An Impure Process - Chronicle Online/The WORD 03/05/2026

Weekly On-line Rabbi's D'var-Torah

March 5, 2026

16 Adar 5786

Shabbat Parah

Parashat Ki Tisa

In a text as long and as old as the Torah, there are bound to be some wacky things. But of all the bizarre rituals in the Torah, perhaps none is stranger than the Red Heifer ceremony we will read about this Shabbat.

In Numbers 19, we learn that a completely red heifer—its hide, flesh, blood, and even its dung—was entirely burned, together with cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson thread. The ashes were then mixed with water, and that mixture was used to purify people.

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound especially pure to me. In fact, it sounds downright disgusting. And yet, according to the Torah, it was the most powerful purifying agent there was.

We don’t try to make that solution anymore. But perhaps there’s something we can still learn from this bizarre ritual. Maybe it’s reminding us that sometimes a process that looks anything but pure can produce a result that is.

That’s how the world feels to me right now. When I look at the war in the Middle East, I’m not exactly a fan of the process. But I can acknowledge that—at least so far—the results have been pretty good.

I wish that instead of the United States and Israel going it alone, the leaders of the two countries I love most had built a broad coalition of nations to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and to cut off its sponsorship of terrorism around the world.

Here in the United States, I wish the branches of government were working together, and that the two parties could find common ground on how to deal with a threat like Iran.

But as we all know, neither of those things has happened. The United States and Israel are largely going it alone, and the Republican-controlled executive branch is acting independently.

Despite my discomfort with the process, though, I believe strongly that the world will be a better place without the Ayatollah Khamenei in it. And Israel will almost certainly be safer after a war that leaves Iran’s military capabilities greatly diminished and its proxies suddenly defunded.

Out of all this impurity, perhaps the world will emerge a little purer. I know that sounds about as improbable as a completely red heifer. But if that’s how it turns out, I’ll hold off on criticizing the process that got us there.

Shalom,

RAF.