The Eternal spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: ‘This is the ritual law that the Eternal has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid. You shall give it to Eleazar the priest. It shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence.’
Bamidbar 19:1–3
It was an astonishing experience. While on a lecture tour in New York, I was approached by two non-Jewish American soldiers who had returned home from Vietnam. They told me something deeply disturbing: Though they had come from moral, religious homes that taught the sanctity of life, the war had corrupted them. Not only had they been forced to kill, they had begun to enjoy it. Now back home, they were horrified at how their humanity had been eroded. Could they recover their sensitivity to life? Could their respect for human dignity be restored?
I told them to do something simple, yet radical: Perform acts of kindness, immediately. Don’t merely contemplate virtue, but act! Volunteer at hospitals. Help strangers. Over time, I assured them, these actions would reawaken their consciences and their souls.
This idea is rooted in a powerful insight from the Sefer HaChinuch, a thirteenth-century work on the commandments: “Acharei ha-pe’ulot nimshachim ha-levavot”—“After the actions, the hearts are drawn.”[1] Our deeds mold our character. Habits form the heart.
Ritual and the emotional brain
Most human behavior is driven not by logic, but by emotion—often unconscious emotion. We imagine ourselves rational creatures, but in reality, the prefrontal cortex often plays catch-up to our deeper instincts. This is true not only of seemingly rational choices but also of ritual. Ritual is of utmost importance because it is capable of touching the deepest corners of our hearts—parts of us that are beyond the reach of other influences. It is powerful because it bypasses cognitive resistance and imprints meaning on the soul.
William James, the American psychologist, grasped this well: Habits, he wrote, become second nature. “We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Habit is capitalized action and habit becomes conscience.”[2]
Jewish Law recognizes this formative power of ritual. The daily, weekly, and yearly rhythms of mitzvot—kashrut, Shabbat, family purity—are not mere acts of obedience. They train the self in self-restraint, mindfulness, and reverence.
The red heifer: a paradoxical law
This week’s parashah, Chukat, presents perhaps the most baffling ritual in all of Torah: the inexplicable law of the Parah Adumah, the Red Heifer (Bamidbar 19:1–19). A red cow, without blemish and never yoked, is slaughtered outside the camp. Its ashes are mixed with water and other ingredients and used to purify those defiled by contact with the dead. But here lies the paradox: The one who is sprinkled becomes pure, while the one who performs the sprinkling becomes impure![3]
The Torah calls this Chukat haTorah—a Divine decree. The Sages acknowledged that this law transcends understanding. Even King Solomon, the wisest of men, confessed, “I thought I could understand it, but it is far from me.”[4]
What are we to make of this?
The role of paradox
A paradox is not mere confusion. It is a collision of opposites that reveals a deeper layer of truth. Physics is full of paradoxes: wave-particle duality, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. So too, there is paradox in philosophy. Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said that philosophy is “a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language”.[5] Reason, when pursued to its limits, begins to question itself. Rationality ultimately commits suicide.
Kant observed that we are “mind-imposed”—that is, our very tools of perception shape what we can know. Malcolm Gladwell, in Blink, adds a psychological dimension: Intuition often precedes thought. We feel before we know. Repetition of ritual ingrains these intuitions. Habit creates patterns. Patterns create conscience.
When a Jew recites Kiddush on Friday night, it is not a rational act. It is a shaping of his soul, a building of memory. It is a gesture that says, “This is who I need to be, even when I do not yet feel it.”
Why do you believe what you believe?
When a child asks “Why?” repeatedly, we eventually reach a point where reason runs dry. “Why is killing bad?” “Because life is holy.” “Why is life holy?” “Because we are created in God’s image.” “Why did God do that?” Eventually we say, “It just is.”
Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus, makes a similar observation. Reason cannot tell us why life matters. It can only analyze what we already believe. Even science is limited. A psychologist sees trauma; a philosopher sees existential angst. Each uses his own lens, based on prior assumptions.
Spinoza remarked that a triangle would see God and the world in triangles. Gödel’s incompleteness theorem demonstrates that no rich logical system can be fully proved from within. So too it is with reason: It cannot justify itself.
The necessity of the absurd
So where does this leave us?
It leaves us with the Red Heifer—a ritual that defies reason, yet sanctifies. It purifies and defiles simultaneously. It reminds us that ultimate truth is not logical—it is lived. The life that we live is riddled with absurdity, yet charged with meaning. We do not “solve” this contradiction. Instead, we elevate it.
Death is the greatest absurdity. We are born to die. This fact can paralyze us—or it can awaken us. The Red Heifer, in all its irrationality, confronts death and transforms it into a path of purification.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:
The search of reason ends at the shore of the known; on the immense expanse beyond it only the sense of the ineffable can glide. . . . Citizens of two realms, we all must sustain a dual allegiance: we sense the ineffable in one realm, we name and exploit reality in another.[6]
Ritual bridges these realms. It anchors the soul amid chaos. It affirms that life is mysterious—but not meaningless.
The ritual of the Red Heifer teaches us that the path to purity lies not in understanding but in surrender. We are reminded that some truths are too deep for logic, and only ritual can carry us across the divide. This does not mean that Judaism believes in credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd) but that there are limits to reason.
The soldiers in the hotel lobby were not restored by philosophy, but by simple acts of care and kindness. So too it is with us. In a world of paradox, only living meaningfully can redeem us.
Notes
[1] Sefer HaChinuch, Mitzvah 16.
[2] William James, The Principles of Psychology (Henry Holt, 1890).
[3] See Bamidbar 19:7.
[4] Bamidbar Rabbah 19:3.
[5] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §109.
[6] Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1951), 8.
Questions to Ponder
- Rabbi Cardozo suggests that ritual shapes conscience more effectively than reason, while the story of the Vietnam veterans suggests that goodness can be restored through action rather than reflection. Do you believe that moral repair begins with thought or with deed? Which do you instinctively trust more—and why?
- The Red Heifer purifies the impure while defiling the pure. Is this paradox merely symbolic, or does it reflect something deeply true about moral responsibility—that helping others often comes at a personal cost?
- Ritual is described as bypassing cognitive resistance and shaping the emotional brain. In contrast, modern culture prizes explanation, transparency, and coherence. What do we lose when we refuse to tolerate mystery? What do we risk when we embrace it too readily? Does this make ritual a profound spiritual tool, or a dangerous one?
- The essay rejects the statement “I believe because it is absurd,” yet insists on the limits of logic. Where do you personally draw the line between faith beyond reason and faith against reason?
- If habits form conscience, as William James suggests, what habits in your life are shaping you right now—intentionally or unintentionally? Who are they making you become? Have you ever lived into a value before fully believing in it? Did the belief follow?
