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Parah Adumah פרה אדומה.

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Salvation is far from the wicked: For they seek not thy statutes [חקי chukkim].

Psalm 119:155.​

Of all the statues חקים in the Tanakh one stands out above them all such that nothing could be so wicked, in king David's parlance, as to not seek out the meaning and purpose of the decree of decrees, the chok חק of the chukkim חקים ---- the parah adumah פרה אדומה.



John
 
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John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Salvation is far from the wicked: For they seek not thy statutes [חקי chukkim].

Psalm 119:155.​

Of all the statues חקים in the Tanakh one stands out above them all such that nothing could be so wicked, in king David's parlance, a to not seek out the meaning and purpose of the decree of decrees, the chok חק of the chukkim חקים ---- the parah adumah פרה אדומה.

8. OF THE GROUND (ADAMAH), R. Berekiah and R. Belbo in the name of Samuel the Elder said: He was created from the place of his atonement, as you read, An altar of earth (adamah) thou shalt make unto me (Ex. xx,21). The Holy One, blessed be He, said: `Behold I will create him from the place of his atonement, and may he endure!"

Midrash Rabbah, Bere****h XIV.8.

It is significant that the "ash" is called here "עפר" (v. 17). The organic body decomposes and becomes ashes, but these ashes are none other than the material from which the body originated.

The Hirsch Chumash, Bemidbar [Numbers] 19:22.​

The "ash" spoken of by Rabbi Hirsch (in Numbers chapter 19) is the ash produced by the burning of the parah adumah, the red cow. So nothing about the quotation from Midrash Rabbah, Bere****h XIV.8, is in any way peculiar or out of sorts with the general flow of the revelation. In fact, the flow, so to say, is perfect when we note that Rabbi Hirsch tells us not only that all human blood belongs to God, is his, but that blood itself is liquefied flesh.

Do you see the significance of Rabbi Hirsch's brilliant exegesis?

Parah adumah, the red cow, is burned into "ash" עפר as the signature sacrifice in the Jewish system of sacrifices (and it's that for sure since it's required for all other sacrifices) such that saying Adam is created from the place of his atonement, as an altar of adamah, "earth," which, in Genesis 2:7 is actually not "adumah" אדמה alone, but the "ash" עפר of the "earth" אדמה, is saying something pretty darned important.

It's saying Adam is created out of the "ash" עפר of the prototype sacrifice: the parah adumah.

Since everything said above is syllogistically, if not stylistically, correct, logical, and true, it's pretty remarkable that Rav Hirsch makes "blood" equal liquefied flesh since at the sacrifice of the parah adumah, holy water is mixed with the ashes of the burnt flesh to produce the strangest paradox in the scripture: waters of menstruation, מי נדה, menstrual blood. ------Moses says this menstrual flow will, get this, be a "purification for sin." Which authenticates the sages of Midrash Rabbah claiming Adam is created in a manner that makes his sin atoned for already since the ash עפר Adam is created from (Gen. 2:7) is the burned body of parah adumah (the original sacrifice), which atones for, or purifies, sin.



John
 
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John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Parah adumah, the red cow, is burned into "ash" עפר as the signature sacrifice in the Jewish system of sacrifices (and it's that for sure since it's required for all other sacrifices) such that saying Adam is created from the place of his atonement, as an altar of adamah, "earth," which, in Genesis 2:7 is actually not "adumah" אדמה alone, but the "ash" עפר of the "earth" אדמה, is saying something pretty darned important.

It's saying Adam is created out of the "ash" עפר of the prototype sacrifice: the parah adumah.

Since everything said above is syllogistically, if not stylistically, correct, logical, and true, it's pretty remarkable that Rav Hirsch makes "blood" equal liquefied flesh since at the sacrifice of the parah adumah, holy water is mixed with the ashes of the burnt flesh to produce the strangest paradox in the scripture: waters of menstruation, מי נדה, menstrual blood. ------Moses says this menstrual flow will, get this, be a "purification for sin." Which authenticates the sages of Midrash Rabbah claiming Adam is created in a manner that makes his sin atoned for already since the ash עפר Adam is created from (Gen. 2:7) is the burned body of parah adumah (the original sacrifice), which atones for, or purifies, sin.

. . . Now it might be a sin to digress from the menstrual flow here to justify what's already been said, but hell, since the digression itself comes from the place of ultimate atonement perhaps it'll endure.

