The Decree

ESSAY:
The Decree
King Solomon was mystified, Moses turned pale; both learned that certain things can only be overcome by an absolute command from an absolute authority
Three Sources of Moshiach
The event, the person, and the role

And G-d spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: This is the decree (chok) of the Torah .... If a person should die in a tent, all that enter the tent and all that is in the tent shall be tamei (ritually impure) for seven days.... And for the contaminated person they shall take from the ashes [of the Red Heifer]...

The law of the "Red Heifer," which instructs how to purify a person from the ritual impurity caused by contact with a dead body, is often cited as the ultimately supra-rational divine decree. King Solomon, the "wisest of men,"[1] said of this mitzvah: "All [of the Torah's commandments] I have comprehended. But the chapter of the Red Heifer, though I have examined it, questioned it and searched it out-I thought to be wise to it, but it is distant from me."[2]

There are, indeed, many aspects to the law of the Red Heifer which defy rationalization. In the first place, the very phenomenon of "ritual purity" is a mystical, supra-rational concept. The purification process, which is achieved by sprinkling the ashes of a Red Heifer upon the contaminated person, follows no logic we can see. And then there are the internal inconsistencies in the law, such as the fact that while the sprinkling of the ashes purifies the contaminated person, it renders impure the one who did the sprinkling.

But there are other laws in the Torah which are no less elusive to human reason. In fact, there exists an entire category of mitzvot, called chukim ("decrees"), whose defining criteria is that they cannot be comprehended by the mortal mind. What is it about the law of the Red Heifer that makes it the archetypal "decree," the mitzvah of which G-d says: "This is the chok of the Torah"?

The Midrash tells us that Moses was the only human being who was granted an understanding of the law of the Red Heifer. "To you," G-d said to Moses, "I shall reveal the meaning of the Heifer; to everyone else it is a chok."[3] Yet Moses, too, experienced great difficulty in accepting this law, as we see from the following Midrashic account:

In everything that G-d taught Moses, He would tell him both the manner of contamination and the manner of purification. When G-d came to the laws concerning one who comes in contact with a dead body, Moses said to Him: "Master of the universe! If one is thus contaminated, how may he be purified?!" G-d did not answer him. At that moment, the face of Moses turned pale.

When G-d came to the section of the "Red Heifer," He said to Moses: "This is its manner of purification." Said Moses to G-d: "Master of the universe! This is a purification?" Said G-d: "Moses, it is a chok, a decree that I have decreed, and no creature can fully comprehend My decrees."[4]

The departure of the soul from the body is incomprehensible to us. Not rationally - rationally, death makes perfect sense. We understand the fragility of life, the dissolutive nature of everything physical. But in our heart of hearts, we refuse to accept it. Regardless of all "evidence" to the contrary, we persist in seeing life as eternal; regardless of what the mind explains, we reject the very concept of death.

Even more difficult to accept is that there can be some process, some formula, that can possibly deal with, let alone heal, the terrible void of life departed. What possible antidote can there be to the anguish, the emptiness, the utter futility that death brings to the human heart?

This was why Moses turned pale upon hearing about the ritual laws of death. It was not for the lack of rational understanding of how the spiritual stain of death can be cleansed; indeed, Moses was the one human being to whom "the meaning of the Heifer" was revealed. Still he cried: "Master of the universe! Is this a purification?" You have explained to me how the ashes of the Red Heifer "work." My mind is satisfied, but this does little to still the turmoil of my heart. My heart cannot comprehend how the evil of death can possibly be mitigated.

And G-d replied: "Moses, it is a chok, a decree that I have decreed." Certain things are so overwhelming to My creations that they can only be overcome by submitting to an absolute command from an absolute authority. I have therefore commanded laws to instruct you what to do when your lives are touched by death. These are supra-rational, even irrational laws, for only such laws can facilitate your recovery. It is only by force of an utterly incomprehensible divine decree that you can recover from death.

Today, we do not have the ashes of the Red Heifer. But we do have laws and rituals to deal with death. Torah law instructs us to mourn the death of a loved one - and then regulates our mourning. The very concept of "laws of mourning" is incomprehensible. Can a person be instructed to mourn? Can he, conversely, be instructed to reduce or cease his mourning?

Yet this is precisely what the Torah does. There are specific laws that govern the intensity of the mourning in the hours from the death to the burial (a period called onanut), specific laws for the first three days following the burial, for the first seven days (shivah), for the first thirty days (sheloshim), and for the first year following a death. At each of these junctures, it is demanded of us to cross over into a new phase of mourning - a phase in which the intensity of our anguish and sense of loss is further mitigated and sublimated.

