Earth and Ashes
In this parsha we begin with the mitzvah that is at one and the same time the most incomprehensible and also the one which gives us a path toward facing our worst fears. I am talking, of course, about the mitzvah of parah adumah, which deals head on with the spiritual and emotional results of coming into close contact with death.
The tumah of death is the gravest sort of tumah. In the face of death, our emotional and spiritual reaction is almost always despair. It is so final. We retain hope to the last second as long as someone is drawing breath. Even at the very edge of death, we will storm the heavens in prayer. But at the moment of death, we stand with no hope. We pray no more. We stand cut off.
Rav Schorr explains that tumah a blockage of our life force. The Hebrew word tumah is connected to the word atum, meaning impeded. The laws of tumah reflect this. That which is alive, like a plant connected to the earth, cannot become tamei. However, a plant which is picked from the ground becomes tamei with ease.
We were originally created completely tahor. Tahor is connected to the word tzohar, which means a translucent object that lets the light through. Something which is tahor is something which is connected to and expresses its life-force. This was our state in Gan Eden. Our bodies drew their life force perfectly from our souls. Every aspect of our bodies, up to and including the most external aspect, our skin, radiated that light. It was only after we sinned that we created a blockage between our life force and ourselves, between our bodies and our souls. After we sinned our skin became the covering it is now, which does not allow us to see our neshama radiating through.
We returned to a state of complete connection at the time of matan torah. Then, we were connected to the highest aspect of the Torah, the part that is beyond this world and connects us to eternal life. The Torah point out to us that words of the Torah were engraved on the luchot. Our Sages point out that this was an expression of the way our souls were connected to our bodies. Words which are engraved, unlike words which are written on paper, are words which are completely connected to the medium that holds them. At Matan Torah we were completely and inseparably connected to our souls. The result was a complete state of taharah. In the words of our Sages (Avot 6:2), “don’t read engraved, read freedom.” The complete connection to our souls freed us from death.
That was true until we sinned again and the luchot were broken. Mostly, we have lost our ability to be connected to the Torah at the level we were on at Har Sinai. However, we retain one impression of the level of the first luchot. That impression is parshat parah. The mitzvah of parah adumah begins with the words, “this is chukat hatorah.” Ramban connects this language to the word mechukak, which means carved out, or hollowed out. Parah adumah is a mitzvah which is carved out from the very essence of the Torah. It is a vessel for the life force of the Torah.
Parah adumah remains incomprehensible to us because it remains on the level of Har Sinai. It did not descend to our level, as the other mitzvot did. For this reason only Moshe Rabbeinu, who had no part in the chet haegel, was able to fully understand this mitzvah. Parah adumah remains connected always to Moshe and to his level. In every parah adumah there was always a bit of the ashes from the one that Moshe made.
Even though we can’t understand it, however, this mitzvah still it speaks to us. Specifically, it speaks to us through its ashes. What is ash? Ash is the burnt-out end from which nothing more can grow. In order to purify someone with the parah adumah we burn the heifer and sprinkle its ashes. However, when the Torah describes this process of sprinkling in Bamidbar 19:17, the word the Torah uses is not ashes, but soil. Which is a little odd, because soil is the opposite of ash. The Gemara specifically defines soil as the medium that cultivates new growth (Chullin 88b).
By using the word soil the Torah is sending us a message about the way we experience death in this world. We experience it as ash, as an end, as a state of being completely cut off. But that is not the truth. Life is eternal. Our soul is eternal. We cannot comprehend it, but we can experience it and know it. In every situation, there is a place for growth and moving forward. As Rav Shapiro explains, “The fearsomely novel insight of the subject of the Red Heifer is that even those parts that were worn out in the struggle, even those parts that seem to have transformed into ash—they too will bring about growth (Refections and Introspections on the Torah, Volume 5, p, 30).”
The chachamim tell us (Chullin 89a) that we received the mitzvah of parah adumah in the merit of Avraham, who said “I am but earth and ashes.” Parah adumah is a response to a world that is both earth and ashes. There are times that we feel cut off, and times that we feel connected. But our ability to give ourselves over to Hashem’s plan is the ability to reconnect to the eternal part of ourselves, and to move forward from any place, regardless of how hopeless or cut off it may seem.