The Hebrew letter alef was originally (ktav ivri) a sacred-pictogram (hieroglyph) of a cow? ------So, Adam (א–דם), spelled alef-dalet-mem, is apparently named after the adumah (red) parah (cow). Which is to say if alef is a cow, then since dalet-mem (dam) spells "blood," A-dam (א–דם) is named after the place of his atonement. Which is to say the blood-red alef/cow (adumah parah), i.e., the place of Adam's atonement (where he's purified from the death he generates), is the source of Adam's earthly frame.

Which segues into the menstrual flow, the waters of niddah, produced when the ash עפר of parah adumah, are mixed with water, to produce liquefied flesh, i.e., blood, since the paradox of calling menstrual blood the elixir of life, a purifier from sin, goes straightaways against the normal understanding that menstrual blood is itself a contaminate that makes something ritually "unclean" rather than ritually "clean."



John
 
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John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
.

Which segues into the menstrual flow, the waters of niddah, produced when the ash עפר of parah adumah, are mixed with water, to produce liquefied flesh, i.e., blood, since the paradox of calling menstrual blood the elixir of life, a purifier from sin, goes straightaways against the normal understanding that menstrual blood is itself a contaminate that makes something ritually "unclean" rather than ritually "clean."

Ironically, as any knowledgeable Jew, or Christian for that matter, knows, the parah adumah makes those ritually clean unclean, while it makes those ritually unclean clean? Which makes it a strange concatenation, at best, of normal menstrual blood, which, the latter, makes the clean unclean and does nothing to clean up the mess of the unclean. How can a solution to sin, a purifier of sin, i.e, the waters of niddah (man-made menstrual blood), turn something already clean and pure impure? Isn't the power to make the impure pure, the unclean clean, opposite of the power to make the pure impure, the clean unclean?


John
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Ironically, as any knowledgeable Jew, or Christian for that matter, knows, the parah adumah makes those ritually clean unclean, while it makes those ritually unclean clean? Which makes it a strange concatenation, at best, of normal menstrual blood, which, the latter, makes the clean unclean and does nothing to clean up the mess of the unclean. How can a solution to sin, a purifier of sin, i.e, the waters of niddah (man-made menstrual blood), turn something already clean and pure impure? Isn't the power to make the impure pure, the unclean clean, opposite of the power to make the pure impure, the clean unclean?

It's just this question that's the impetus for this thread since Jews know two things very well about the parah adumah, and yet remark on them very little. And as we shall see, for good reason.

Although all other sacrifices are male, the original sacrifice, required for all others, is female. And although almost all other sacrifices (the scapegoat is an exception) are slaughtered inside the gates of the holy city, and inside the gates of the temple, the original sacrifice, required for all the rest, must be taken outside the temple, outside the gates of the city, and slaughtered out there?

Furthermore, cedar wood, scarlet wool, and hyssop, are thrown into the burning flesh of the parah adumah.

But my god say the goyim! that's a darn leper? ------The leper is taken outside the city gates. The leper is purified with cedar wood, scarlet wool, and hyssop? How could a pure red cow, perfect, clean, not two black hairs on the entire thing, kosher, unmounted (virgin), unharnessed, i.e., a picture of purity, be treated as a leper? Who would do that? Let alone a Jewish priest. How could the quintessential sacrifice of sacrifices, the chok of the chukkim, the very decree upon which the entire Torah is based (Rabbi Schneerson), be treated like a leper? Who's heard of such a thing? I mean except perhaps Isaiah (53)?

And it gets worse, which is why, perhaps, even the Jewish sages would rather salvation (ישועה) be far from them than to get too close to the meaning of the statute upon which all other statues are based. They fear ---legitimately, scripturally -----being made unclean by the very sacrifice upon which the Torah is based. They fear being made unclean, since they're ritually clean already, by a sacrifice that threatens the ritually clean with becoming טמא (unclean) through association with death מת.

Salvation is far from the wicked: For they seek not thy statutes [חקי chukkim].

Psalm 119:155.​

Why should, would, a ritually clean Jew, seek out the statute of statutes, the parah adumah, if it's just going to make them unclean טמא? What the hell is going on around here?



John
 
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John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
It's just this question that's the impetus for this thread since Jews know two things very well about the parah adumah, and yet remark on them very little. And as we shall see, for good reason.

