Chukat (Regulations) B’midbar(Numbers) 19:1-22:1
Torah Portion: Chukat (Regulations) B’midbar(Numbers) 19:1-22:1
Haftorah Reading Judges 11:1-33
This Torah portion is one of the more difficult portions to understand on several levels. The name, chukat, gives us a hint to its difficulty. The word, when used as it is here, can mean regulations. The root of the word means to engrave, as in stone or metal, something that is meant to endure. Chok, the singular form of the word always means something that, on the surface, seems to be illogical or impossible to grasp. In our portion we read where the people involved in preparing the ashes of the red heifer became unclean. However, when those ashes were applied to a person, who was unclean from being in contact with a dead body, that person became clean again. For an Israelite, being unclean by contact with death meant they were excluded from worshiping G-d in the Temple. That person could not come into the confines of the Temple until they were cleansed by the ashes of the red heifer.