Chevre, this week’s parsha is Chukat (חֻקַּת). A Hoke (not sure how to represent a Chet since choke would be an English word) is a law that we don’t know the reason for. It’s just for us to do. The parsha starts with the (C)Hoke of the Red Heffer. It’s ashes are used in the purification process and intrestingly the priest who sprinkles the purifying waters becomes impure.
This is followed by the death of Miriam and the lack of water. Miriam was the one who found the water during the desert journey. The people protest because there is no water, Moshe strikes the rock (like he did last time), but he was not commanded to strike the rock this time and thus he erred. Aharon and Moshe lose their tempers with the people and are punished.
This is followed by the attack of Amalek. And then serpents attack the people. HaShem tells Moshe to create a staff with a serpent on it and the people look up to it and are healed (hence the medical symbol with the serpents on it).
This is a pretty tough parsha. This is followed by the battle with Sihon which sets up one of my favorite Rav Kook stories. Sihon was from Heshbon which means an invoice or accounting. A business man came to Rav Kook and was asking about making Aliyah. The man then went on to explain the difficulties financially he would have in making Aliyah. Rav Kook answered that on the way to Eretz Yisrael, you first have to defeat the King of Heshbon.
The whole parsha, for me, is wrapped up in this story. Miriam dies and there is no water. The people get upset about not having water and Aharon and Moshe lose their tempers. Amalek attacks and the serpents attack. All of these stem from accountings or difficulties.
If the first time I had a difficult time on AWS I gave up, I wouldn’t have a website. I wouldn’t have the benefits of world class infrastructure. I wouldn’t have my cloud computing resources deployed close to my home in Eretz Yisrael. There are times for an accounting and times to take the leap (that’s a different parsha). But the ROI on moving to the cloud and moving to Eretz Yisrael is high.
Shabbat Shalom