from the Rebbe on this week's פרשה, פרשת חקת. The parashah starts with the words וידבר ה' אל משה ואל אהרן לאמר, Hashem spoke to Moshe and to Aharon saying, זאת חקת התורה אשר צוה ה' לאמר, this is the chukah, the law of the Torah that Hashem said to say, and it continued with the dinim of the פרה אדומה. And the obvious question is, why does the Torah use the לשון זאת חקת התורה? This is the chukah, the laws of the Torah, and then it goes on about פרה אדומה. Why didn't it say first clearly זאת חקת הפרה אשר צוה ה' לאמר? This is the chukah of the פרה, of the פרה אדומה. Just like by the korban Pesach, the pasuk says זאת חקת הפסח. This is the chukah, the law of the Pesach, of the korban Pesach, and then it goes on with the halachot of korban Pesach. So it should have said here זאת חקת הפרה אשר צוה ה' לאמר, this is the chukat, the law of the פרה which Hashem said, and he said, continues, what you should do: take a פרה אדומה, etc., etc.

From this is mashma that the inyan of פרה אדומה is not just an individual mitzvah. It is, as if saying, the whole Torah. That's why when it talks about the פרה אדומה it says זאת חקת התורה, that even though we're going to talk about an individual, specific mitzvah, this is the chukah of the Torah. Now, why is the mitzvah of פרה אדומה the chukah of the whole Torah, the mitzvah of the whole Torah? It's one of the individual mitzvot of the 613 mitzvot. Why is it called זאת חקת התורה, as if this represents the whole Torah? And the Rebbe explains it, that emet we know that the Torah is beyond our understanding. The Torah is חכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, it's the wisdom of Hashem. And the wisdom of Hashem is obviously בלי גבול, infinite, and it's something beyond our understanding. The fact that there are reasons to understand many of the mitzvot is only because the chachmah of Hashem, the way it's beyond understanding, was נתלבש, was dressed into, covered up by the reason of the mitzvah, which basically means like this:

normally we know that there are three categories of mitzvot: there are chukim, and edot, and mishpatim. Mishpatim are those mitzvot that even if not for the Torah, we would have done it ourselves because they make sense. Edot are such mitzvot that if not for the Torah telling us to do it, we would not have done it, but after the Torah told us, there is a reason for it. And then there are chukim. Chukim are mitzvot that are completely beyond our understanding. Out of all the chukim, the one that's the most chukah is the mitzvah of פרה אדומה. That's why it says that Shlomo Hamelech said, on all other mitzvot, even the chukim, I understood the reason, except פרה אדומה. אמרתי אחכמה והיא רחוקה ממני, I tried to understand it, I can't understand. The only one that understood it was Moshe Rabbeinu. Hashem said לך אני מגלה טעם פרה, השם said to משה, to you I'm going to tell the reason of the פרה אדומה, but normally we can't understand it. So פרה אדומה represents the chukah, the concept of the Torah beyond understanding. Now, really, as I said before, the whole Torah is beyond our understanding, because the reason, the essence of the Torah is really חכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, the chochmah of Hashem, which is infinite, and the Rambam uses the לשון הוא וחכמתו אחד, השם and His chochmah are one, so really we don't really understand. And the emet is, when you think even about the mitzvot, most of the mitzvot which are edot, that even though the Torah, if not for the Torah we wouldn't have done it, but after the Torah told us we understand the reason, but it's only the general idea. The individual specifics of the mitzvah we don't understand, as I said once before. Like,

take the mitzvah of tefillin, we understand the general idea why we put on tefillin, there's a reason for it, to show that we're giving over our brain, our mind, our intellect, and our heart, our feeling, and our hand, which is our action, giving it over to Hashem. That's the general idea of mitzvah of tefillin. But the details are definitely beyond understanding. Why do they have to be square? Why does the retzuot have to be black? All all the other dinim, details, so many halachot in tefillin that there's no specific logical reason for it. But even besides that, even those mitzvot that we really understand 100%, in essence, it's beyond our understanding. In order to make us understand, realize that, the Oibershter made that at least one mitzvah should be completely beyond our understanding, and that will give us the feeling and the recognition that Torah generally is beyond understanding. So we won't think that whatever we understand, that's the whole chochmah of the Torah. There is there is the chochmah of the Torah, for sure, like the pasuk says, כי היא חכמתכם ובינתכם לעיני העמים, תורה is the smartest subject, even in the eyes of the nations, of the goyim, but that's not really what the Torah is. The Torah is much deeper than that and beyond that. It's beyond our understanding. And that's how we have to keep the mitzvot. Even those mitzvot that have a reason, we have to do it not because the reason dictates us to do it, the logic, the intellect dictates us to do it. We have to do it because this is what the Eibershter wants, this is the Eibershter's chochmah that is. The Eibershter did us a favor so to speak, and He clothed many of the mitzvot into a sevara which makes it easier for us to keep and easier for us to get to it. But in essence, they are all beyond our understanding, is much deeper than what we think. And

that's why the Torah says זאת חקת התורה. When it talks about the specific mitzvah of פרה אדומה, it uses a לשון זאת חקת התורה to tell us that what פרה אדומה is, is really the whole Torah. It's a chukah. It's the whole the chukah, because the whole Torah is a chukah. And the Torah chose, the Eibershter chose, the mitzvah of פרה אדומה to be the one that this will instill within us this recognition that the whole Torah is beyond what we think, beyond the limitations of our understanding, it's really חכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא.