וואָרט from the Rebbe on this week's parashah, פרשת חקת-בלק. Well, we're going to talk about the first פסוק or beginning of פרשת חקת. Beginning of פרשת חקת it says Hashem spoke to Moshe and He told him, \"זאת חקת התורה, this is the chukah of the Torah, this is the law of the Torah,\" and He went on to tell him the mitzvah of פרה אדומה, of the red cow, the red heifer as they call it in English, and He gave him all the details how to do it and what it accomplishes, etc., etc. And the obvious question is, why does it say, \"זאת חקת התורה, this is the chukah, this is the law of the Torah\"? It should have said, \"זאת חקת הפרה, this is the law of the פרה אדומה.\" Just like by the קרבן פסח, the Torah says, \"זאת חקת הפסח.\" When Hashem tells us the laws of the קרבן פסח, He starts off by saying, \"זאת חקת הפסח, this is the chukah, the laws of the Pesach, of the קרבן פסח.\" So here it should have said also, \"זאת חקת הפרה, this the laws of the פרה.\" Why does it say, \"זאת חקת התורה, this is the chukah of the Torah\"? And the Rebbe says that this teaches us that whatever the פרה אדומה is, it represents the whole Torah. \"זאת חקת התורה,\" this, the פרה אדומה is the whole Torah, is the chukah of the Torah. What does that mean? And this what the Rebbe explains. We know in the mitzvot of the

Torah we have three categories: משפטים, עדות, and חוקים. משפטים are those mitzvot that have a reason, and if the Torah would not have given us those mitzvot, we would have kept it anyway, like don't steal, don't kill, etc., etc. Then you have mitzvot that also have a reason, but if the Torah wouldn't tell us, we wouldn't have kept it. For instance, Shabbos. There is a reason for the mitzvah of Shabbos: Hashem created the world six days, rested on the seventh, so He gave us a mitzvah to rest on the seventh day that we should keep in mind that the Creator of the world is Hashem, and He created the world in six days. But if the Torah wouldn't tell us the mitzvah of Shabbos, we wouldn't keep Shabbos. Same thing tefillin, for instance. There is a reason, we understand the reason for tefillin. Tefillin is a Jewish uniform, tefillin is supposed to remind us שיעבוד המוח והלב, that the brain, where the תפילין של ראש is, shows that we have to give over our intellect to Hashem, תפילין של יד on the hand, which is next to the heart, that we have to give up our emotions to Hashem, and that on the hand, which represents the actions. So that's a reason for the mitzvah of tefillin. But if the Torah wouldn't tell us to keep the mitzvah of tefillin, we wouldn't do it. But then

there are חוקים, מצות that if the Torah wouldn't tell us, we wouldn't do it, and even after the Torah tells us, we don't know the, we don't understand it. And amongst the חוקים, not not too many חוקים, but amongst the חוקים, the most greatest חוקה, the less understood is the mitzvah of פרה אדומה. So much so that it says that Shlomo Hamelech said, \"I understood the reasons of all the חוקים, except פרה אדומה,\" something that's completely beyond reason. And this is what the Torah is trying to tell us with the words \"זאת חקת התורה\". In truth, the whole Torah is beyond our understanding. Whatever we understand, that's not the real true understanding, that's just the surface. Really it's impossible to say that the Torah and the mitzvot are understood, because the Torah is חכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, the Torah is the wisdom of Hashem, and the Rambam says, \"הוא וחכמתו אחד,\" Hashem and His wisdom are one. The mitzvot are רצונו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, they are the will of Hashem, and Hashem, \"הוא ורצונו אחד,\" Hashem and His wisdom are one. If the Torah is one with Hashem, the mitzvot are one with Hashem, and Hashem is infinite, how is it possible for our little finite mind, as great as it is, it's finite, to understand the infinite wisdom of Hashem? So really we don't understand this. Hashem just did us a favor that He gave us understanding in certain things to make it easier for us to do it. But this is not, we have to remember this is not the essence. We do it because Hashem said so, and there's much more, much more in it. And therefore, in order to remember that, Hashem gave us at least one mitzvah which makes no sense whatsoever, is the biggest chukah, the biggest chok or what would you call it, chukah, and that is really the whole Torah. So He gave us the mitzvah of פרה אדומה and He says, \"This that the פרה אדומה is, which is obvious that it's beyond our understanding, we have no connection to the understanding of it, that is the whole Torah: זאת חקת התורה, this is the whole Torah, because the whole Torah is really beyond our understanding in truth.\" And that's why the Torah doesn't say \"זאת חקת הפרה\", it's not only the chukah of the פרה אדומה, it's the chukah of the whole Torah, because the Eibershter gave it to us to show that this is the chukah of the whole Torah. And the emet is that if the Torah would be understood completely, everything, one might think, \"If it makes sense to me, that means my brain is capable of understanding it, obviously the Torah, the mitzvot were made by somebody that is on my level, maybe smarter than me, so he figured it out.\" But obviously it's in my level, it's not something so special. The fact that there are things we don't understand, that shows that the Torah is given from the supreme being, which is beyond understanding, which is the Eibershter. So that's why the Eibershter gave us at least one, a few chukim we have, but at least the main one, which is the פרה אדומה, is to show that the whole Torah is beyond understanding.

Which, by the way, reminds me, I once had a guest for Shabbos. He came on Friday, he sat and learned the whole day, he learned Gemara. Shabbos, he learned the whole day. Shabbos morning, I told him, I give a shiur in chassidut in the morning, so I said, \"Could you come with- you want to come with me to the shiur?\" So he says, \"No, I don't learn chassidut.\" I said to him, \"What do you have against learning chassidut, chas v'shalom?\" He says, \"I have nothing against, but I just don't understand it. And therefore, what's the purpose of learning if I don't understand it?\" So I said, \"It's worthwhile for you to come, at least one time, to learn something that you don't understand. You'll realize that the whole Torah is whatever we understand is so little of what the Torah really is, so at least one thing you don't understand, so come.\" So he said, \"You're right.\" So he came to the shiur to learn, to at least learn something that he sees we don't understand, and the whole Torah is like that. The problem was when I asked him later, \"How was it?\" he says, \"I understood everything.\" But the idea of trying to learn something you don't understand makes sense. And the same thing with mitzvot. One mitzvah we don't understand, and that shows that this is really what the Torah and the mitzvot are. They're chokhmato shel Hakadosh Baruch Hu and retzono shel Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it's all Hashem, which is really infinite, בלי גבול, beyond our understanding.