Parshat Chukat: Walking the Road That Makes No Sense — And Trusting It Still Leads Somewhere Holy

There are parshiyot that comfort. Parshiyot that uplift. Parshiyot that offer clarity or closure. And then there is Parshat Chukat — a parsha that unsettles. It resists resolution. It opens with a mitzvah that defies logic, moves swiftly into grief and rupture, and continues through detours, complaints, punishments, and unexpected turns. There are glimmers of grace — a song, a well, a moment of healing — but they rise out of the chaos, not in place of it.

This is not a narrative that flows cleanly from beginning to end. It twists and stumbles. It withholds easy answers. And in that, it mirrors what it feels like to live through a season of uncertainty — to walk a path you never imagined, carrying questions no one around you can fully answer.

For many parents, especially those raising children in pain, this is not abstract. It is reality.

If you’ve ever parented a child through mental health struggles, spiritual confusion, trauma, or emotional instability, then you already know what Parshat Chukat feels like. Not because you studied it — but because you’ve lived it. You’ve watched what once felt solid begin to fall apart. You’ve faced nights that made no sense, and mornings that brought no clarity. And you’ve kept walking, not because you understood the road, but because stopping was never an option.

Parshat Chukat is for those who know that kind of road — and are still on it.

The Limits of Logic — And the Faith That Still Endures

Parshat Chukat begins with one of the most confounding mitzvot in the Torah: the commandment of the Parah Adumah, the red heifer. From the outset, the Torah frames it not simply as a law, but as “zot chukat haTorah” — a decree meant to be followed precisely because it resists human understanding. Rashi notes that this phrasing signals something deeper: this mitzvah is not here to be understood. It is here to challenge our need for answers — and to call us into a posture of humility. It asks us to obey not because we comprehend, but because we trust.

Even Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest of all men, confessed that the meaning of this mitzvah eluded him. The Parah Adumah stands as the quintessential chok — a command that defies logic. But for many parents, especially those raising children who are struggling emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically, this concept is not theoretical. It is heartbreakingly real.

Some of the most painful moments in parenting are precisely those that make no sense. A child who once felt secure suddenly spirals into anxiety or despair. A teen raised with love and clarity begins to withdraw, to rage, or to reject everything familiar. A home filled with stability becomes a place of tension and grief. And parents ask — quietly or through tears — Why is this happening? What did we do wrong? Why does nothing make sense anymore?

There are no clear answers. And that may be part of the truth this parsha wants us to face. The Parah Adumah teaches that not all healing flows from clarity. As the Chiddushei HaRim writes, this mitzvah purifies those who are impure — yet renders the one who performs it impure in the process. It is a mitzvah built on paradox. And in that, it mirrors the experience of loving someone through pain.

Because real healing often requires contradiction. It asks us to step into darkness on behalf of someone else, not knowing if or when the light will return. It demands that we keep pouring out of ourselves even when we feel nearly empty.

So much of parenting a struggling child feels exactly like this. You give — and feel depleted. You love — and are pushed away. You show up — and nothing seems to change. But you continue. Not because it’s logical. Not because it’s easy. But because love does not wait for certainty. It shows up anyway.

Emunah — real faith — doesn’t begin when the road is straight. It begins when the road disappears, and we walk it anyway. Some journeys don’t come with explanations. But not every path needs to be understood to be sacred. Sometimes, it just needs to be walked — with presence, with humility, and with love.

The Detour Is the Journey

The narrative of Parshat Chukat is anything but direct. It unfolds through rupture and redirection, through losses that shift the emotional landscape and interruptions that disrupt the physical one. Miriam dies, and with her goes the well that had sustained the people. Moshe, under immense strain, strikes the rock at Mei Merivah and is told he will not enter the Land of Israel. The nation is forced to detour around Edom — turning what felt like the final stretch into yet another exhausting, uncertain leg of the journey. Along the way, they encounter new enemies, fall again into complaint, suffer a plague of serpents, and eventually reach moments of water, of song, of brief renewal. But there is no clean arc. Only jagged, unpredictable movement.

And that unpredictability wears them down. Rashi explains that when the people saw the road stretching out yet again, “vatekzar nefesh ha’am” — their spirits contracted. The disappointment wasn’t merely logistical. It was spiritual. They had believed they were almost home. Now, home felt farther away than ever.

This is often how struggle unfolds — especially for parents walking alongside a child in emotional or spiritual crisis. The hardest part is not always the breaking point. It’s the aftermath. The long, uneven terrain that follows. The unexpected regressions. The brief glimmers of progress that suddenly collapse. It’s the realization that healing rarely follows a straight path. That just when you think you’ve turned a corner, another bend appears. That some days, the destination feels more out of reach than it did when the journey began.

But the Torah does not treat these detours as failures. As the Netivot Shalom teaches, the winding route through the wilderness is not a delay. It is the work. The delays, the reroutes, the battles — all of it is part of the soul’s purification. The people weren’t just being slowed on the way to the land. They were being shaped by the way itself.

Rav Kook adds a powerful insight: yeridah l’tzorech aliyah — descent for the sake of ascent. The soul doesn’t always grow in straight lines. What seems like a setback may actually be part of a deeper return. What feels like failure might be the slow work of building something stronger.

It’s easy to assume that when a path shifts unexpectedly, something must have gone wrong. But that’s not always true. Sometimes a detour isn’t the breakdown of the journey — it’s a necessary part of it. Sometimes the hardest stretches are the ones that shape us the most.

