Parshas Chukas Shabbos Times Erev Shabbos Shabbos Day Mincha / Candle Lighting 4:49pm Shacharis 9:00am Shkiya 5:07pm Latest time for Shema 9:58am Shabbos Mincha 3:30 / 4:40pm Shabbos Ends 5:53pm Motzei Shabbos Avos Ubonim This week Avos Ubonim has been sponsored In memory of Tzipporah bas Sholom a'h 7:00 -7:45pm Special treat this week - Hot potato knish!! Shabbos afternoon program for boys Shabbos Afternoon Groups with your Madrichim - 30 mins before the late mincha Short Vort on the Parsha The one mitzvah that we do not have any grasp on is the parah adumah - the Torah calls it a chok, ie a mitzvah that we do not understand. The question is; Why did Hashem set it up that this particular mitzvah should be the quintessential chok? The Shemen HaTov explains that parah adumah comes to purify tumah that comes from a dead person. When did death enter the world? It was as a result of Adam HaRishon's sin, when Adam and Chavah ate from the tree of knowledge. What tempted them to do so? Because the serpent told them that 'on the day you eat from it...you will be like G-D knowing good and evil' (Bereishis 3;4). In other words, the sin that caused death was based on the will to know everything. Therefore, the atonement is, that we are given a mitzvah called parah adumah which purifies the impurity which results from death - and this mitzvah we do not have any knowledge of. The sin was a thirst for too much out-of-bounds knowledge, and the correction is the 'chok' - where we have no knowledge of how the mitzvah of the parah adumah works.