Parashat Parah: What is the message of the cow?

In the Maftir this week, we read from Parashat Chukat, the section about the Parah Adumah, otherwise known as Parashat Parah.  I believe there is a message here that is a crucial element of our philosophy as Orthodox Jews.

The Parah Adumah (Red Cow) discussed in Parashat Chukat is utilized in a process of purifying a person who became impure through contact with a dead person. In addition to what’s on the surface, Chazal teach us that this cow is brought to rectify the horrible sin of the Golden Calf , which is found in Parashat Ki Tisa. After Moshe goes up to Har Sinai to get the luchot from Hashem, the Jews grow inpatient and ask Aaron to create this calf as some form of intermediary to Hashem. An in-depth look at the commentaries will reveal different understandings of what exactly they did wrong here, but that notwithstanding, how does the Red Cow rectify this sin of the Golden Calf?

The simple understanding is that the sin was done with a baby calf and so the positive act of purification with “its mother” the Red Cow is done to make up for the misdeeds done with her calf. But what exactly does this mean? How are the two connected in a deep way, allowing us to really understand the message?

The Brisker Rav suggests that the sin of the Golden Calf  was that the Jewish people attempted to add to their avodat Hashem, something not suggested by G-d Himself or one of his prophets. Perhaps this was not avodah zara in the sense of bowing down to a foreign idol, but rather it was an attempt to reach G-d out of fear that Moshe wasn’t going to return. But despite some good intentions, they tried to do things differently, and in a way that was not warranted. It is for this reason that Hashem commands us to bring a Red Cow and it is commanded in the verse as זאת חקת התורה, “This is a chok from the Torah.” A chok is a mitzvah that Hashem specifically does not reveal His reasons and logic for. We are asked to do, and we do because Hashem said so. Now we see that to make up for the Golden Calf, where we tried to create or reform our service of Hashem without his permission, we are asked to rectify our wrongdoing by performing a mitzvah we do not understand. 

The message here is crucial. As Jews, we are taught that Talmud Torah is of paramount importance. We are supposed to learn and to question, so we can perform the mitzvot better. Yet, there is an important aspect that our commitment to performing mitzvot should never be based on that understanding. We do mitzvot because Hashem asked us to, period! After we accept that, only then we can spend our lives searching and questioning. We have to recognize that a crucial element of our lives as Jews is to do the mitzvot unconditionally, and to not reform them without G-d’s permission or the guidance of our Chachamim. That was the mistake of the Golden Calf, and now we understand why bringing the Red Cow was so important.