Parah: “Don’t Forget to Remember Me”

After the Shulchan Aruch (O”C 146:4) enumerates the general rule that we must listen quietly and intently to the Torah as it is publicly chanted, it lists a few leniencies and exceptions.  However, it then cautions us:

And these (leniencies and exceptions) are inapplicable to the sections of Zachor and Parah, for these are Biblical in nature and we must concentrate and listen to the words from the Torah reader.

וְכָל זֶה אֵינוֹ עִנְיָן לְפָרָשַׁת זָכוֹר וּפָרָשַׁת פָּרָה, שֶׁהֵם בַּעֲשָׂרָה מִדְּאוֹרַיְיתָא, שֶׁצָּרִיךְ לְכַוֵּן וּלְשָׁמְעָם מִפִּי הַקּוֹרֵא

Parshat Zachor refers to Deuteronomy 25:17-19, the section of Torah that describes our obligation to recall the episode when the evil nation of Amalek attacked us:

Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—	זָכ֕וֹר אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂ֥ה לְךָ֖ עֲמָלֵ֑ק בַּדֶּ֖רֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶ֥ם מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃
how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear.	אֲשֶׁ֨ר קָֽרְךָ֜ בַּדֶּ֗רֶךְ וַיְזַנֵּ֤ב בְּךָ֙ כָּל־הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִ֣ים אַֽחַרֶ֔יךָ וְאַתָּ֖ה עָיֵ֣ף וְיָגֵ֑עַ וְלֹ֥א יָרֵ֖א אֱלֹהִֽים׃
Therefore, when the LORD your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!	וְהָיָ֡ה בְּהָנִ֣יחַ ה אֱלֹקיךָ ׀ לְ֠ךָ מִכָּל־אֹ֨יְבֶ֜יךָ מִסָּבִ֗יב בָּאָ֙רֶץ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר ה־אֱ֠לֹקיךָ נֹתֵ֨ן לְךָ֤ נַחֲלָה֙ לְרִשְׁתָּ֔הּ תִּמְחֶה֙ אֶת־זֵ֣כֶר עֲמָלֵ֔ק מִתַּ֖חַת הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם לֹ֖א תִּשְׁכָּֽח׃

Zachor is read on the Shabbos immediately preceding Purim (in part) because Haman was a direct descendant of Amalek, and his actions were as loathsome and evil as those of his ancestors.  The Torah’s wording is frustratingly difficult to comprehend.  “Blot out the memory of Amalek” is sandwiched between “Remember what Amalek did…” and “Don’t forget”.  No one is quite sure how to both remember and blot out the memory, but every time I hear those words, I think about the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, where Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet run around trying to remember and forget each other at the same time.

“Parah” refers to Numbers 19:1-22 which is read on the Shabbos before the Shabbos before Rosh Chodesh Nisan.  That is not a typo.  One week before we announce the new moon of Nisan, as we do ten other times a year (that, too, is not a typo[1]), we read a section of Torah describing the frustratingly difficult to comprehend commandment to use the ashes of a red heifer.  These ashes render pure someone who is in a state of ritual impurity.  At the same time, those involved in the process of making the elixir are rendered impure.

The contradictory dual nature of these ashes is such a great paradox that the mitzvah of Parah Adumah is often held up as the paradigm for those Biblical laws for which no amount of reasoning can explain. Even King Solomon, the wisest of men, was baffled by it^[2].  So, too, was the original lawgiver, Moshe Rabbeinu^[3].

Such laws are called Chukkim and indeed, the Parah Adumah Torah reading kicks off with: זֹ֚את חֻקַּ֣ת הַתּוֹרָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּ֥ה ה לֵאמֹ֑ר, “these are the chukkim [incomprehensible laws] which God commanded …”.

Rashi points out that the nations of the world and [even] God’s prosecuting angel, Satan, scoff at us for observing such illogical rules.  Other laws in this category are listed in the Talmud (Yoma 67b): the prohibitions against eating pork and wearing garments that are shatnez (made from wool and linen), laws of levirate marriage, the purification ceremony of the leper; and the scapegoat ceremony on Yom Kippur.  Still, Rashi ends his comment by paraphrasing from that very same Talmudic section:

I have decreed it; You have no right to challenge it.