Although all other sacrifices are male, the original sacrifice, required for all others, is female. And although almost all other sacrifices (the scapegoat is an exception) are slaughtered inside the gates of the holy city, and inside the gates of the temple, the original sacrifice, required for all the rest, must be taken outside the temple, outside the gates of the city, and slaughtered out there?

Furthermore, cedar wood, scarlet wool, and hyssop, are thrown into the burning flesh of the parah adumah.

But my god say the goyim! that's a darn leper? ------The leper is taken outside the city gates. The leper is purified with cedar wood, scarlet wool, and hyssop? How could a pure red cow, perfect, clean, not two black hairs on the entire thing, kosher, unmounted (virgin), unharnessed, i.e., a picture of purity, be treated as a leper? Who would do that? Let alone a Jewish priest. How could the quintessential sacrifice of sacrifices, the chok of the chukkim, the very decree upon which the entire Torah is based (Rabbi Schneerson), be treated like a leper? Who's heard of such a thing? I mean except perhaps Isaiah (53)?

And it gets worse, which is why, perhaps, even the Jewish sages would rather salvation (ישועה) be far from them than to get too close to the meaning of the statute upon which all other statues are based. They fear ---legitimately, scripturally -----being made unclean by the very sacrifice upon which the Torah is based. They fear being made unclean, since they're ritually clean already, by a sacrifice that threatens the ritually clean with becoming טמא (unclean) through association with death מת.

Salvation is far from the wicked: For they seek not thy statutes [חקי chukkim].

Psalm 119:155.​

Why should, would, a ritually clean Jew, seek out the statute of statutes, the parah adumah, if it's just going to make them unclean טמא? What the hell is going on around here?

And their gold will be niddah, their silver and their gold will not be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath . . . for the obstacle was because of their iniquity. The beauty of His adornment is what he made for their pride, but they made there the despicable images of their abominations; therefore I made it niddah to them. And I shall give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey and to the wicked of the earth for a plunder, and they will profane it.

Ezekiel 7:19-20.

"Satan and the nations of the world cause grief [profane parah adumah] . . . saying, `What is this commandment? What purpose does it have?'" . . . Be'er Mayim Chayim writes that this mitzvah is irrational because it causes pure individuals to become impure and the impure to become pure. However, Rashi writes explicitly that there is a logic behind this point, since the red heifer is "an atonement for the Golden Calf. . . and just as the [Golden] Calf rendered everybody who dealt with it impure, likewise the [red] heifer renders all who deal with it impure."

The Gutnick Chumash, Parashas Chukas, p. 989.​

There's a symbiotic relationship between the two passages above that mightn't meet the eye of the casual or careless scripture reader? And the key phrase linking the quote from Ezekiel 7:19-20, with the unsolicited soliloquy of Rashi, is the phrase "the beauty of his adornment." The beauty of God's adornment is going to be made niddah for Israel, who are otherwise adorned in clean garments, such that Rashi's paralleling the parah adumah with the golden calf, the latter being parah adumah's virgin born son (Midrash Rabbah, Chukkath, XIX, 8), presents a teachable-moment, or statement.

According to Midrash Rabbah the golden calf is the offspring of the red cow. And since the red cow (parah adumah) is a perfect, clean, virgin, we can know that the golden calf represents the son of a pure, perfect, virgin, whom Israel worships as the very son of God (Israel worships the golden calf as a god), making the red cow God's Shekinah (since it gives birth to the golden calf), which, makes Rashi's statement not just amazing, i.e, Israel being made unclean by means of the sacrifice of a virgin born son of God, but, get this, historical too.

The irony is palatable since Israel is made unclean by the sacrifice both of the mother, Shekinah, and her son, the son of God, while, get this, the filthy goyim are, not just scripturally, but historically, made clean, pure, sanctified, by the same flow that makes Israel unclean.

But it gets worse, palatably worse, when we come to realize that just as those who take part in the sacrifice of the mother, the red cow, are made unclean, so too, as Rashi notes, all those who take part in the goings on associated with sacrifice of the mother's calf, the golden calf, are likewise made unclean.

What Rashi doesn't mention, what Judaism completely ignores, is that just as the ashes of the red cow (parah adumah) clean the unclean, after having made the clean unclean, so too, rather amazingly, Moses pulverizes the golden calf, turning it to powder דק, or better, "ash" עפר (since he burns the chametz out of it in the fire), just as was done with the mother, the red cow.

