us that Hashem told Moshe, 'only to you will I explain Para Aduma'. No one else will understand it until the days of Moshiach.
Hashem is purposely withholding the understanding of this Mitzva. Why??
The Ba'air Yosef explains that it is in order to teach us a very important lesson. Namely, that there are things in life that we are unable to understand. There are paradoxes like righteous people suffering and wicked people having great wealth and power.
Para Aduma is THE Mitzva that is there to remind us of this fact.
The Shibolei Haleket writes that twenty four cartloads of holy Sefarim were burned on the Friday of Parshas Chukas. The Magen Avraham brings a custom to fast on the Friday of Parshas Chukas to commemorate that burning. Why do we follow the day of the week that it was on, and not the calendar date, like we do by all other fast days and Yomim Tovim????
It’s brought down that they were told in a dream that the fast is observed specifically on the Friday of Parshas Chukas, the day right before we layn Chukas, because the Parsha starts off "Zos CHUKAS Hatorah" and the targum is ‘this is the DECREE of the Torah’. The Parsha is symbolizing to us this principle that there are things in this lifetime that we humans cannot understand.
May we all take this lesson to heart and try to accept with simplistic faith all challenges and difficulties that come our way, even when they seem to be counterproductive and make no sense to us. May this serve as our continual attempt to atone for all the incidents where we questioned G-d throughout history.