גזירה היא מלפני ואין לך רשות להרהר אחריה

In other words, The Talmud teaches – and Rashi reminds us – that they can laugh all they want at our strange habits and customs and rules and regulations and practices, but we are satisfied and content – and even happy – to commit ourselves to observing God’s Torah even when we have difficulty understanding it.  We put our full faith and trust in HaShem.  Giving ourselves over so completely that we are willing to do things that hardly makes sense sounds to me like an act of great love.

The obligation to (and when to) chant Parah is found in the Mishna (Megilah 29a).  Oddly, though, no explanation is given there as to why Parah is read.  The most common explanation is that after Purim, we quickly turn our attention to Passover.  Since only the ritually pure can eat the Passover sacrifice, we must focus on that purification process.^[4]

However, it’s worth considering why the Shulchan Aruch (supra) lumped Zachor and Parah together as a pair of readings so special that great care must be taken to concentrate and meditate on their words.  What links these two very different texts?  After all, one is an anecdotal narrative; the other is a dry legal text.  One is terse; the other is verbose.  One is about remembering (and/or forgetting) while the other is about doing.  One is about an enemy’s battlefield war crimes; the other is uniquely nativist.  What is the common element they share to join them and elevate their public reading to Biblical proportions?

To answer that question, we must first appreciate that the Parah Adumah, the red heifer, is viscerally connected to the other calf that garners Biblical attention: the Egel HaZahav, Golden Calf.  It is no coincidence that both are young cows with a similar, special hue.  Says the midrash (Numbers Rabbah 19:8):

Thus Says God:  Let this calf (the Red heifer) atone for the episode of the [other, Golden] Calf.

כָּךְ אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא תָּבוֹא פָּרָה וּתְכַפֵּר עַל מַעֲשֵׂה הָעֵגֶל.

Much is left to be said about the relationship between the Red Heifer and the Golden Calf, but we leave that for another day.  For now, I merely draw your attention to a pasuk in Devarim (9:7) about the sin of the Golden Calf:

Remember do not forget, how you angered the Lord, your God, in the desert; from the day that you went out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebelling against the Lord.

זְכֹר֙ אַל־תִּשְׁכַּ֔ח אֵ֧ת אֲשֶׁר־הִקְצַ֛פְתָּ אֶת־ה אֱלֹקיךָ בַּמִּדְבָּ֑ר לְמִן־הַיּ֞וֹם אֲשֶׁר־יָצָ֣אתָ | מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֗יִם עַד־בֹּֽאֲכֶם֙ עַד־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֔ה מַמְרִ֥ים הֱיִיתֶ֖ם עִם־ה:

Does this sound familiar?  There are only two places in all of Torah that exhort us to both “remember” (זְכֹר) and “do not forget” (אַל־תִּשְׁכַּ֔ח):  Parshat Zachor and the Golden Calf!  And since the Red Heifer atones for the Golden Calf, we now see a profound connection between Zachor and Parah, which often takes place on consecutive sabbaths.

Purim and Pesach are about foreign enemies seeking to destroy us for the most frivolous and mindbogglingly idiotic reasons.  Haman (quite literally) made a federal case out of a small, unintended, personal sleight by one man.  Amalek viscously attacked a tired, hungry, and weary nation that posed no immediate threat.  Pharaoh decided to decimate an entire community within his nation out of an unsubstantiated and prejudicial fear that they may one day become a fifth column.

But Purim and Passover are also about remembering an uncomfortable truth; that our faith in God sometimes falters and fails us.  Esther was reluctant to face the King, fearful of putting her own cozy life at risk even though she alone could intervene.  The Jews of the Midbar generation witnessed miracle upon miracle in Egypt.  They then received the Torah at Sinai yet still, immediately afterwards, they doubted HaShem and feared for Moshe’s life.  These (same) Jews in Egypt did not even prepare for their exodus out of paralyzing fear and weakened faith.