What Judaism totally ignores, is that Moses takes the ashes of the red cow's crucifried virgin son, mixes it with holy water, just like is done with the ashes of the mother, and sprinkles the unclean remnant of Israel (those who didn't receive capital punishment) making them clean again.



John
 
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John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
And their gold will be niddah, their silver and their gold will not be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath . . . for the obstacle was because of their iniquity. The beauty of His adornment is what he made for their glorification, but they made there the despicable images of their abominations; therefore I made it niddah to them. And I shall give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey and to the wicked of the earth for a plunder, and they will profane it.

Ezekiel 7:19-20.
Rashi, ever the one to attempt to throw off non-tradition-serving readings of the text, tries to claim the "adornment" given to Israel is the temple. But the temple was never, technically, made niddah for Israel; it was never considered a "despicable image" for God or Israel. Redak, on the other hand, is closer to the truth (though still far away). He claims, in line with the context of the passage, that Israel wore jewelry to adorn themselves in glorious sacerdotal array. Context lends itself to Redak, though it must be returned, since Ezekiel 16:11-17 says:

And I adorned you with ornaments . . . a necklace on your neck . . . And you took your glorious ornaments of my gold and my silver which I gave you --- and you made for yourself male-images and you committed whoredom with them.​

Two parallel passage put the two quotations from Ezekiel into context:

I will adorn its priest with salvation, and its devoted ones shall ever shout for joy. There I shall cause David's horn to spring up; there I have set in order a lamb for My anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon him his crown will blossom.

Psalms 132:16-18.​

As fate would have it, we know more about the adornment spoken of in Psalms 132:16-18 than meets the eye since it speaks explicitly of an ornament related to the "horn" of David (Messiah), and it associates it with a lamp (illumination) representing the "anointed one" who's none other than Messiah himself:

את האורים ואת התמים --- THE URIM AND THE TUMIM. הוא כתב שמ המפרש - It is a writing of the Explicit Name, the Tetragrammaton of HASHEM, שהיה נותנו בתוך כפלי החשן - which he would put inside the folds of the Choshen, שעל ידו הוא מאיר דבריו ומתמם את דבריו - for by means of [the Urim VeTumim], [the Choshen] would illuminate its words and bring perfection to its words.

Rashi, Shemos, 28:30 (brackets in Sapirstein Edition Rashi).​

Note 3 on the paragraph above (in the Sapirstein Edition Rashi) points out that the Hebrew word for "urim" אורים literally means" light," or lights, ergo "illumination." The note goes on to point out that the ornamental urim (that adorns the priest) would illuminate the meaning of an issue brought before it so that we have parallel passages in Ezekiel 7:19-20, 16:11-17, and Psalms 132:16-18 illuminating for us the fact that the ornament God makes niddah for Israel is, clearly, undeniably, exegetically, the chosen חשן, worn by the high priest.

The chosen חשן is the adornment/ornament made niddah for Israel.



John
 
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John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
And their gold will be niddah, their silver and their gold will not be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath . . . for the obstacle was because of their iniquity. The beauty of His adornment is what he made for their glorification, but they made there the despicable images of their abominations; therefore I made it niddah to them.

Ezekiel 7:19-20.

את האורים ואת התמים --- THE URIM AND THE TUMIM. הוא כתב שמ המפרש - It is a writing of the Explicit Name, the Tetragrammaton of HASHEM, שהיה נותנו בתוך כפלי החשן - which he would put inside the folds of the Choshen, שעל ידו הוא מאיר דבריו ומתמם את דבריו - for by means of [the Urim VeTumim], [the Choshen] would illuminate its words and bring perfection to its words.

Rashi, Shemos, 28:30 (brackets in Sapirstein Edition Rashi).​

Note 3 on the paragraph above (in the Sapirstein Edition Rashi) points out that the Hebrew word for "urim" אורים literally means" light," or lights, ergo "illumination." The note goes on to point out that the ornamental urim (that adorns the priest) would illuminate the meaning of an issue brought before it so that we have parallel passages in Ezekiel 7:19-20, 16:11-17, and Psalms 132:16-18 illuminating for us the fact that the ornament God makes niddah for Israel is, clearly, undeniably, exegetically, the chosen חשן, worn by the high priest.

