parsha bit: Chukat

[cellio]

Parshat Chukat begins with instructions for an unusual purification ritual involving the ashes of a red heifer (parah adamah). Sforno points out that the priest takes cedar wood, which is a symbol of pride because the cedar stands tall, and hyssop, which is a symbol of humility because it grows low to the ground, and a red thread, which is identified with sinfulness, and throws all of them into the fire that consumes the parah adamah. The ashes pull one from pride back to humility and redeem one from sinfulness. (Commentary on Numbers 19:1-10)

(My secondary source doesn't say why a red thread is identified with sinfulness. The only red thread that immediately comes to mind from Tanach is the one in Joshua that the two spies tell the woman in Jericho to use to signal her house so she'll be spared in the invasion -- which suggests righteousness, not sin, in that case.)

(This is a place-holder for a commentary on reading meaning into mitzvot versus "because God said so".)

Comments

cedar & hyssop

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

These appear in melachim 1:5:13 as bracketing the range of trees that Shlomo speaks of. (The group I'm learning with did this section this past Thursday so it's fresh in my mind.)

Re: cedar & hyssop

[cellio]

Thanks!