Chukath: Edicts

This year, I have a  different, perhaps improved understanding of  Chukath, the title word of the parsha.  Chok, the root of the title word of this week’s means parsha, means an edict, and executive order. It is arbitrary and it  is not to be questioned.  This sense of the word is derived from chokek, inscribe. A chok is validated because it is written. It has not been discussed in a legislative body and is not subject to judicial review. The chok in this week’s parsha is Divine in origin. I am becoming increasingly familiar with human edicts.

Chok also means an allotment, a fixed amount designated by the government to a specified set of people.  It was the chok that Pharaoh distributed to the priests of Egypt that allowed them to keep their land and independence while everyone else became a serf. (Every edict has winners and losers.) An allotment is always finite, taxes must be limited

Our parsha deals with both aspects of the chok: the arbitrary and the measured.

The limit of a person’s lifespan is a chok in both senses. It is a defined allocation. An obituary usually starts with age; a person lives for a set number of years. Lifespan also has an arbitrary and indisputable quality. It is almost always too short. Appeals and attempts to lengthen it meets with very limited success.

It is weird to talk about the limited life span today, the day after the birth of our newest  granddaughter. The cultural norm is to avoid the topic of death until there is no choice but confront it, when a relative dies. My parents avoided the subject even then. The disappeared were reported to have moved to California ( a place they imagined close to heaven).

However, by virtue of my age, and the chok established in Eden, I am in the pool of candidates that will generate the first conversation about death (or a move to a faraway nice place). From that position, the birth, and the continuity it entails, is far more than a comfort.  It is the epitome of joy.  It comes with a hope that some part of whatever is good in me can survive, thrive and grow in her (and in all our children and grandchildren) .

Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, dies immediately after the details of purification from corpse tumah ( impurity)  are stated .Clearly, the text was arranged to juxtapose a death to the means of purification from the tumah that death brings.

Focusing on the ritual impurity of death deflects some of the pain from the loss. It takes seven days to get over contact with the dead; and a thorough, effective purification requires arrangements to be sprinkled with the precious ash water described in this parsha. That water is no longer available. No one can ever attain enough purity to enter the Temple – with all the implications that entails.

Declaring death as the epitome of impurity emphasizes the value of life.   War devalues life. The lives of the enemy, those threatening the clan, are disposable because of their threat. The lives of soldiers can be the price of peace. It all worked better when the battles involved personal survival. It evolved into protecting ideas... much more difficult.

 

In the parsha, the story that follows, which involves the fatal error of Moses and Aaron – striking the rock- presages the fact that Moses and Aaron will die before the nation  enters the Promised land. Moses and Aaron losing their leadership  can be seen as the fulfillment of Korach's demand, minus the glorification of Korach and his rebels.  Leading the Israelites out of Egypt was Moshe's chok, his portion.  Bringing them into the land was not part of the deal. It could never be. Every gift has its limits.

 

To have allowed the water to flow from the rock, without the physical intervention, would have left the people led by Gd alone (cf. Samuel’s response to the people’s demand for a king). Striking the rock asserted Moshe's leadership. Moshe felt the people needed a leader.  Even as he approached the age at which he would die, the age proscribed in Genesis, he held onto that leadership. The apportionment cannot be violated: chok velo yaavor. This is the divine right of the Divine.

 

Psalm 148 has the line:

 

חׇק־נָ֝תַ֗ן וְלֹ֣א יַעֲבֽוֹר׃

establishing an order (chok) that shall never change.

Most of the events, including the most important, are out of human control. They are subject to rules that cannot be violated. We live inside those limits.  Make sure those limits are real.