Kaisipang Hudyo sa Job 28:10: Akeidat Yitzchak

From all this it seems clear, that if the red heifer contaminates all that it comes in contact with, surely the heifer itself must be the source of the contamination! The whole matter seems to defy our normal way of reasoning. Therefore, the use of the words "this is the statute of the Torah", at the beginning of this paragraph is to remind us that logic cannot be employed if we want to comprehend the meaning of this commandment. This is why our sages quote the wisest of men, Solomon, as admitting that comprehension of this mitzvah, or rather its mechanics, its halachic rulings, escapes him. People who try to philosophise about Torah, fall into two categories. Group one believes that everything written in the Torah needs to be understood at face value, literally. For instance, if the Torah refers to G'd "smelling the sweet fragrance of a sacrifice," they perceive G'd literally employing His sense of smell. Or, if the Torah reports G'd as descending on Mount Sinai, they understand this to have been a physical descent. The second group is aware that statements in the Torah are subject to interpretation. Some members of this group will interpret on the basis that the Torah employs human idiom in order to facilitate our understanding of certain concepts. This group will not interpret in a manner that conflicts with known Torah principles. A sub group of category number two, arrogates to itself the right to make its interpretations primary and Torah principles only secondary. This is done by most Christian and a few Jewish philosophers. Making one's own intellect supreme in the matter of exegesis is heretical, of course. Solomon refers to all three groups in Proverbs 14, 14-16. (1) The fool will believe anything. (2) The crafty one will understand in line with his principles. (3) The haughty fool will come to grief through exaggerated self confidence. The manner in which the Torah portrays the laws of the red heifer is a clear hint not to try and unravel that which is conceptually beyond the human intellect. The contradictions have been built into this legislation to warn us off trying to comprehend it.

The difference between a prophet and a wise man, concerning which the Talmud in Baba Batra 12, says that "the wise man is superior to the prophet," is something like this. The prophet, by reason of being privy to the king, overhears many palace secrets. Unless this prophet is specifically informed concerning details, his knowledge will remain very sketchy. He will not know the causes for the events he has foreknowledge of. The wise man, on the other hand, has calculated by means of his intellect and his logic that certain events ought to occur at a certain place at a certain time. Since he cannot be certain however, that the king himself is aware of the causes why such event should take place, he has no idea if the king intends to act in accordance with information at the disposal of the wise man. All this is based on the view that the prophet need not necessarily be the outstandingly wise man of his generation.