King Solomon once declared: “All this I tested with wisdom.
I thought I could fathom it, but it eludes me” (Ecc. 7:23). A surprising
confession from a man whose wisdom was so legendary, even foreign queens
visited just to ask tough questions.
He studied the entire Torah, page by page, mitzvah by
mitzvah. Civil laws? Logical. Festivals? Symbolic. Dietary laws? Odd, but
explainable. Everything, he found, made sense. Until he reached the red heifer.
The Parah Adumah: a ritual involving a perfectly red cow, whose ashes
purify the impure… while making the pure impure.
Here, Solomon raised his royal hands and said, “That’s it.
I’m out.”
What was it about this particular commandment that stumped
even Solomon?
The Restaurant That Served Everything—Almost
A traveler once found himself in a faraway city and
stumbled upon an elegant restaurant. But this was no ordinary restaurant. There
was no menu, just a sign by the entrance that read:
“In this restaurant, you will find whatever you desire.
Here we serve every dish!”
Naturally intrigued, the traveler stepped inside and,
after some thought, ordered the fanciest thing he could imagine: roast duck
with wine sauce. Very specific, very French.
The maître d’ gave him a look of sympathy. “I’m sorry,
sir,” he said. “That dish is unavailable.”
“Unavailable?” the traveler shot back, bewildered. “But
your sign says you serve every dish!”
“We do,” the maître d’ replied, “except that one. It was
banned by royal decree. So we don’t prepare it. No use asking, no use stocking
the ingredients.”
The Law That Silenced Solomon
We’re told that “God gave Solomon wisdom… like the sand
on the seashore” (I Kings 4). But what does that mean, wisdom like sand? The
Sages explained: Just as the Jewish people were destined to be as numerous as
the grains of sand, Solomon was given wisdom to match. Wisdom broad enough,
deep enough, to answer every Jew’s question, no matter how simple, how strange,
or how stubbornly repeated.
Yet, even with that gift of wisdom, Solomon hit a wall
with the Parah Adumah. Why? Because it was never meant to be understood.
It’s what the Torah calls a chok: a decree that transcends logic. God
had commanded it, and that was enough.
Insight into mitzvot is a wonderful thing, but we also
need to recognize the limits to our intellect. Solomon could unravel the
deepest mysteries, but this mitzvah wasn’t a mystery to be solved. It was a law
to be accepted. He was like the restaurant that served every dish, except the
one forbidden by the king.
And so it stands: the mitzvah that silenced Solomon. The
cow that confounded the wisest of men. A reminder that our bond with the Torah
runs deeper than logic. It is a covenant, rooted in the essence of our
relationship with God.
