Making sense of the sedra: Chukat

Parshat Chukat begins with the purification process using the ashes of a Red Heifer (Parah Adumah), water and hyssop grass. The process of purification before entering the sanctuary and later the precincts of the Temple are hard to relate to as 21st century Jews. We still use ritual baths, but we don’t sprinkle water at people for holy purposes. So, what is the meaning of this ritual for us, in our times?

Six years ago, this column celebrated the birth of our youngest child with an insight offered by my principal student, Jack Hodari, who at that time offered a striking interpretation of this ancient rite, drawing a parallel through purification between humility and vitality. The procedure described in the Torah for purification, Jack explained, involves simple, natural materials: fresh spring water, called “living water”, a term that evokes freshness, flow, and internal motion. According to Jack, it is  this combination of the humble and the lively that makes the mixture effective in restoring a person’s spiritual and ritual purity. “Purification,” he reflected, “demands not only a return to simplicity and grounding, but also to youthful energy – to life. The materials used are not extravagant, yet they carry deep symbolic resonance: water that flows and gives life, wild-growing hyssop (oregano) and a clay vessel that holds this transformative mix.

In this poignant observation, Jack points out that human life itself begins in a mixture of blood and water – in the womb, surrounded by amniotic fluid and nourished by the blood of the mother. Thus, each act of purification is not merely a cleansing, but a rebirth and a spiritual renewal.

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In the years since then we have experienced the sequential disconnect from everyday normality of Covid, the conflicts with and within Israel and the onslaught of antisemitism spiking to an all-time high since the Second World War.

The ash and water, the agony over the hostages taken by terrorist regime of Gaza, the bloodletting in losing hundreds of soldiers and civilians in Israel’s existential fight on seven fronts, plus worldwide antisemitism, has revitalised us.  We now get up and sing and dance in defiance of the attacks at the Nova festival and despite the 30-foot-long hypersonic missiles coming in from Iran. Jews and Israelis unknown to each other spontaneously burst into song at restaurants, carry on weddings in underground car parks while sirens wail and counter-missile defence systems do their job.

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This is the new and ever-renewing call of humility: we must cease to judge each other as Jews. Our communities have been badly let down by so many actors and agencies in the free world, as if we don’t matter. To counter this, we have experienced profoundly the value of caring for each other anew. In this I include supporters and friends of Jews and of Israel of Jewish and non-Jewish birth, equally. Am Yisrael Chai, the people of Israel live on!

Praying for a speedy return of all the hostages, and end to conflict and peace in the world.

Rabbi Ariel Abel is a practising solicitor and army chaplain