Parshat Chukat
Numbers 19:1 – 22:1

By Jen Smith

Parshat Chukat is, on the surface, one of the most enigmatic in the Torah. It opens with the laws of the Red Heifer, or Parah Adumah, an ancient ritual that is intended to restore ritual purity, and yet at the same time, renders the pure immediately impure. Even King Solomon, the wisest of all, declared he could not fully grasp its meaning. This parsha reminds us that faith sometimes means living in mystery, holding truth even when we don’t fully understand it.

But Chukat is not only about laws shrouded in mystery. It is also a parsha of transition and transformation. In it, we witness the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, and we feel the deep anguish of Moses as he strikes the rock in frustration, forfeiting his right to enter the Promised Land. And yet – amid grief, frustration, and confusion – something miraculous happens. Water flows from the rock.

This water, says the Zohar, is more than H₂O – it is Mayim Chayim, living waters, symbolic of divine compassion, chesed, flowing even from places of hardness and judgment. In Kabbalah, rocks represent boundaries, constriction, the sefirah of gevurah, while water symbolizes flow, mercy, and shefa – divine abundance. When Moses hits the rock, he disrupts the mystical balance. When we force something into being, rather than speak gently to it – as God commanded – it may yield results, but at a spiritual cost.

So what does this have to do with the Fourth of July?

Independence Day is a time when Americans celebrate freedom: from tyranny, from oppression, from imposed rule. The Founders of the United States believed that liberty was a self-evident right – a gift not from kings, but from God. In that sense, the American ideal aligns with a deeply Jewish idea: that we are all created b’tzelem Elohim – in the image of God – and that freedom is a condition for moral responsibility. After all, we could not receive the Torah until we were freed from Egypt.

But here’s the deeper, mystical layer: true freedom isn’t just political. It’s spiritual. As the Ba’al Shem Tov taught, Yetziat Mitzrayim – the Exodus from Egypt – is not just a historical event, but a daily spiritual task. “Mitzrayim” comes from the root meitzar, meaning “narrow place.” We are always called to break free from what constrains us – our fears, our ego, our need for control, our cynicism. Like Moses at the rock, we are tempted to strike – to control outcomes. But the Torah gently urges us to speak, to soften, to trust that water – healing, blessing, and holiness – can flow from even the hardest places.

So this year, as fireworks light the sky and we celebrate freedom, these are a few of the questions I’ve been working through:
What rocks in my life am I still striking, hoping to force something to flow?
How can I soften my heart and speak instead?
What does it mean to be truly free?

And one more question:

What kind of nation are we called to build – what kind of kehillah, what kind of sacred community – when we know that both democracy and Torah are rooted in the same radical idea: that every person matters?

As we mark both Shabbat and Independence Day, may we celebrate not only liberty, but holiness. Not only the founding of a nation, but the continual becoming of our souls. And may we remember the lesson of Chukat, that even when we don’t understand the path, we can still walk it with faith, with hope, and with awe.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Fourth of July.