Parashat Chukat 5786
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites
Parashat Chukat opens with one of the most distinctive subjects in the Torah – the laws of ritual impurity and purity. Death symbolizes the absence of life, and this state is referred to in the Torah as tumah (ritual impurity). A living person, whose purpose is to act, create, and fulfill God’s will, is affected by an encounter with the reality of life’s absence. The path back to a state of taharah (ritual purity) is through connection to that which symbolizes life – immersing one’s entire body in a mikveh containing “living waters,” namely rainwater that has been naturally collected without human intervention. As the Torah states:
“This is the law: when a man dies in a tent, everyone who enters the tent and everything that is in the tent shall be unclean for seven days.”
(Numbers 19:14)
The Sages also understood this verse on a deeper level:
“Reish Lakish said: From where do we know that the words of Torah endure only in one who ‘kills himself’ over them? As it is stated:
‘This is the Torah: when a man dies in a tent.’”
(Berachot 63b)
The Torah teaches that genuine values require commitment and effort. A person who remains connected to their values only when it is convenient will struggle to maintain them over time. As the saying goes, “What comes easily goes easily.” True commitment is tested by one’s willingness to sacrifice, persevere, and continue even when the path is difficult.
This is how Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, the Rambam, expressed the idea:
“The words of Torah do not endure in those who study amid luxury and eating and drinking, but only in one who devotes himself to them, who constantly disciplines his body, who gives neither sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids. The Sages said that Torah endures only in one who ‘kills himself’ in the tents of the scholars.”
(Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:12)
From this emerges one of Judaism’s central ideals – mesirut nefesh, self-sacrifice. This does not refer only to the lofty Jewish ideal of giving one’s life for the sanctification of God’s Name, important though that is in its own right. Rather, it means the willingness to give up comfort, time, money, and personal interests for the sake of a greater value. Throughout history, Jews have even surrendered their lives rather than abandon their faith, believing that a life lived in contradiction to their deepest values is not a complete life.
At its core, every human being seeks meaning. When life is driven solely by comfort and pleasure, a sense of emptiness develops, and the search for fulfillment continues without satisfaction.
This question has occupied humanity throughout history. One of its most famous modern expressions is the book Man’s Search for Meaning by the Jewish psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. From the horrors of the concentration camps, Frankl concluded that the search for meaning is a fundamental human need. He quotes the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Everything in the world derives its meaning from something beyond itself. A chair exists to serve the person sitting on it, a table serves the meal, and food serves to sustain human life. One can continue asking this question about every object: What is its purpose? What gives it meaning? Ultimately, however, the greatest question arises: What is the purpose of the human being, and for what are our lives meant?
For life to possess genuine meaning, there must be a higher value or ideal that a person considers worthy of devotion, something for which they are willing to invest, strive, and even sacrifice. Not because they seek to die for it, but because they seek to live by its light.
This is the ideal form of mesirut nefesh described by the Torah. It is not necessarily the giving of one’s life, but the willingness to forgo temporary comfort, worldly luxuries, and the pull of passing trends in order to remain faithful to the truth one believes in. This is the deeper meaning of the Sages’ teaching about one who “kills himself in the tent of Torah” – that in order to live according to one’s values, one is prepared even to dwell in a simple tent, choosing a life of substance and meaning over one that merely appears glamorous or enticing. This daily choice is the fullest and deepest expression of self-sacrifice.
Haman the Wicked had already recognized this truth. The Sages recount that after decreeing the destruction of the Jewish people, he sought to see how they would respond. To his surprise, he found them sitting in the study hall immersed in the laws governing the Temple service of the priests. This seemed astonishing: they faced an existential threat, and the Temple itself no longer stood. Yet it was precisely then that Haman understood the secret of their strength. A people capable of remaining engaged with their ideals and faith even in such dire circumstances does not live only in the present moment or according to immediate circumstances. It is connected to a reality greater than itself, and therefore possesses the power to withstand any external threat.
This remains one of the greatest challenges of our own generation. The more society offers people opportunities, comfort, and pleasure, the more pressing becomes the question of what all these things are ultimately for. Human beings seek a higher purpose that justifies their efforts, guides their choices, and gives meaning to their existence. The real question is not merely what we enjoy, but for what we are willing to sacrifice, strive, and dedicate our lives. To a great extent, the answer to that question will shape the character of human society in the years to come.