We resist these milestones with every fiber of our being. The mind understands the difference between the shivah and the sheloshim and between the sheloshim and the first year, but the heart does not accept it. One need not be disheartened by this internal resistance: the Torah tells us that Moses himself could not prevail upon his heart to accept what his mind had been given to understand. Even after G-d explained to Moses how the "Red Heifer" sublimates an encounter with death, it remained a chok - distant from the greatest of minds and utterly incomprehensible to every heart. Yet G-d commands us to make these transitions, and empowers us to fulfill His command.

It is the power of the divine decree that enables us to go on - both in our own lives, and in our work on behalf of others (for surely those who are dependent upon us cannot be made to wait until our minds and hearts have fully integrated what we know is expected of us). And the power of the divine decree is such that we can ultimately prevail upon ourselves to sublimate the negativities of death.

May we soon merit the day that such sublimation will no longer be necessary-the day when the Almighty will "remove the spirit of impurity from the earth"[5] so that "death shall cease forever and G-d shall erase the tear from every face"[6] and "those who dwell in the dust shall waken and rejoice."[7]

Based on two addresses delivered by the Rebbe on Adar 21, 5748 (March 10, 1988), upon the conclusion of the sheloshim of his wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, of blessed memory.

And Bilaam said to Balak: "...Come, let me advise you what this people shall do to your people in the end of days.... I see it, but not now; I behold it, but it is not near. A star shall go forth from Jacob, and a scepter shall arise from Israel; he will conquer the ends of Moab, and rule all the children of Seth.... And Israel shall be valiant...

The prophets of Israel describe a future in which a great leader shall arise in Israel, awaken his people to return to G-d, restore them to their homeland, rebuild the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, and bring about an age of universal enlightenment, harmony and perfection. As Maimonides describes it, "In those days there will be no hunger or war, no jealousy or rivalry; for... the sole occupation of the entire world will be to know G-d."[8]

The coming of Moshiach is also referred to, though less explicitly, in the Torah proper-the Five Books of Moses. Thus Maimonides writes: "Whoever does not believe in him, or does not anticipate his coming, not only denies the other prophets - he also denies the Torah and Moses our Teacher."[9] Maimonides goes on to cite three instances in which the Torah itself speaks of the Messianic Redemption:

a) Deuteronomy 30:1-10: "And the L-rd your G-d ... will return and gather you from all the nations amongst whom [He] has scattered you. If your dispersed be at the ends of the heavens, from there will the L-rd your G-d gather you, from there He will take you. [He] will bring you into the Land which your fathers have possessed and you will possess it, and he will do you good and multiply you, more than your fathers. [He] will circumcise your heart and the heart of your children, to love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul.... G-d will again rejoice over you as He rejoiced over your fathers, for you shall hearken to the voice of the L-rd your G-d, to keep His commandments and statutes which are written in this book of the Torah."

b) Numbers 24:17-19: "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but he is not near. A star shall come forth from Jacob, and a ruler shall arise from Israel; he will conquer the ends of Moab, and rule all the children of Seth.... And Israel shall be valiant..."

c) In Deuteronomy 19, the Torah commands to set aside "cities of refuge" to serve as a place of exile for "one who shall unintentionally kill his fellow." Then the Torah adds: "And when G-d shall broaden your borders ... and give you the entire land that He promised to give to your forefathers - for you shall keep all these commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the L-rd your G-d and walk in His ways forever-then you shall add another three cities...." Maimonides notes that, "This never yet came to pass, and G-d did not command it in vain" - so that here we have a further reference in the Torah to the Messianic Era, when "the entire land that He promised to give to your forefathers"[10] shall be given to the Jewish people.

These three "proofs" are all necessary, for they establish three principles that are fundamental to the Jewish concept of Moshiach: the redemption of Israel, the person of Moshiach, and the integrity of Torah.

The first citation, from the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy, contains the most explicit reference to the final Redemption in the Five Books of Moses. However, there is no mention there of the person of Moshiach as the divine agent of its realization. From these verses alone we can only infer that there will be a redemption (Israel's return to G-d, their restoration to their homeland, etc.), but not that a human leader will bring it about.

Yet the Jew's belief in Moshiach is not in some abstract "historical process" by which the world progresses to perfection, but that "There will arise a king from the house of David, who studies the Torah and fulfills its precepts as David his ancestor ... and he will prevail upon all of Israel to follow it and repair its breaches, wage the battle of G-d ... build the Holy Temple on its site, gather the dispersed of Israel ... [and] rectify the entire world to serve G-d together."[11] While many of the prophets speak explicitly of the person of Moshiach, Maimonides wishes to show that this principle is also contained in the Torah itself. It is for this purpose that he cites his second proof, from Numbers 24.

Moshiach achieves many great things: he liberates the people of Israel and restores their true independence and sovereignty; he teaches the divine wisdom of Torah, illuminating the intricacies of the human soul and the divine essence of all reality; he is a prophet of the highest order, communicating the word of G-d to man. But the most important thing that Moshiach does is to bring about the perfect and absolute implementation of the entire body of mitzvot, the divine commandments of the Torah, in the world.

