Parshat Chukat 

On Friday night we recite two times in our prayers and one time in kiddush, the sanctification of Shabbat on a cup of wine, the passage referred to as Vayachulu:

“Now the heavens and the earth were completed and all their host. And God completed on the seventh day His work that [asher] He did, and He abstained on the seventh day from all His work that [asher] He did. And God blessed the seventh day and He hallowed it, for thereon He abstained from all His work that [asher] God created to do” (Genesis 2:1-3).

Various commentaries point out that the above passage contains the word asher, “that,” three times, similar to the three times the same word is used in the opening verse of the Torah portion of Chukat:

“This is the statute of the Torah that [asher] God commanded, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and have them take for you a perfectly red unblemished cow, that [asher] has no blemish, that [asher] no yoke was laid” (Numbers 19:2).

The commentaries explain the connection between these two passages: similar to how the ritual of the parah adumah, the perfectly red unblemished cow, explained at the beginning of Chukat, ritually cleanses a person from the impurity of death, so too, reciting Vayachulu, three times Friday night cleanses us from whatever spiritual impurity the six days of the week may have caused (Midrash Shachar Tov; Avudraham; Hagahot Maimoni).

The idea of being cleansed from the six days of the week is connected to the well-known custom of men going to the mikvah on Friday in preparation for the coming Shabbat. Immersing in the waters of the mikvah is a wonderful way to transition from the six workdays to the spiritual ambience of Shabbat. Just as the ritual of the para adumah had the power to cleanse from the impurity of death, Shabbat has the power to cleanse us from our over attachment to the physical, material world.

It should be noted that water was also used in the ritual cleansing from death. After the parah adumah is burnt “the kohen shall take a piece of cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson wool, and cast them into the burning of the cow” (Numbers 19:6). This concoction is then mixed with pure spring water, referred to as “living waters,” and sprinkled on the person who became impure because of contact with death.

There is a statement in the Talmud that one who passes away on the day before Shabbat, it is a good sign. The Baal Shem Tov interpreted this to mean that it is a very good sign to experience an ego death in preparation for the spiritual experience of Shabbat. He further taught that immersing in a mikvah is conducive to purifying oneself from not only the occurrences of the week but especially an overblown ego. Immersing in the waters of the mikvah is like a rebirth, a purification of not just body but even more so of soul.

There is yet another famous cow in the Torah – the Golden Calf. In response to worshiping the Golden Calf, Moses broke the first pair of tablets containing the Ten Commandments. After Moses elicited forgiveness from God for this terrible sin, He tells Moses: “And I shall inscribe on the tablets the words that were upon the first tablets that [asher] you shattered and you shall place them into the ark.” The Sages comment on this verse with a play on words that God praised [yashar koach] Moses for having broken the tablets: yashar [from the root asher] kochacha asher shibarta.

From this we can see that at times the only way to purify oneself from unwanted intellectual, emotional and spiritual impurity is through a certain level of breaking. The word for “impure” in Hebrew, tamey,  means to be bottled up/closed in/ cut off. When Moses broke the tablets he did so in order to shock the people into  realizing their destructive behavior and to motivate them to do teshuvah. Often times in life it is only through some type of crisis or challenge that we are able to move beyond being bottled up/closed in/cut off by negative attitudes or behaviors.

It is interesting to note that later Moses related to the people: “ And I took your sin of the calf, which you had made, and I burned it with fire, and I crushed it, grinding it well, until it was fine dust, and I cast its dust into the brook that descends from the mountain” (Numbers 9:21).

All the above examples share the idea of cleansing and purification. The common denominator is that water is employed in various ways as a purifying agent. This is one of the secrets of the ritual of tashlich on Rosh Hashanah, when people go to a body of water in order to symbolically throw their sins away. After all the many hours spent in intense prayer on Rosh Hashanah, going to a body of water is a refreshingly tangible focus for introspection and meditation. Whether watching the ripples, waves or reflected sparkles of light on the surface, natural bodies of water are highly conducive to a contemplative and reflective state of mind and to opening the heart. Watching the water symbolically taking away our sins is both cathartic and comforting, providing a sense of renewal and a cleansed feeling of purity.

Similarly, the experience of the peace of Shabbat is like immersing in spiritually healing waters.