Shabbos Parashas Chukas - 5776

Shabbos Parashas Chukas - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

The children of Israel, the whole assembly, arrived at the wilderness of Tzin in the

first month, and the people resided in Kadesh; Miriam died there and she was

buried there. [Bamidbar 20:1]

Our parsha is full of incidents of sin, such as that of the people over water, and that of Moshe in

striking the rock. It describes in some depth the rules about impurity by contact with a dead

body. It is also full of references to purification from sin and impurity, both by death and by the

law of the red cow, the Para Adumah. In the middle are two verses that speak of the "whole

assembly" arriving somewhere. After all of the travels where everyone managed to arrive

at place after place, why do these two instances use the phrase "the whole assembly"?

Rashi defines the phrase as, "The whole assembly means an intact assembly, for those

who were to die in the wilderness had already died, and these were set apart for life." Thus,

at the end of 40 years, the people who left Egypt are now all dead, with the exceptions of

Moshe, Aharon, Miriam, Yehoshua, and Caleiv. Everyone now standing in front of Moshe

is either a widow or a descendant of those original 600,000 men who departed from Egypt,

who then were decreed by G-d to not enter the land over the incident with the spies. Rashi

is saying that everyone there now, the entire assembly, are destined to go into the land.

Ramban asks why this needs to be told twice, in our verse and in 20:22. He says that the

phrase is used in places where people made complaints against G-d, and lists many

examples. But that does not explain why it is used in two places in our parsha, unless

both are somehow places of complaint and merely additions to Ramban's list.

Rav Hirsch points out that our two verses occur upon the people entering a new

region. Immediately upon that entry in both cases, there is a significant, and related,

death. In our verse, Miriam dies. In 20:22, Aharon dies.

An additional connection between the two verses is water. Upon arrival in Kadesh,

the people complain to Moshe that there is no water, leading to the rock-striking

incident that seals Moshe's fate. Until this point, he was still headed into the land.

When they arrive at Mount Hor, Aharon is taken "because you defiled My word at

the waters of strife", the incident in Kadesh. At this point, all those of the generation

of the spies are dead, except Moshe himself, but he has been told that he will also

die before they enter the land. Yehoshua and Caleiv are the only ones who will be

entering the land.

Tanchuma points out that the phrase "entire assembly" is used more than twenty times

in the Torah. However, these two verses are the only ones with reversed word order. The

others all say, "the entire assembly of the children of Israel." Only these two say, "the

children of Israel, the entire assembly," which he explains as meaning that this refers to

those who would not die in the desert.

The Torah used two nearly identical verses because both Miriam and Aharon deserved

the honor of separate treatment. Together, our two verses tell us that everyone left is

to cross the Jordan, except Moshe Rabbeinu, who was always apart from the "entire

assembly" in any event. His job is now complete. He has brought them all to the land.