The chosen חשן is the adornment/ornament made niddah for Israel.

Ezekiel 7:19 says that: their gold will be niddah, their silver and their gold will not be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath . . . for the obstacle [to their salvation] was because of their iniquity. . . The text is claiming that the very ornament, adornment, designed to "save" ("I will cloth its priests with salvation ישע"), becomes the "obstacle" (Hebrew: "stone of offense") denying Israel the salvation that God designed in association with the ornament, the adornment, the glory of Israel (the chosen חשן).

When we realize that Psalms 132:16-18 unabashedly proclaims that this ornament is Messiah, the light, or illumination of the world, the very anointed one of God, Rashi's further clarification concerning the nature of the chosen חשן starts to take on a rather heavy, even dark, rather than a light, meaning. This is particularly the case when we realize that Rash has already been quoted claiming the Divine Name, the tetragrammaton (the Name of the Lord) is placed inside the chosen חשן (see quotation above); such that paralleling Psalm 132:16-18, where what the priests wear is called "Salvation," and is explicitly stated to be Messiah, the horn of David, the anointed one, ישע, well, naturally, modern Judaism isn't going to like where this is going one iota: the passages are equating Messiah with the Divine Name, the tetragrammaton.

חשם משפת -- THE CHOSHEN OF JUDGMENT. שמכפר על קלקול הדין -- It is called this because it atones for miscarriage of justice.

Rashi, Shemos, 28:15 (brackets in Sapirstein Edition Rashi).​

The note to the statement above (in the Sapirstein Edition Rashi), says: "Rashi is saying here that the term חשן משפט indicates that the Urim VeTumim proved the truth of its words, just as one presenting his claims before the court tries to show the truth and justice of his arguments." Rashi goes on to state that the Hebrew word used with the chosen חשן, i.e., משפט, speaks "of the claims of the litigants," which is to say that "choshen חשן of judgment," משפט (mishpat) meaning "judgment," implies that the chosen חשן itself is (represents) a litigant with a claim against Israel.

את משפט בני ישראל --THE JUDGMENT OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. דבר שהם נשפטים ונוכחים על ידו --The Choshen is a thing through which they are judged and arrive at a conclusion . . . According to the aggadic Midrash which says that the Choshen atones for those who pervert justice, נקדא משפט על שם סליחת המשפט -- [the Choshen] is called "judgment" because of forgiveness of the sin involving judgment.

Rashi, Shemos, 28:30 (brackets in Sapirstein Edition Rashi).​

Exodus (Shemos) chapter 28 goes on to say that the chosen חשן shall be worn on Aaron's heart, as a necklace bearing the light of Messiah, an ornament of glory, the tetragrammaton, whenever Aaron comes before the Lord. Which is to say the Lord will not entertain Aaron the high priest of Israel unless he's wearing the ornament of glory, the chosen חשן of judgment, through which the sins of Israel will be forgiven, atoned for, and made clean תהור.

Imagine for a moment what it would mean for the chosen חשן, the very means through which Israel is atoned for, and forgiven (of their sins), to be made niddah for Israel, i.e., the thing that cleans טהור the unclean, instead makes Israel unclean טמא, niddah. That's what's in the cross-member, the cross-hairs, of a study on parah adumah, the red cow, the mother (Shekinah) of a virgin born god, whose blood, the blood of the mother, the red cow, and the son, the gold calf, make the clean ---Israel ---unclean, and the unclean, the nations (goyim), clean as the driven snow.

Which all segues right back to the question of questions that's central to this examination, i.e., the very cross-member in the cross-hairs of the study: what could be cleaner than the water of a mikveh? Which is partly answered by understanding the nature of the chosen חשן and its being made niddah for Israel, such that all the foregoing (rather than a slight ritual cut), leads to a question that should help with the question of questions: if parah adumah is required for Israel to function as a priestly nation, and it is, according to Jewish law (such that accordingly Israel hasn't function as such since the first century of the current era), then we're left with just one very important question before we call airman Cecil O'Malley and Anthony Rodriguez. We're wondering how, if Israel needs the blood of the red cow, parah adumah, to be clean priests in the first place, then how can the blood of the red cow, parah adumah, make the priests and participants from Israel who are preparing the blood of the sacrifice, unclean, when they should need the blood of the sacrifice to be made clean in the first place?