Today, we are capable of achieving only a very limited actualization of the divine program for life. More than half of the Torah's commandments (343 out of a total of 613) can be observed only when the Holy Temple is standing in Jerusalem and/or when the entire community of Israel resides in the Holy Land. And even the mitzvot that we can observe in our current state of galut (exile) are but pale "models" of the real thing, for the divine commandments can be optimally fulfilled only in a post-redemption Land of Israel.[12]

Furthermore, while we might do everything in our power to fulfill the mitzvot that are available to us today, we are daily confronted with a world that is still at odds with the will of its Creator. The Torah commands, "Do not kill," yet people are killing each other all over the world; the Torah commands, "Love your fellow as yourself" "Honor your father and your mother," "Remember the day of Shabbat to sanctify it," and "Do not cook a kid in its mother's milk," yet a great portion of those to whom these commands are addressed are indifferent to, or even ignorant of them.

In our present-day reality, the Torah seems more like a "religion" or an "ideal," than the cardinal law of reality. So the coming of Moshiach, the man who brings about the universal commitment to the divine law, is not just another event predicted by the Torah or another of its concepts and principles; it is the validation of the very essence of Torah as the divine blueprint for life - as the ultimate description of what the world can, ought to, and inevitably will, be.

This is the significance of Maimonides' third source for Moshiach in the Torah. When the Torah commands us to add three "cities of refuge" upon establishing Jewish sovereignty over the entirety of the Promised Land, it is not only predicting the future Redemption, but also stating that the advent of Moshiach is required for the implementation of a divine command. Here is an example of a mitzvah, commanded by G-d at Sinai, whose conditions for fulfillment have never existed, and will exist only upon the arrival of Moshiach.

These verses establish the third principle that is fundamental to the Jew's belief in Moshiach: that the Torah's commandments are the ultimate blueprint for life on earth, and that there will come a day when the divine plan for creation will be fully realized in our world. For certainly, as Maimonides puts it, "G-d did not command it in vain."

Based on talks by the Rebbe in the summers of 5738 (1978) and 5746 (1986) and on Shavuot of 5751 (1991)[13]

"Between the strictures"[15] is the prophet Jeremiah's description of the period between the 17th of Tammuz, the day the walls of Jerusalem were breached, and the 9th of Av, when the Holy Temple was destroyed and the exile of Israel commenced. To date, these two days are observed as days of fasting, and the three-week "strait" between them as a period of mourning and repentance.

The narrow strait, however, is not a roadblock; on the contrary, it is a mechanism for increased productivity. Hydraulic power plants, rockets and garden hoses employ it to squeeze a greater degree of power and velocity from the element they constrain. The shofar, sounded to waken man to repentance, is also such a device, its narrow mouth pinching the stream of air expelled from the blower's lungs into the piercing note that emerges from its wide, upward-sweeping end.

The same is true of the strictures of Tammuz 17 and Av 9 and the two thousand years of physical exile and spiritual darkness they mourn. Twenty centuries of suppression have wrenched the Jewish soul through the funnel of galut,[16] revealing its deepest convictions and provoking its highest potentials. From these terrible straits we have never ceased to seek G-d, and it is this seeking that will yield the "divine expanse" of ultimate Redemption and the perfect world of the Messianic Age.

"On that day," proclaims the prophet, "the great shofar will be sounded. And they will come, those lost in the land of Assyria and those forsaken in the land of Egypt,[17] and bow before G-d on the Holy mountain, Jerusalem."[18] On that day, the goodness and perfection of G-d's creation will burst through the straits of concealment and blossom into unconstrained realization.

[2] Midrash Rabbah, Bamidbar 19:3, after Ecclesiastes 7:23.

[10] In the covenant He made with Abraham, G-d promised: "To your descendants I shall give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates." These borders include lands never conquered or settled by the people of Israel throughout their history.

[12] The Midrash goes so far as to consider the mitzvot observed in galut as mere "reminders" for the true mitzvot, those observed in the Holy Land. Quoting the prophet Jeremiah, "Set for yourself markers" (Jeremiah 31:20), it says: "Also after you are exiled, be distinguished with mitzvot-put on tefillin, make mezuzot, so that these should not be new to you when you return" (Sifri, quoted by Rashi on Deuteronomy 11:18. See also Nachmanides on Deuteronomy 4:4).

[13] Likkutei Sichot, vol. 34, Shoftim (5749); Sefer HaSichot 5751, pp. 574-576.

[14] Recited before the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.

[17] The Hebrew Eretz Mitzrayim (Land of Egypt) literally translates as "the land of the strictures."