Chukas ADDENDUM: Parah Adumah and Chazal’s Doctrine of Sin and Suffering

Ho’il Moshe’s explanation of this halacha seems straightforward and uncontroversial … but it might hint at a secret. That's why I’ll keep my thoughts paywalled.

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Chukas ADDENDUM: Parah Adumah and Chazal’s Doctrine of Sin and Suffering

In last week’s article, Chukas: A Maimonidean Explanation for Parah Adumah (from a Different Moshe), we explored the theory advanced by R’ Moshe ben Yitzchak Ashkenazi in Ho’il Moshe. He maintains that the parah adumah was part of the Torah’s polemic against avodah zarah, in line with Rambam’s theory of korbanos. Specifically, he argues that the parah adumah was a subversion of the Egyptian ritual of the Apis Bull.

Rambam (Moreh 3:49) wrote: “I have not yet discerned a single reason … for the use of cedar, hyssop, and scarlet wool in the parah adumah.” Ho’il Moshe (Bamidbar 19:6) picks up where the Rambam left off:

The statement of our Sages, “Ein misah b’lo cheit v’ein yisurin b’lo avon – There is no death without sin, and no afflictions without iniquity” (Shabbos 55a) was a doctrine and belief held by the Israelites from ancient times, and it was highly effective in deterring them from sin, since they feared death. Those who become tamei (halachically impure) from contact with the dead are usually the deceased’s close relatives and household members. When the hand of Hashem strikes their family, they too will examine their actions and return in teshuvah, as the Sages also said (ibid. 105b-106a), “When one member of the family dies, the whole household should worry.”

This is a natural phenomenon, and it is from the wisdom of the Supreme Will that a person forgets death, but when one of his relatives dies, he remembers it and trembles, lest it come upon him as well. Accordingly, in purifying themselves from tumas meis (corpse-impurity), they take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool, just as they do for the purification of a metzora (a person afflicted with a divinely ordained skin affliction).

The reason these three items were chosen is that the cedar is the tallest of the trees in the Land of Israel, while the hyssop is the lowliest and most despicable of plants—and Ha’Kadosh Baruch Hu, lowers and raises. The scarlet wool is red like blood, alluding to the idea that the sinner’s blood, on account of his sin, was worthy of being spilled. Through this, he will take his deeds to heart and purify both his body and his soul.

At first glance, Ho’il Moshe appears to be saying that the parah adumah incorporates elements that allude to sin and teshuvah, in line with Chazal’s teaching that “there is no death without sin.” He seems to maintain that the halachic requirement of the cedar, hyssop, and scarlet thread endorses Chazal’s doctrine.