John
 
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John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Which all segues right back to the question of questions that's central to this examination, i.e., the very cross-member in the cross-hairs of the study: what could be cleaner than the water of a mikveh? Which is partly answered by understanding the nature of the chosen חשן and its being made niddah for Israel, such that all the foregoing (rather than a slight ritual cut), leads to a question that should help with the question of questions: if parah adumah is required for Israel to function as a priestly nations, and it is, according to Jewish law (such that accordingly Israel hasn't function as such since the first century of the current era), then we're left with just one very important question before we call airman Cecil O'Malley and Anthony Rodriguez. We're wondering how, if Israel needs the blood of the red cow, parah adumah, to be clean priests in the first place, then how can the blood of the red cow, parah adumah, make the priests and participants from Israel who are preparing the blood of the sacrifice, unclean, when they should need the blood of the sacrifice to be made clean in the first place?

To the casual reader of this or any other serious examination of the parah adumah, the question above could seem queer in the extreme since it's never, to my knowledge, and study, ever been asked. And there's a reason it's never been asked. And that reason is related to the kind of cognitive-dissonance required to keep dissonant facts and truism outside, where they can't harm religious orthodoxy, or any other orthodoxy for that matter.

Rabbi Elie Munk, author of the brilliant, Call of the Torah, (an anthology of commentary on the Torah), is a case in point:

The Kohen who mixed the water of purification became contaminated as if he had taken on the evil of the wicked nations in order to convert it to goodness. . . The ashes of the parah adumah, representing contamination were needed as a means to provide purification. Where the contamination of death appears, purity can be recovered through the procedure of the parah adumah. . . It [sacrifice of the parah adumah] takes place outside the Tabernacle. If performed within its bounds, Israel could be accused of harboring evil [represented by the cow] in its midst.

Bamidbar 19:2, p. 224-225 (first bracket is mine, second is Rabbi Munk's).​

There's a problem with Rabbi Munk's treatise. And it's a problem that hides the cognitive-dissonance saving Rabbi Munk, like others, from asking the hard questions Judaism has no answers to. Rabbi Munk, like too many Jewish exegetes, seems to forget that the parah adumah is "blameless." She's pure. She's virgin. She's never been mounted or used for profane tasks. She is a picture of purity טהור. Which is to point out the dissonance of the statement upon which Rabbi Munk's orthodoxy-protecting ruse is based: " . . . Israel could be accused of harboring evil [represented by the cow] in its midst."

The cow is neither a picture of evil, death, nor sin. It's the opposite. It's a picture of purity, immortality, virginity, life, goodness, and all the things original to ha-adam, the red man, prior to his death receiving sin.

If Rabbi Munk, with many other rabbis, doesn't pretend not to notice that the red cow, parah adumah, is a picture not of sin, or death, but the opposite, then he has the grotesque problem, for a Jew, of wondering why the picture of purity, of immortality, of sinless perfection, is being dragged outside the gates of the "holy" city, the clean city, the city of clean priests, to be treated like a dog, a leper, burned up with cedar, scarlet wool, and hyssop being added to the burning body, implying that what is clean and perfect is being made, for Israel, not the nations, unclean, dirty, filthy, and subjected to death?

Parah adumah is not being treated as a dog, a leper, by the nations, except perhaps by Israel's will and testament (unlike all other sacrifices the priest needn't participate directly in the holocaust meted out to this sacrifice such that he could have a goy, even a Roman for that matter, do the dirty, so long as he's there giving his blessing). And it's probably not what Rabbi Munk intends to portray to say that the Jewish priest places the wickedness of the nations on the perfect sacrifice, the red cow, so that by purifying the nations Israel's purity is on displayed to the world?

And yet something of the latter implication has to stick to Israel until we can answer the whys and wherefores whereby not only does a brilliant rabbi pretend not to have noticed that the red cow is a picture of perfection and immortality, not wickedness, but that it's Israel, not the nations (unless the latter is at Israel's behest, or request) who are treating the most perfect sacrifice there ever was or will be as a niddah, an unclean thing, as though, for some reason, Israel can't distinguish true clean-ness from actual uncleanness.

