We start off Chukat, this week’s Torah portion, reading about Moshe’s teaching the laws of the Red Heifer. The Red Heifer is sacrificed and the ashes of that are used to purify a person who has been contaminated due to having had contact with a dead body. There we read:

This is the ritual law that the Lord has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow, perfect, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid.

Numbers 19:2

In this context, what does “perfect” mean? Simply it means without blemish. Rashi comments:

[A COW] RED, PERFECT — This means that it should be perfect in respect to its redness (Sifrei Bamidbar 123:1), — so that if there are two black hairs in it (or two of any color other than red) it is unfitted for the rite here described (Mishnah Parah 2:5).

Rashi on Numbers 19:2

Is this even a possibility? Is it possible that there would be a cow with 100% red hair?

This seems statistically improbable. What is noteworthy to me is the juxtaposition of this animal anomaly here with an even more improbable animal in Balak, next week’s Torah portion. There we learn that Balak, the King of Moab, summons the prophet Balaam to curse the people of Israel. On the way, Balaam is berated by his donkey, who sees the angel that God sends to block their way before Balaam does. There we read:

When the ass now saw the messenger of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam; and Balaam was furious and beat the ass with his stick. Then the Lord opened the ass’s mouth, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?” Balaam said to the ass, “You have made a mockery of me! If I had a sword with me, I’d kill you.” The ass said to Balaam, “Look, I am the ass that you have been riding all along until this day! Have I been in the habit of doing thus to you?” And he answered, “No.”

Numbers 22:27-30

It is only after having a full conversation with a speaking ass that God makes the angel in front of the ass visible to Balaam. The presence of the angel overshadows the talking ass. What are the chances of that?

What do we make of the juxtaposition of these two statistically improbably animals? It is easy enough to dismiss this all as miracles, but I think this is missing the point of seeing the animals as foils for us as people.

Ben Franklin famously said, “Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” The nature of humanity is an aspiration for permanence, but alas we are all limited and mortal. Despite any statistically improbable moonshot we cannot overcome death. In the ashes of the Red Heifer we see a means to help us be comfortable around death. In the talking ass we see how we might be missing something that is right in front of our eyes. We know with 100% certainty that cannot never evade death. Our only hope is do the most with the time right in front of us.