Title: Red Cow
Artist: Nina Kulikovsky
Death and Tradition
“Miriam died there and was buried there.” One simple phrase, stark in its brevity, marks the death of a prophetess. No feelings or rituals are connected to her passing; it is like a silence, a pause, which is followed by the lack of water, complaints by the people, and Moses and Aaron striking the rock. Although death is the only certainty in life, it has its way of causing different wounds and scars in each of us when we encounter it. Death always causes some kind of defilement in our souls. And it is precisely the implications of death in our lives that Chukkat addresses.
The sidra begins with the very strange “red cow purification ritual” following contact with a corpse and the different ways that a person can become impure from encountering a dead body. These instructions are immediately followed by the account of the Israelites arriving at Kadesh and Miriam’s death. Because Moses and Aaron strike the rock to obtain water, they are condemned to die before entering the Promised Land. Aaron also dies in Chukkat. However, for him, there was a thirty-day period of mourning.
Judaism deals with death in a very honest way, and Chukkat is our annual moment to reflect upon how we deal with it. According to the text, we have to be prepared—it will inevitably happen—therefore the waters have to be produced. Even if we don’t deal with the feelings connected to the loss of someone dear, such death will have a huge impact on our life, and it will physically hurt, like being thirsty in the desert. Therefore, stopping, recognising the loss and feeling is important. The death of someone is indeed a huge loss—of their presence, of their renewed wisdom, of breath, of water. Some of these things we will find again if we allow ourselves to deal with grief; others are lost forever.
I have always taught about the wisdom within Jewish mourning traditions. We bury quickly, so that we remember them alive and out of respect for a body that once contained a loved soul. Then, for seven days of shiva, we sit uncomfortably, mirrors covered, in deep pain, receiving love and care from our community. After that we stand up with others’ help and walk symbolically to begin going back to our lives, and for a month, the shloshim period, we deal with practical matters of death. After that, for a year, we remember that person daily in our community prayers with kaddish—our lives slowly returning to normal. After less than twelve months a stone is placed and we are commanded to remember to choose life, embrace it, live it fully whilst maintaining the memory of our loved ones alive with us.
“Life goes on,” writes Brazilian author Noemi Jaffe, “but now with death… and not in spite of or beyond it.” Through these rituals, we slowly learn to live our lives with the absence of those who are no longer here.
As a Brazilian studying to become a rabbi in London, learning about bereavement rituals within the British Progressive Jewish community was my first cultural shock. Our traditional wisdom—the careful structure of mourning that honours both grief and healing—was replaced by polite and emotionally restrained British manners, turning shiva into one to three days of evening prayers. The profound rhythm of shloshim and the year-long kaddish, designed to guide us through grief’s stages, became abbreviated gestures. All my lessons about how Judaism wisely deals with death and loss became superfluous. Consequently, I found myself thinking about my own death and where I want to die. Death made me aware of how foreign I am to this land, but also how connected I am to certain traditions.
As I approach the end of my studies, I am facing a different kind of death. I am losing a very important part of myself, finishing a long chapter that has changed me profoundly. A chapter that brought me to London to become a foreigner for the first time, but also to fulfil my dream. For more than seven years I have been a student rabbi. It was very much part of my identity: all my social media posts were marked with #futurerabbi.* Now, for some months I have embodied a new identity as erev-rav—part of the mixed multitude, neither fully student nor rabbi—so that I can transition to a more permanent one: rabbi.
As I lose my #futurerabbi identity, I am reminded of the importance of rituals for staying in touch with the conflicting emotions this moment brings. Therefore, I return to Jewish tradition to find ways to be prepared and transition to a new identity meaningfully.
This is the lesson I learnt from Chukkat this year. Loss will happen in our lives not only with death, but also during other important moments, and we must be prepared for it. Emotions are part of our existence as human beings; they inform our souls, guide our moods, influence our bodies’ function and our perception of the world around us. Therefore, it is crucial to understand our emotions, name our pain and deal with it with all the wisdom that Jewish tradition offers us. Sometimes it is necessary to stop, deal with what is defiling the divine spark of our souls and purify ourselves to be able to continue. Only then will we be able to find our way forward again, as happens at the end of parashat Chukkat.
In choosing to serve as a rabbi in this beautiful country, I hope that I can help people reconnect with some of our lost traditions and bring Jewish wisdom to the ways we deal with the expected and unexpected losses in our lives.
*My heartfelt thanks go to my teachers and fellow students across all years, whose generous sharing of wisdom has been part of my own journey through loss and transformation.
Andrea Kulikovsky, LBC rabbinical student
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.