This Shabbat, in addition to the regular Torah portion of Ki Tisah, we also read Numbers 19:1-22 describing the enigmatic purification ritual for corpse-impurity. A red cow is burned to ashes, diluted in fresh water, and sprinkled upon people who came into contact with a corpse. These instructions are introduced with the phrase “this is the statute of the Torah” (zot hukat ha-Torah). The rabbis of the Talmud interpret this phrase to mean that the ritual of the red heifer is a decree that we may not question, even though other nations may ridicule it on account of its irrationality and strangeness (Bavli Yoma 67b).
There is an important lesson here about living with commitment to a set of regulations even if we do not fully understand them. We should have the humility to recognize the limits of our understanding and acknowledge the mysterious and secret quality of deep wisdom and complex truths. However, this has not stopped commentators from ancient to modern times from trying to explain the details of this law anyway. We therefore wonder what is so sensitive about this ritual that its explanation should be so closely guarded.
An essential insight into this law is found in the midrash collection of Bamidbar Rabbah:
A certain idolater asked Rabban Yo?anan ben Zakai: ‘These actions that you perform seem to be a type of sorcery. You bring a heifer, burn it, crush it, and take its ashes. One of you becomes impure from a corpse, one sprinkles upon him two or three drops, and you say to him: You are purified.’
He said to him: ‘Has a spirit of insanity never entered you?’ He said to him: ‘No.’ ‘Have you seen a person into whom a spirit of insanity has entered?’ He said to him: ‘Yes.’ He said to him: ‘And what do you do to him?’ He said to him: ‘We bring roots, smoke them beneath him, and sprinkle water on it, and it flees.’
He said to him: ‘Let your ears hear what you express from your mouth. The same is true of this spirit, this spirit of impurity, as it is written: “I will remove the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land” (Zechariah 13:2). We sprinkle upon it the water of sprinkling, and it flees.’
This midrash gives voice to the criticism of the outsider. It is not simply that the purification ritual includes strange details. The questioner notices that the ritual has commonality with sympathetic magic. One of the principles of magic is that like attracts like, such that one uses an object resembling the thing one wishes to influence. Therefore, one can cure a sick person with a likeness of the disease in a smaller version (similar to modern vaccines).
In this midrash, Rabban Yohanan surprisingly agrees with the assessment of the non-Jew and explains the red heifer ritual essentially as an exorcism: One who has contact with a corpse is possessed by the spirit of death. To remove it, one takes a perfect and healthy red animal together with its blood, crimson dye, and a reddish wood—all symbolizing the essence of life. One burns the mixture together, thus concretely reducing the quintessence of life to a symbol of death (concentrated in powder form). By sprinkling the ashes on the impure person, like attracts like and removes the evil spirit. Modern anthropologists, in fact, think that the red heifer ritual has its roots in precisely such magical thinking.
We might be surprised by the suggestion that the Torah includes such a pagan ritual. It may come as a relief, then, to continue reading to see that Rabban Yohanan’s students were equally stunned in disbelief that Rabban Yohanan seems to agree with the idolater’s accusation that this ritual is an exorcism.
After he left, his students said to him: ‘You rebuffed this one with a reed. What do you say to us?’ He said to them: ‘As you live, it is not the corpse that impurifies, and it is not the water that purifies. Rather, the Holy One blessed be He said: I instituted a statute, issued a decree; you are not permitted to violate My decree, as it is written: “This is the statute of the Torah.”’
Rabban Yohanan clarifies that in fact there is no evil spirit of death and no magical ritual here. Rather, impurity is simply a legal status decreed by God and its purification ritual is similarly simply a decree of God that then allows us to enter the Holy Temple.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, like many others, explains this law psychologically: contact with a corpse can cause someone to feel depression and nihilism. Before the advent of psychotherapy and anti-depressants, people processed those feelings through a (probably healthier method of) ritual. The red heifer ashes, representing death being mixed with living water, represents the dilution of depression by life-affirming thoughts that can heal the person’s mind over the seven-day period of purification. Rabban Yohanan hints that this ritual may very well have its ancient origins in some kind of homeopathic magical remedy; however, the Torah thoroughly cleanses the ritual from its pagan associations while retaining its psychological power to heal. The Torah denies the reality and power of demons and ghosts, but nevertheless borrows some of the trappings of pagan ritual as a framework for true healing. This is beautifully expressed by the last midrashic statement that we achieve purity from God alone and our recognition that He directs the world with kindness and generosity. Therefore, life ultimately triumphs over death.
The Talmud teaches that this ritual is a “statute” (hok) that one may not question precisely to prevent one from erroneously thinking that it has any magical or pagan association. Instead, the Torah retains only an innocuous outline of the ritual, recognizing the psychological power of these actions to help us return to God and the Torah’s life-affirming message. Indeed, when personal, communal and national pressures raise our anxieties and make us feel stressed and disoriented, we can always ground ourselves in the bedrock of ancient wisdom, in the predictability of ritual, and in the ultimate light of Divine guidance.