Chukat
R. Bachya ibn Pakuda on Parashat Chukat, read on Shabbat Chukat — with one of this week's three questions for the two of you.
Chukat is the parsha of the Red Heifer — the classic chok, a statute that defies reason. Its ash purifies the impure but renders the pure impure. Even Shlomo HaMelech, who 'understood all things,' said of this mitzvah: I thought I would be wise, but it was beyond me. The parsha asks: what do you do when reason has reached its edge? Bachya, in Shaar HaBitachon, makes a quiet but radical claim. Trust is not a substitute for understanding. It is its own form of knowing. There are roads on which thought cannot accompany us — yet we are still asked to walk them. Bitachon is the willingness to go forward into what we cannot see fully, knowing that the One who calls us is seeing fully on our behalf.
Where in our life right now are we trying to think our way through something that may not yield to thought?
The full week — the passage itself with its source, the other two questions, and the closing verse of hope — lives in the app. Together Tomorrow on the App Store.