זאת חוקת התורה, “This is the decree of the Torah, etc.” According to Rashi the reason that this legislation is preceded by the word חוק, decree, statute, is that what follows defies reason in the eyes of the nations of the world and they ridiculed the Jewish Torah. [The Torah, by prefacing the legislation in such a manner reminds us that the Creator does not need to justify Himself all the time. Ed.] Nachmanides adds that there is a reason that the nations of the world zero in with their criticism on the red heifer legislation more than on the other animal sacrifices some of which also achieve ritual purity for the person bringing the sacrifice, such as people suffering from zav, seminal discharge of a certain type, or the sacrifice brought by a mother who recently gave birth which resulted in her becoming ritually impure is purified as a result of her sacrifice. They argue: how could the ashes of a heifer that had not even been a sacrifice and was slaughtered outside consecrated grounds, confer ritual purity for someone stricken with the most severe kind of impurity? Actually, this paragraph was revealed to the people at the end of the legislation in the Book of Leviticus, concluding the legislation pertaining to sacrificial offerings. The reason why it had not been inserted in the written Torah until this point is that after having heard about the gifts the Israelite has to give to the priests, this concludes a further stage in how the average Israelite obtains his atonement. With the laws about purification from impurity incurred through contact with the dead, especially when burying one’s near and dear ones, the entire subject of ritual impurity is concluded.

זאת חוקת התורה אשר צוה ה', “This is the decree of the Torah that Hashem has commanded;” There are a few other instances where someone is reported as speaking in the third person, “he,” although clearly the quote shows that “he” or “He” was speaking in the first person. The examples coming to mind are Exodus 24,1 עלה אל ה', “ascend to Hashem” or in Genesis 4,23 נשי למך האזינה, “wives of Lemech listen!” Lemech himself was speaking.

דבר אל בני ישראל, ”speak to the Children of Israel.” Although we would have expected the word for ”speak” to be in the plural mode, i.e. דברו, seeing that Moses was the more important one of the two, the Torah used the singular mode.

אליך, “to you,” the meaning of this word in this context is that at this time such a red heifer should be burned for the needs of the people; in the future, this should be done only as and when the need arose. The reason that the Torah wrote the word ונתתם in the plural mode instead of ונתת in the singular mode, in verse 3, is to give Aaron a share in the performance of this commandment so that both Moses and Aaron commanded Eleazar to carry out this commandment by slaughtering the heifer in his presence. Alternatively, the meaning of the word ונתתם in the plural mode is simply that the instruction issued here applies also to future generations. Eleazar, by slaughtering the red heifer acted as the person designated to do so on behalf of the Jewish Supreme Court.

לא עלה עליה עול, “it had never borne a yoke.” The word “Ol,” yoke, is spelled here without the letter ו in the middle, to indicate that even if that heifer had only very briefly had a yoke placed on it without performing any kind of task for man, it would be disqualified from serving as the red heifer required. [in other words, the spelling of the word is the same as על, ”on.”

ונתתם אותה אל אלעזר, “you are to hand it over to Eleazar, etc.” Rashi claims that the reason why this heifer was handed over to Eleazar, was to indicate that the task of slaughtering the red heifer would primarily be performed by the High Priest’s deputy. Nachmanides writes that this does not mean that ideally this commandment was to be performed by the High Priest’s deputy rather than that it be performed by the High Priest personally, or even by any ordinary priest, for we have a disagreement of Tannaim about this as described in the commentary of Sifrey. One school of thought holds that in the future it would always be carried out by the High Priest personally; this school argued that in this instance the reason why it was performed by Eleazar was that there was an emergency so that the Torah designated the deputy High Priest Eleazar instead of Aaron. According to this latter opinion we must conclude that the deeper meaning of this commandment was such that it was appropriate that the High Priest, who normally would also be a Torah scholar of outstanding caliber, would be entrusted with this task. [It is important to remember that according to tradition there were only 7 red heifers altogether, so that this commandment was not one that even a High Priest would normally be called upon to fulfill. Ed.] Our author speculates that Aaron [a High Priest of special qualifications. Ed.], of whom the Torah had said in Leviticus 21,12 that he was not to leave the consecrated grounds of the Temple, was not to be charged with a task that is carried out outside these grounds, such as the red heifer that was taken outside the camp before being slaughtered, etc. Alternately, this opportunity may have been the one to prepare the people for who was going to be the successor of the first High Priest, Aaron. [This is reasonable only if we assume that this paragraph was written in the fortieth year. Ed.] By assigning the task to prepare the ashes of the red heifer which would purify people who had incurred ritual impurity due to physical contact with a dead body, or even by being only in the same roofed airspace with such corpses, to Eleazar, a clear message was sent out that he would be next in line for his father’s office when the latter would leave the scene. On the other hand, it is possible that the fact that this time Aaron himself was not charged with handling the red heifer was a punishment for his part in the sin of the golden calf, which necessitated the people having to be purified. Moses had treated the golden calf itself as the first red heifer and he had sprinkled its ashes on the water with which the people had to be sprinkled. (Compare Exodus 32,19)

ואם לא יתחטא וגו', “if such a person does not undergo sprinkling of these waters and ashes on the third and seventh day, etc.” Nachmanides writes (in his commentary on verse 20) that the thrust of this verse is to inform us that purification is impossible without the above steps, although the person that had embarked on the purification process had already undergone immersion in a ritual bath. We know that this need for a ritual bath first is also a requirement from Leviticus 17,16 ואם לא יכבס....ונשאו עונו, “if he does not immerse himself in a ritual bath he will bear his guilt.”