Maybe it’s a simple as Zachor representing the enemy without and Parah representing the redemptive power of confronting the enemy within.  Perhaps Zachor recalls the physical dangers and Parah highlights the spiritual dangers that threaten to consume us.  And perhaps these are the two Biblically mandated sections because, as Descartes once said, Cogito, ergo sum, “I think (feel, and remember) therefore I am”.  Or, perhaps, remembering is Divinely legislated because, as it has been pithily said, otherwise we would be doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Rabbi Avi Miller pointed out another connection.  The Gemorah notes (TB Sanhedrin 96b) that Amalek is no longer a separate, distinct nation.  There is no nation left to blot out.  Similarly, the rituals of the red heifer ceased with the destruction of the Bet HaMikdash.  There is no Passover sacrifice to bring and no ceremony by which we can purify ourselves.

These two passages ceased having practical applications by the time the Mishna ordered them to be publicly recited.  Still, they are recited, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, and millennium after millennium.  We do so not out of an historical, antiquarian interest or curiosity but because the memory of these rituals still inspires us.

As we head into Passover, we need to remember.  This is something we are very good at doing.  We remember loved ones, we remember the Holocaust, and we remember our enemies.  But memories, to be complete, must also include the inconvenient ones we often try to forget.

Shabbat Shalom!

 

[1]. Rosh Chodesh Tishre (Rosh HaShanah) is not publicly announced on the shabbat before its celebration.  See, Be’er Hetev on Mishna Berura 417:1:

שבת שלפני ר”ח מברכין החודש חוץ מלפני ר”ח תשרי דכתיב בכסא ליום חגינו

see, also, דרכי משה הקצר אורח חיים סימן תקפא

והכל כדי לערבב השטן שלא ידע מתי יהיה ראש השנה ולכן נמי אין מברכין חדש תשרי

[2]. Eccles. Rabbah 7:23:4:

אָמַר שְׁלֹמֹה עַל כָּל אֵלֶּה עָמַדְתִּי וּפִשְׁפַּשְׁתִּי וּפָרָשָׁה שֶׁל פָּרָה אֲדֻמָּה חָקַרְתִּי, כֵּיוָן שֶׁהָיִיתִי יָגֵעַ בָּהּ וְדוֹרֵשׁ וְחוֹקֵר בָּהּ אָמַרְתִּי אֶחְכָּמָה וְהִיא רְחוֹקָה מִמֶּנִּי

[3]. Eccles. R. 8:1:5:

וְכֵיוָן שֶׁהִגִּיעוּ לְפָרָשַׁת פָּרָה אֲדֻמָּה, אָמַר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לְמשֶׁה, משֶׁה, אוֹתָהּ אֲמִירָה שֶׁאָמַרְתִּי לְךָ אֱמֹר אֶל הַכֹּהֲנִים, וְאָמַרְתָּ לִי אִם נִטְמְאוּ בַּמֶּה הִיא טָהֳרָתָן, וְלֹא אָמַרְתִּי לְךָ דָּבָר, זוֹ הִיא טָהֳרָתָן (במדבר יט, יז): וְלָקְחוּ לַטָּמֵא מֵעֲפַר שְׂרֵפַת הַחַטָּאת. אָמַר לְפָנָיו רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם וְכִי טָהֳרָה הִיא, אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, משֶׁה, חֻקָּה הִיא וּגְזֵרָה גָּזַרְתִּי וְאֵין בְּרִיָּה יְכוֹלָה לַעֲמֹד עַל גְּזֵרָתִי, דִּכְתִיב (במדבר יט, ב): זֹאת חֻקַּת הַתּוֹרָה.

[4]. מנהג מרשלייאה אדר עמוד 154:

ולמה בשלישית קורין פרה אדומה? שכך אמרו (פסחים ו ע”א): ‘שואלים בהלכות הפסח קודם לפסח שלשים יום. רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומ’ שתי שבתות’. וטמא מת אינו עושה פסח, לפיכך קורין פרשת פרה שהיא הלכות טומאה וטהרה כדי שילמדו ישראל להטהר כדי שיעשו פסח בטהרה