Which segues back to the question of questions: what is cleaner than the waters of the mikveh? And the ancillary question: how did Israel get clean before the first mechanism required for clean-ness, the red cow, has even been offered? Part and parcel of that latter question must be related to the bizarre sygyzy whereby the death of sinless perfection provides life for the sinner while making doubly-dirty the sinner who thinks he was born clean the first time without sharing the mechanisms for the unclean woman's womb, and menstruation (the niddah) not contaminating the fruit it produces in league with the serpent of death should he (the fleshly serpent) only be ritually pricked or nicked and not cut through to the very marrow of how the niddah, the unclean womb, could possibly be made, or already been, clean טהור prior to the sacrifice of the parah adumah?



John
 
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John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Rabbi Elie Munk, author of the brilliant, Call of the Torah, (an anthology of commentary on the Torah), is a case in point:

The Kohen who mixed the water of purification became contaminated as if he had taken on the evil of the wicked nations in order to convert it to goodness. . . The ashes of the parah adumah, representing contamination were needed as a means to provide purification. Where the contamination of death appears, purity can be recovered through the procedure of the parah adumah. . . It [sacrifice of the parah adumah] takes place outside the Tabernacle. If performed within its bounds, Israel could be accused of harboring evil [represented by the cow] in its midst.

Bamidbar 19:2, p. 224-225 (first bracket is mine, second is Rabbi Munk's).​

There's a problem with Rabbi Munk's treatise. And it's a problem that hides the cognitive-dissonance saving Rabbi Munk, like others, from asking the hard questions Judaism has no answers to. Rabbi Munk, like too many Jewish exegetes, seems to forget that the parah adumah is "blameless." She's pure. She's virgin. She's never been mounted or used for profane tasks. She is a picture of purity טהור. Which is to point out the dissonance of the statement upon which Rabbi Munk's orthodoxy-protecting ruse is based: " . . . Israel could be accused of harboring evil [represented by the cow] in its midst."

The cow is neither a picture of evil, death, nor sin. It's the opposite. It's a picture of purity, immortality, virginity, life, goodness, and all the things original to ha-adam, the red man, prior to his death receiving sin.

If Rabbi Munk, with many other rabbis, doesn't pretend not to notice that the red cow, parah adumah, is a picture not of sin, or death, but the opposite, then he has the grotesque problem, for a Jew, of wondering why the picture of purity, of immortality, of sinless perfection, is being dragged outside the gates of the "holy" city, the clean city, the city of clean priests, to be treated like a dog, a leper, burned up with cedar, scarlet wool, and hyssop being added to the burning body, implying that what is clean and perfect is being made, for Israel, not the nations, unclean, dirty, filthy, and subjected to death?

Parah adumah is not being treated as a dog, a leper, by the nations, except perhaps by Israel's will and testament (unlike all other sacrifices the priest needn't participate directly in the holocaust meted out to this sacrifice such that he could have a goy, even a Roman for that matter, do the dirty, so long as he's there giving his blessing). And it's probably not what Rabbi Munk intends to portray to say that the Jewish priest places the wickedness of the nations on the perfect sacrifice, the red cow, so that by purifying the nations Israel's purity is on displayed to the world?

The beauty of His adornment is what he made for their glorification, but they made there the despicable images of their abominations; therefore I made it niddah to them. And I shall give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey and to the wicked of the earth for a plunder, and they will profane it.

Ezekiel 7:19-20.​

Jews in the early centuries of the current era took to wearing a newfangled manifestation of their chosen-ness. And for this reason they were put out of the synagogue to fend for themselves along with their goyim brothers. They (the apostates) claimed the “setting stones" אבני מלים worn around the neck of the kohen gadol (i.e., adornment of God, the chosen חשן) were readily and easily glorified, by the builders of the emblem, but that when the stone from whence the "setting stones" אבני מלים had been quarried was transformed into flesh (Ezekiel11:19) they treated him as niddah, took him outside the gates, and had the wicked-est people on the face of the earth, the Romans, profane him.

The apostates, niddah so far as Judaism is concerned (even to this day), wear their fleshly chosen חשן (their heart of flesh) precisely where the kohen gadol wore the heart of stone whose cornerstone, from whence the other stones came, the builders of the stony-chosen חשן utterly rejected as though he were niddah:

And I will give them one heart, and I will but a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart off their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh [to wear on their flesh, between their breast].

Ezekiel 11:19.