עוד טומאתו בו, “his contamination is still upon him.” A condition that continues indefinitely until he has purified himself.”

אדם כי ימות באהל, “a person who dies in a tent (roofed airspace).” The verse describes real, not potential, scenarios. The legislation described here applies equally to people who die outdoors and to whose remains are transferred to a roofed airspace such as a tent or house.

כל הבא אל האהל וכל אשר באהל, “whoever enters the tent or whatever is in the tent already, etc.” This includes the utensils in the tent already, as well as the tent itself. We know this from the requirement to also sprinkle the tent itself with the waters and ashes from the red heifer. (Compare verse 18 where this is spelled out). The reason why the verse mentions the word אהל, tent, is to tell us that the person entering that tent itself has become ritually contaminated for seven days minimum. The verse also informs us by inference that the Israelites during their 40 years in the desert lived in tents. The Torah paints scenarios familiar to the people, seeing that the legislation would apply immediately, not only once they crossed the river Jordan into the Holy Land. The same rules would apply to permanent housing. However if such a house would be firmly attached to the ground it stood on the house itself would not become ritually contaminated. [The repeated use of the word אהל, tent is meant to exclude certain structures that perform functions similar to those of tents, i.e. houses attached firmly to the ground they stand on. Ed.]

בחלל חרב, “one slain by the sword,” Nachmanides writes that here too the Torah uses a scenario that is commonplace, but the same law would apply if the dead had been slain by a stone or other means even if he had become the victim of his killer’s fist. The reason why the Torah uses the word מת, “someone dead,” without elaborating, as well as the detailed description חלל חרב, “slain by the sword,” is to make us aware of the halachic difference of an animal that was killed by ritual slaughter, (sword-like instrument) and only thereby does not become ritually unclean upon death, and a human being where such a death confers immediate severe ritual impurity. Our sages add another lesson to be learned from the word חלל חרב, namely that the sword that killed the person in question contracts the same degree of ritual impurity as the corpse, not one degree less as is commonly the case when one touches the source of the ritual contamination.

ונתן עליו מים חיים אל כלי, “and put upon it spring water into a vessel.” A superficial reading of the plain meaning of the text would lead us to believe that the water is to be poured into the container already containing the ash of the red heifer. However, this is not so. Our sages derived from the text that if someone puts the ash into the container first before adding the water, the whole procedure has become invalid. They base this on the words מים חיים אל כלי, implying that something live must first be in the vessel, in other words that the ash must be mixed with the water, so much so that the water eventually is covering the ash completely. (Compare Temurah 12)

כי את מקדש ה' טמא, “when he contaminated the Sanctuary of Hashem.” The word כי here does not mean “for, because,” but “if, when,” as it does in Deuteronomy 22,6 in the verse commencing with כי יקרא קן צפור, “if, or when a bird’s nest happens, etc.” The reason why the Torah mentions the penalty for failing to purify oneself as being karet, exclusion from one’s people [after death, of course, Ed.] both in verse 13 and in our verse is, according to some of our sages, to inform us that the legislation is applicable both to the Tabernacle, i.e. someone causing contamination of the Tabernacle, and to the permanent Temple in the future. (Makkot 13,14) It is possible to understand the two verses at face value, by understanding the expression את מקדש ה', as referring to the sacrificial offerings inside the Temple, meaning that in verse 13 the Torah speaks about the person having eaten from such offerings while in a state of ritual contamination he did not only become guilty for that but also for having conferred ritual contamination on the Holy Temple, whereas here the Torah speaks about someone who, though he immersed himself in a ritual bath, did not submit to the sprinkling with the ash of the red heifer on the third and seventh day of his contaminated status. The words מקדש ה' then refer to the structure itself, not to what had become consecrated within it as an offering. [“Within” includes the courtyard, the location of the principal Altar. Ed.] Personally, I believe that the correct interpretation is in accordance with the plain meaning, i.e. that the first time we hear about the penalty of karet in connection with ritual impurity in verse 13 refers to touching the dead, as spelled out there, הנוגע, and the second time this penalty is repeated is to teach us that even if one only contracts this ritual contamination by being in the same roofed space, the penalty for failing to purify oneself properly is the same. This is why in our verse no mention is made of “touching” anything.