The Red Heifer And The Cycle Of Life And Death

The Red Heifer and the Cycle of Life and Death “She changes everything she touches, and everything she touches changes.” –Starhawk “Speak O my soul, sing O my soul, Change is God, and Death is his prophet.” –Yehuda Amichai http://www.radicaltorah.org/2006/02/23/the-red-heifer-and-the-cycle-of-life-and-death/#more-45

In Numbers 19, which corresponds to the Torah portion of Chukat, the Torah describes the ritual of the red heifer: the ritual slaughter of a red cow with no blemish, and the burning of the cow together with cedar wood, hyssop, and red thread. The ashes of this cow are mixed with water and used as part of a seven-day ritual to purify those members of the community who have come in contact with death. Those on whom this “water of impurity” (mei nidah) are sprinkled become pure. However, all those who are involved in the making or administering of the water become impure. The ashes of the red heifer make the pure impure and the impure pure. Commentators have struggled for millennia to understand this strange ritual, often trhowing up tehir hands and declaring the rite a sign that mitzvot do not necessarily make sense. But the ritual does make sense, if we look at it from a more earth-based perspecticve, the perspective of the cycle of life. In a rabbinic story (Numbers Rabbah 19:8), a pagan challenges the sage Yochanan ben Zakkai by asking him: “The things you Jews do are magic! A cow is brought, burned up, pounded to ashes, and the ashes are gathered up. Then, when one of you is defiled by contact with a corpse, two or there drops of water mixed with these ashes is sprinkled upon that person, and the person is told: “You are now clean!” Rabbi Yochanan asks the pagan about his own people’s practices when someone is possessed by a spirit of madness. The pagan describes a similar custom of sprinkling water mixed with roots on the afflicted person. Rabbi Yochanan then says: “Do not your ears hear what your mouth says? A man defiled is like one possessed by a spirit. The spirit is the spirit of uncleanness, and when the water is sprinkled, the spirit flees.” The pagan goes away satisfied, but the students of the rabbi are troubled. They don’t like how pagan the rabbi’s answer sounds. They ask Rabbi Yochanan to give them a different answer. Rabbi Yochanan says: “As you live, the corpse does not defile, nor does the water cleanse. The truth is that the rite of the red heifer is a decree of the King of Kings…” Essentially, he says that the details of the ritual are meaningless. They simply comprise a ceremony God has commanded the Jewish people, and have no actual magical power.

But is there a way of reconciling the answer Rabbi Yochanan gives the pagan with the one he gives his students? Is the ritual magical or meaningless? What does the red heifer teach us about the nature of life, death, and the Divine? In biblical myth, impurity (tumah) is associated with the forces of mortality, which are also forces of fertility (childbirth, menstruation, seminal emission, and death), and purity (taharah) with the immortal forces of life (the Temple, the priests). Both of these states are necessary to a complete life. The fact that the heifer’s ashes make the impure pure and also the pure impure suggests that these ashes represent a change agent: they bring life into death and allow death to return to life. In other words, they represent the One who causes the living to die and brings the dead to life: who is not fully identified with mortality or immortality, but partakes of both. In this respect, the (female) heifer is a symbol of the Divine feminine: her ashes represent the eternal cycle of life, often associated with the Shekhinah, mother of souls and Sabbath, keeper of Torah and of exiles. In many cultures, the Goddess takes on this role of maintaining the circle of life. In this ritual, the red heifer stands in for the Shekhinah, the ultimate source of change. The one who receives the sprinkling after a death allows himself or herself to accept change and re-enter the flow of life. By becoming impure so that others can be pure, the priests act as humans who are part of the cycle of mortality and fertility, but who also touch the eternal. Like the deity, the priests and the ritual participants are dually identified: they partake of mortality and immortality. They have come close to death, yet they also experience rebirth. So Rabbi Yochanan’s two answers are both right. The ritual itself does not cause the cycle of life and death and life, it only symbolizes it, and in that respect it has no ultimate significance. On the other hand, the ashes of the red heifer have true spiritual power. They reflect, in a physical way, the sacred experience of the cycle of life, and allow those who have touched death to return to the ways of life. In that way, the rite may have had great impact on those who performed it, and did indeed chase away “the spirit of uncleanness.” We could use such a ritual today, and in fact some Jews do have the custom of washing their hands in a bowl of water on the doorstep when they return home from a graveyard. We read this story on Shabbat Parah, just before Passover, because the red heifer ritual was necessary to purify those who wanted to offer a Passover sacrifice. We also read it before Passover because Passover is the ultimate time of death and rebirth, propelling us toward change and the unknown. We also read the story in context in the month of Tammuz, a month of mourning for loss. Melinda Ribner, author of Kabbalah Month by Month, points out that not long after the ritual of the red heifer, Miriam and Aaron both die. Further, God punishes Moses for striking a rock in anger with his staff by decreeing that he will not enter the Promised Land. The Israelite people must move into a new generation of leaders. This larger story helps teach the meaning of the smaller story: that following God is about accepting change. Ribner also teaches that we read this story during the month of Tammuz to prepare us for the loss of the Temple, marked at this season of the year. The stories of the heifer and the deaths of the three prophets teach us to accept the past and move into the future. This entry was posted on Thursday, February 23rd, 2006 at 6:52 am and is filed under Adar I/II, Tammuz, Pesach, Hukkat ‫חקת‬.