את משפט בני ישראל --THE JUDGMENT OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. דבר שהם נשפטים ונוכחים על ידו --The Choshen is a thing through which they are judged . . . According to the aggadic Midrash which says that the Choshen atones for those who pervert justice, נקדא משפט על שם סליחת המשפט -- [the Choshen] is called "judgment" because of forgiveness of the sin involving [a miscarriage of] judgment [or justice].

Rashi, Shemos, 28:30 (first bracket is in Sapirstein Edition Rashi. Last two brackets are mine based on earlier statements by Rashi in his commentary).

And he shall be a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel.

Isaiah 8:14.


John
 
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John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
את משפט בני ישראל --THE JUDGMENT OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. דבר שהם נשפטים ונוכחים על ידו --The Choshen is a thing through which they are judged . . . According to the aggadic Midrash which says that the Choshen atones for those who pervert justice, נקדא משפט על שם סליחת המשפט -- [the Choshen] is called "judgment" because of forgiveness of the sin involving [a miscarriage of] judgment [or justice].

Rashi, Shemos, 28:30 (first bracket is in Sapirstein Edition Rashi. Last two brackets are mine based on earlier statements by Rashi in his commentary).


Rashi's commentary on the chosen חשן explicitly states that the chosen חשן is like a litigant with a case against the accused, in this case Israel. In Rashi's own words, the peculiar design of the chosen חשן circumscribes the very nature of the plaintiff's plea. And in this case, the plea of the plaintiff is irrefutable by reason of the nature of the plea itself. The plaintiff hangs between the breast of the kohen gadol like a light shining out to all the world concerning the crime the litigant is crying out about (Psalms 22:1).

את האורים ואת התמים --- THE URIM AND THE TUMIM. הוא כתב שמ המפרש - It is a writing of the Explicit Name, the Tetragrammaton of HASHEM, שהיה נותנו בתוך כפלי החשן - which he would put inside the folds of the Choshen, שעל ידו הוא מאיר דבריו ומתמם את דבריו - for by means of [the Urim VeTumim], [the Choshen] would illuminate its words and bring perfection to its words.

Rashi, Shemos, 28:30 (brackets in Sapirstein Edition Rashi).

I will adorn its priest with salvation [Yeshua] . . . There I shall cause David's horn [messiah] to spring up; there I have set in order a lamb for My anointed [one]. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon him his crown will blossom.

Psalms 132:16-18.​

A Jewish reader who gets this far in the examination (hypothetically of course) would probably look like a deer in the headlight at the idea of the chosen חשן representing a litigant's plea against the sin of Israel. But that's what Rashi points out. And it's what one greater than Rashi, the prophet Jeremiah, points out, explicitly:

The sin of Judah is written with what a pen-is that's made of iron, with a diamond point, engraved on the tablet of their heart.

Jeremiah 17:1.​

In commentary to this statement, specifically "the sin of Judah," Baal haMetzudot, in Mezudath David, says, "Although the time will come when even the gentiles will forsake their idols and believe in God, Judah's sin is still preserved in their heart as though it were written there with a pen of iron and with a point of the hardest iron" (Judaica Books of the Prophets, p. 144-145). ------ Redak concurs saying the tablet of their heart is like hard stone [Ibid.]. Knowingly or not, Redak and Baal haMetzudot are speaking explicitly concerning the chosen חשן which had the tribes of Israel engraved with a diamond point onto the "setting stones" אבני מלים that make up the outer covering of the chosen חשן. They're justifying the fact that the sin which, ironically, and paradoxically, is litigated by the chosen חשן, the plea crying out from the chosen חשן, is, vertiginous though the thought be, forgiven by the nature and place of the plea itself.

Redak goes so far as to imply that the point used to make the plea of the chosen חשן is, in Hebrew, a "nail" צפרן, and that the nail hangs the litigant and his plea so, "that they [Israel] do not forget their idolatry [now or forever]" (Ibid. Rashi, bracket mine).

And I will fasten him with the point of a nail in a sure place so he will be a glorious throne to his father's sanctuary and all the glory of his father's house shall hang with him.

Isaiah 22:23.

This is my resting place to the end of time. Here will I dwell, for I have desired it.

Psalms 132:14.

An altar of earth אדמה thou shall make for me and sacrifice thereupon . . . in all these places where I record my name [i.e., altar of sacrifice] I will bless you [with my Name: salvation] . . . if thou lift up thy tool [pen, engraver] upon it thou has polluted it.

Exodus 20:24-25.​



John
 
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