By Rabbi Dovid Sapirman, Dean, Ani Maamin Foundation
Some people experience discomfort about chukim, the mitzvos for which we know no reason. After all, they say, how can I be expected to keep something I don’t understand? This question touches on our fundamental beliefs. The foundation of our faith is belief in our mesorah: that Am Yisrael stood at Har Sinai and experienced a revelation. Our lives as Jews revolve around this belief.
Most people who go to the doctor and get a prescription have no idea what is in the medicine. We gaze at hundreds of bottles on the pharmacy shelves, knowing that only one of them is right for us. Why? We don’t know. We rely on the doctor’s expertise. So too with the mitzvos. We don’t know why something works, but we rely on the One Who created us and knows what is good for us.
The mitzvah of parah adumah is a classic chok, but it is more mysterious than even other chukim. Everyone involved in producing the parah adumah becomes tamei, while the one sprinkled with its ashes is tahor—a seeming contradiction, but we do it because of Hashem’s command. Rashi tells us that “the Satan [our own inner cynicism] and the nations of the world taunt us, saying, ‘What is this mitzvah, and what reason is there for it?’ Therefore the Torah wrote ‘zos chukas hatorah.’ It is a decree from [Hashem], and you have no permission to have second thoughts.”
Shlomo Hamelech writes in Koheles, “I said ‘I will be wise,’ but it is far from me.” The chachamim tell us that he was referring to the parah adumah. Shlomo, with his great wisdom, was unable to deduce the reason for it. About this and similar mysteries Hashem says, "You don’t have to use your judgment to decide whether it makes sense. Rely on My judgment. This decree comes from Me.”
There is a reason for every chok—but those reasons are known to Hashem. We are simply missing information. If there had been a chok to cook fresh milk before drinking it, every Jewish home for centuries would have had a special milk mitzvah pot. We would make a special bracha on cooking milk. We might question it—until after 3,000 years, a French chemist would discover that raw milk contains harmful bacteria that are destroyed by cooking. Suddenly every civilized country mandates pasteurization, and a chok is no longer a chok.
The Torah warns us to “guard” the chukim. Rambam explains that this means we should not allow ourselves to think any less of the chukim just because we don’t understand them, just as we respect “do not steal” and “honor your parents.” We must know that every single law of the Torah, even the most mysterious, has a reason, because it is “a decree from before Hashem, and you have no permission to have second thoughts.”
