Sacrifice of a Red Heifer: the Topic of this week's Torah portion, Numbers 19:1-22:1
In this week’s Torah portion, the Israelites gather at the edge of the land of Edom (meaning ‘red stuff’ or ‘field’ and closely related to ‘Adam’), poised to leave the desert for the Promised Land.
The Lord enigmatically instructs them to sacrifice a red heifer who is without blemish, and has never born a yoke.
Edom is the land of Esav’s descendants, the one who was born red and hairy and who grew up to be a mighty hunter. One day Esav came in from the fields while his brother Yaakov was cooking a red stew. Esav traded his birthright for a bowl of the “red stuff.” Later, when Yaakov used a ruse involving the same stew to trick his father, Yitzhak, into bestowing upon him the birthright that belonged to Esav, Esav cried and begged Yitzhak, “Do you have only one blessing?”
Yitzhak blessed Esav, too, saying, “You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.”
In time, Yaakov changed his name to Israel, meaning “One Who Strives With God.” And now his descendents, the Israelites, stood at the edge of Edom facing a dilemma: they needed to pass through Edom to reach the land of Israel.
Shades of Déjà vu!
Just yesterday, Yaakov was in the womb, pulling on Esav’s heel to get out into the world...and now a whole tribe of Esavs was blocking the path to his birthright, the Promised Land.
And so what does God do? He orders the Israelites to sacrifice a red heifer, whose ashes, mixed with water, will purify them from proximity to a corpse.
The Israelites tarry long enough to follow God’s instructions. Since the king of Edom will not allow them to pass, they must march to the South, and then the East, walking around Edom.
At the first new moon of their journey, the prophet Miriam passes, and with her the well that followed her in the wilderness.
The people are left without water, and do what Israelites do best: they kvetch bitterly about the austerity of the desert compared to the riches of slavery. In the process, they forget to mourn Miriam. They are facing their first death and they forget the lesson of the red heifer.
With freedom come the right and the responsibility to reflect and mourn.
Besides reminding us of the strife between Yaakov and Esav, the sacrifice of the heifer recalls the episode of the golden calf. The people of Israel, fearing thirst and hunger, traded their newfound freedom and service to the Lord for a calf they forced the High Priest Aaron to forge from molten gold. The sacrifice of the heifer is the sacrifice of our slavery to our own physical bodies, to our thirst and our hunger and our fear of an unknown future.
Moshe and Aaron are now very old. God instructs them to talk to a rock to bring forth water, but Moshe loses his temper and strikes the rock. The rock brings forth water for the people, but neither man is allowed to enter the promised land. By the time they reach their birthright, the entire generation of those who left Egypt has passed away.
Was Moshe’s sin in striking the rock so heinous that he had to die? Probably not. The heifer died to atone for the golden calf. Moshe, Aaron and Miriam died to redeem Yaakov’s strife with his brother. You can get what you want by trickery, but not entirely.
Something of great value is always lost.
