Parsha Summary:
Chukkat begins with an unusual and controversial commandment in which God instructs Moses and Aaron how Eleazar, the priest, should sacrifice a red heifer (a special red cow that no longer exists today) and from the ashes of the heifer make a mixture with water that an unclean person would sprinkle on him or herself to become clean. (By unclean, I do not mean the traditional sense of having some dirt on you and needing to wash it off; rather, the biblical unclean of doing something, like touching a dead body, which would make one “unclean” or impure in the eyes of God.) The interesting thing about this commandment is that by performing it, the priest himself becomes unclean and needs to exile himself from the others until the evening.
In this chapter, the Israelites also journey to the wilderness of Zin, where Miriam, Moses’ sister, dies. There is no water in the place, and the people complain to Moses and Aaron who then beseech God on behalf of the people. God tells Moses to take his rod and in front of the congregation, tap a rock with his rod and water will spring from the rock. However, Moses hits the rock twice. As a result, God says “Because you believed not in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them” (Numbers XX, 12). Moses and Aaron will never enter the Promised Land.
(What exactly did Moses and Aaron do to make God refuse them entry into the Promised Land? Yes, they were angry. Yes, they complained on behalf of the people. What was it about this time that caused God to punish them? Some Rabbis claim that we will never know—that we aren’t supposed to know or to understand. Some commentators believe that it is explained by God’s statement that because Moses hit the rock twice, he no longer had faith in God. And the Rabbis of the Midrash think that Moses did not even want to be associated with the generation of Israelites in the desert or be punished along with them for their sins, so he asked that if he were not to be allowed into the Promised Land that it be written in the Torah that God punished him for another reason. What do you think?)
Then the Israelites journey to mount Hor. Here God tells Moses to take Aaron to the top of the mount and remove Aaron’s garments and place them on Aaron’s son Eleazar (thus making Eleazar successor to Aaron), Aaron dies on top of the mountain. The people mourn for thirty days.
The journey continues through other lands and other battles. When they come to Edom, the people complain they have no bread. God is very angry and sends serpents to bite and kill the people who complained. The people tell Moses they are sorry they didn’t trust God, and ask Moses to pray for relief from the snakes. Moses does so and God tells Moses to make a brass serpent and put it on a pole. From then on, anyone bitten by a snake could look at the brass serpent and be healed.
Chukat ends with the people resting in the plains of Moab, beyond the Jordan River at Jericho.
Ideas for discussion with your family:
Do you think it’s fair for God to have punished Moses and Aaron?
Do you think it would have been fair if Moses and Aaron had been allowed to go into the Promised Land, but the rest of the “generation of the desert” were not allowed?
The people were punished and not allowed into the Promised Land because they did not have enough faith in God. Was it Moses’ responsibility that the people had enough faith?
If you were leading a group and the group did something wrong, should you also be held responsible?
(Note: I strongly encourage you to purchase or borrow a translation of the Torah and read the full text of this parsha. The summary was created from reading the translation and commentaries in The Soncino Press: Pentateuch & Haftorahs, edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz)
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