On Shabbat Parah we remove two Torah-scrolls from the Ark. From the first we read the weekly Torah-reading (Parashat Ki Tissa, Exodus 30:11-34:35), and from the second, the chapter which commands the ritual of the פָּרָה אֲדֻמָּה, the Red Cow (Numbers 19:1-22).
Is it merely idle happenstance that the way our calendar is designed, these two coincide more often than not, and come immediately after Purim? Or are the messages of the three somehow connected?
To begin with Shabbat Parah:
The elaborate ritual of the Red Cow is the method whereby a Jew who had contracted טֻמְאַת מֵת, the spiritual impurity which results from coming into contact with the corpse of a dead Jew, is purified. READ MORE
