Chukas: Circling Laws a-la M.C. Escher Word from: Jake

19-1: Ad-noy spoke to Moshe and Aharon, saying. 19-2: This is the statute of the Torah which Ad-noy commanded, saying; speak to Bnei Yisroel...etc.

This is not your regular case of the good old Biblical redundancy. Ad-noy is actually speaking about himself in the third person. Baal haTanya points that out; his explanation of such rhetoric could qualify for Webster definition of the trope "out there"; friend and I struggled with it but couldn't quite crack. I had an alternative thought on the subject. It's not merely the fact that g-d is referring to himself in the third person - second verse tops the first in a way that turns the flow of the narrative in a circular fashion (A says to M that A says that...) This reminds me of M.C. Escher's drawings of spiraling staircases / frames which link into one another, offering neither entrance nor exit. A similar effect is accomplished here, by means of linguistics.

The idea of chukim, described in the parsha, is the sort of a discourse, which one can't come into or leave with logical conclusions: it all boils down to tautology, "do this so because I tell you to do it so, that's why." Moreover, in the case of para adumah the unexplainable aspect of the law (chok-ness) is mainly enclosed in the alternation of purity and impurity: burning of the cow occurs outside of the camp, presumably because it causes impurity for everybody around - the cohen, person who washes cohen's clothing, and person who collects the ashes. Yet, these ashes will later become the only means of national purification. Again, a circle.

Ultimately, though, the law of para adumah links to the subject of life and death. A person becomes impure through the contact with a corpse - often, morally encouraged contact via hevra kadisha, other funeral rites, etc - and needs to go through the process of purification in order to become part of the normal life again, i.e. be member of the "pure" camp. Obviously, encounter with the dead ensues deepest existentialist questions, meaning of life, god, etc. These questions, too, keep looping on without the possibility of a conclusive logical outing. Existential crisis can't be quelled by words and meanings; it can only go further up the spiral of obscure into the new round of madness of unknowing and not understanding. Perhaps, this is one meaning behind the opening verses' structure.