Since the subject of death is treated extensively in this portion the theoretical question of whether there is any way to inoculate one’s self against death itself might be raised. On the one hand, the answer is quite simple. At the present time, all living things, including human beings, cannot live without eventually facing death. On the other hand, though there is no escaping death, humans can inoculate themselves against the fear of death, the fear of death’s finality. Chukat hints at how we can do this.
Although the Jewish tradition is unequivocal about the soul’s eternity and the existence of an afterlife, many Jews are unaware of this. Furthermore, even those Jews aware of these teachings may find that intellectual awareness and belief are not quite enough to comfort them when faced with the reality of their own deaths or the deaths of those close to them.
The Hebrew word for heifer, the animal whose ashes are used to purify those defiled by death, is “parah” (פרה). The red heifer is burnt until nothing but ashes – efer (אפר) – are left. Homeopathic remedies are also prepared in a very similar manner. The ingredients for the remedy go through a process of serial dilution where through intense shaking and spinning less and less of the original physical substance is left, until only the very essence remains. (Homeopathy, like vaccines and like the use of ashes from a dead animal to purify an individual defiled by death, is based on the concept of “like cures like.”)
Parah and efer contain two Hebrew letters, peh and reish, that are the same, while their third letters are heh (ה) and alef (א) respectively. The red heifer’s reduction to ash, reminiscent of the production of a homeopathic remedy, is represented by the heh of parah becoming an alef in efer. The letter alef has the numerical value of one and symbolizes unity and essence. This reduction to the essence is further hinted to by the heh, which is the last letter of the word “parah,” being replaced by an alef, the first letter of the word “efer.”
The message we can take from this process is that when we are connected to the essence and purpose of life there is nothing to fear from death. When one connects to the Creator and spends a lifetime fulfilling His will, death is just one more stage, one more step deemed necessary for attaining the ultimate good He has promised.
Just as a vaccination or a homeopathic remedy injects a weakened form of the very disease (or a similar one) that we want to be protected from, experiencing our own deaths is actually a very effective method of inoculating ourselves against the fear of death. The Torah alludes to this notion twice in Chukat. The first, which was mentioned in the first section of Chukat, is revealed by the Sages’ reading of the verse, “This is the Torah regarding a man who would die in a tent,” as referring to either an ego death or the individual’s assumption of a truly humble nature. “Killing” the ego or practicing self-nullification on an ongoing basis prepares us to accept our ultimate fates. By practicing existential humility we learn to trust God implicitly, even on matters of life and death.
The second beautiful allusion, a remez, relates to the red heifer. After the heifer is burnt with cedar and hyssop and only ashes remain, the ashes are put into a vessel (keli) and mixed with “living waters.” The word “keli” has the numerical value of sixty. In Jewish law, certain mixtures are considered forbidden. Yet, if a mixture is created (for example, dairy products are mixed with meat ones) and the ratio between the two is less than 1:60, the minority substance is considered nullified – as if it were not there at all – and the mixture is permitted. The numerical value of the vessel in which the ash is mixed alludes to the importance of self-nullification when confronted by the reality of death.
Parenthetically, the general importance of self-nullification in obtaining Torah knowledge is emphasized by the following mathematical gem. The numerical value of the Hebrew word for “Torah” is 611. When multiplying thirteen (the numerical value of the word “one”) by forty-seven (the numerical value of the word “bitul,” which means self-nullification) one comes up with 611 (Torah). This mathematical allusion mirrors the message of the verse, “This is the Torah regarding a man who would die in a tent.” True Torah knowledge is only achieved when an individual nullifies his ego in the face of God’s essential oneness.
Significantly, Rashi notes that both Aaron and Miriam, who pass away in this portion, die by way of the “kiss of God,” a process “as gentle as removing a hair from a glass of milk.” This image is certainly more comforting than that of death as a jarring transition from the brilliance of life to a dark and eternal pit. In fact, virtually all recorded near-death experiences describe death as a beautiful experience full of compassion. Describing death as receiving a kiss from God would no doubt minimize our fear of death and the unknown. In truth, the more we learn about the Jewish understanding of death and the afterlife and integrate these ideas deep into our consciousness the less we will fear death and the fuller life will be.
