Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel devoted much of his writing and teaching to calling people to “Radical Amazement,” or heightened awareness of mystery and awe. “We don’t live in an awareness that all that is is an incomprehensible mystery and miracle,” he wrote. “I feel radical amazement when I slow down, be still, open my eyes and see the wonder that we live in.”
Heschel was right. We all need more mystery and awe in our lives. Now, perhaps, more than ever, when so many of us are experiencing a sense of amazement that is less radical and more anxiety-filled, angry, fearful and frustrated so much of the time.
Parashat Chukat centers us on mystery and awe. This week’s Torah portion begins with a mysterious ritual called the “Red Heifer,” a strange ritual using a sacrificial red cow to purify one who has become impure. This ritual defies most efforts to offer rational explanation. According to the paradoxical commandment, those who prepare the ashes of the sacrificial red heifer for purification become impure themselves. While generations of commentators seek to make this mystery less so, it remains a conundrum.
Later, in the same Torah portion, Moses, in a moment of his own grief and frustration, strikes the rock in order to draw water for the people, and God decrees that he will not enter the Promised Land.
These moments remind us that leadership, justice and even faith often involve contradiction and demand our willingness to accept the unexplainable, mysterious and unpredictable moments of our lives. They also teach that our own emotional burdens — grief, anger, exhaustion and disappointment — shape our decisions, for better or worse.
Today, both in Israel and the United States, we are living through multiple moral and political paradoxes. Many liberal Jews watch with heavy hearts as policies in Israel are shaped by ultra-nationalist fervor, threatening democracy and Jewish pluralism, and as the enemies of Israel continue to seek to delegitimize or even destroy the Jewish state. In the U.S., debates over truth, justice and civil rights seem too often to pit personal freedoms against collective responsibility. People are angry, grieving, divided. Like Moses, leaders and citizens alike are tempted to act out of frustration.
The Torah’s story of the Red Heifer, though, reminds us that not everything sacred is necessarily logical, and not all purity is visible. To be able to simply accept the conundrum of this ancient tradition urges us to exercise humility, especially in moments of conflict or crisis. And the rock-striking episode teaches us that even righteous leaders can falter when they let rage cloud their compassion. In both stories, the Torah emphasizes accountability, not perfection.
Each of us, as members of the Jewish community, is called to bring our own ethical voice into the public sphere. That means that we must continue to advocate for religious pluralism in Israel, and for justice and inclusion in America, even when outcomes feel uncertain or progress seems slow. This means recognizing when we, too, are each speaking from our own fear, grief or pain, and seeking ways to channel these emotions into empathy, not blame or hostility or worse.
May this Torah portion remind us and teach us to remember and strive to be like Moses — not just in accepting his mistake, but also his courage to keep working for what he believed in even when denied the future he hoped for. Let us each hold fast to justice, compassion and truth, even when the path is unclear. In a world full of contradictions and the possibility of awe, our task is not always to solve the mystery, but to remain in our efforts to walk through it, seeking more radical amazement and less certainty.
Rabbi Jim Bennett serves Congregation Shaare Emeth and is a past president of the St. Louis Rabbinical and Cantorial Association, which coordinates the d’var Torah for the St. Louis Jewish Light.