For a struggling child — and for the parent walking beside them — the road may feel unclear, inconsistent, even disheartening. But it is still a road. And in the Torah’s telling, those winding, imperfect steps are not detours from the destination. They’re part of how we get there.

When Even Moshe Breaks

And then there is Moshe. The teacher. The shepherd. The leader who carried a nation through fire and water. Moshe, who spoke with G-d directly. Who pleaded for mercy even when the people turned against him. He, too, falters.

At Mei Merivah, under pressure and emotional strain, Moshe strikes the rock instead of speaking to it. The people are demanding water. Miriam has just died. Moshe, already grieving, reacts in a way that departs from what G-d commanded. And as a result, he is told that he will not enter the Land of Israel.

Commentators offer many explanations of what, exactly, went wrong. But the Zohar offers a human reading: Moshe was drawn into the despair of the people. Their fear became his. Their unrest seeped into him. Even the greatest among us can be overwhelmed by the weight of sorrow.

The Kedushat Levi adds that Moshe’s mistake wasn’t just about action — it was about approach. He was not meant to use force, but to speak. His role was to reach the rock through presence, not pressure. The goal was not to break through resistance, but to meet it with patience and connection. Instead, frustration took over. He reacted when he was meant to respond. And for many parents, that experience is all too familiar.

And maybe that is exactly why this story matters.

If Moshe — the most humble, most faithful — could be undone by the emotional weight he carried, then so can we. There is no shame in reaching a breaking point. No guilt in feeling exhausted by the ongoing demands of those we love most. If anything, it means we’re still in it. It means we care. It means we’ve been trying, even when it's hard.

For parents of struggling children, this story isn’t just about Moshe. It’s about us. We, too, are asked to speak gently to the rock — and sometimes we strike instead. We mean to reach with our hearts, but we raise our voices. We want to respond with calm, but we react out of fear. We try to hold steady, and still we fall short.

The question is never whether we make mistakes. The question is whether we come back. Whether we return to our child — and to ourselves — with softness, with honesty, and with the willingness to keep showing up. We won’t always get it right. But we can still choose to reconnect. Again and again.

The Copper Serpent — Healing by Facing the Pain

Later in the parsha, another rupture emerges. The people fall once again into complaint. This time, their dissatisfaction leads to a harsh consequence: a plague of serpents. The physical danger reflects a deeper spiritual fracture — a breakdown in patience, in trust, and in their willingness to stay connected to the path. The punishment is swift, and the fear it creates is immediate.

But the response Hashem commands is unexpected. Moshe is told to make a copper serpent and place it on a pole. Those who are bitten must look up at it — and they will live.

The Mishnah in Rosh Hashanah explains that it wasn’t the serpent itself that healed them. It was the act of looking upward — the shift in focus from fear to faith. The serpent served as a symbol, something to interrupt their panic and redirect their attention toward something beyond the pain. The healing came not from the object, but from the moment of pause and reorientation.

The Ohr HaChaim notes that this moment forced the people to face what was hurting them. Not with shame, and not with denial — but with honesty. Instead of avoiding what they feared, they had to look at it. And in doing so, they created a path forward.

The Sfat Emet offers another layer: the very image that caused harm becomes part of the healing. The snake — a source of danger — is lifted up and reframed. The poison, when acknowledged and elevated, becomes a tool for teshuvah. When we look clearly at what has wounded us, we open a door for repair.

This isn’t just a symbolic truth. It’s a psychological one. Healing doesn’t happen when we pretend everything is fine. It happens when we give pain a name. When we stop hiding it. When we allow it to be seen — not as something shameful, but as something human.

For families walking through trauma, depression, addiction, or emotional breakdown, this moment is familiar. So much of the struggle stays buried — beneath silence, fear, or the instinct to appear strong. But the beginning of healing is rarely about fixing. It’s about seeing. And being seen.

Real healing doesn’t mean the wound disappears. It means we no longer run from it. We face it, with support. With faith. With the willingness to move forward even when the pain is still present.

The serpent is still lifted. The wound is still real. But now, so is the possibility of healing.

The Be’er That Was There All Along

Toward the end of the parsha, after all the complaint, conflict, and correction, something unexpected happens. A song emerges. The people begin to sing about a well: “Ali Be’er, enu lah” — “Rise up, O well, sing to it.” It’s a brief passage, easy to overlook in the midst of everything else. But it signals something important. After all the instability and uncertainty, the people experience a moment of renewal. They reconnect to something that nourishes and sustains — and they respond not with fear, but with gratitude.

According to Midrash Tanchuma, the well — the be’er — had been with them all along. It had been flowing beneath the surface of their journey, unseen but present. The water wasn’t gone. It was simply hidden, waiting for the people to reach a place where they could receive it again. Only when they were ready — emotionally, spiritually — did it rise.

Rav Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin offers a deeper interpretation. The well is more than a physical resource. It represents the inner holiness of each soul — the part that remains intact, even when buried under fear, complaint, or distance. The be’er is the quiet, enduring part of the self that still wants connection, even when the outer layers feel shut down.

The Shem MiShmuel expands this by linking the well to binah — the intuitive, nurturing wisdom that doesn’t try to control or explain. Binah is what allows someone to sit with pain without rushing to fix it. It is the kind of presence that says, “I still see you, even when you can’t see yourself.”

For parents, this may be one of the most reassuring messages in the entire parsha. No matter how far your child has wandered — no matter how closed off they seem, or how distant they feel — there is still a well inside them. The spark hasn’t disappeared. The soul isn’t lost. The water hasn’t dried up. It may be hidden beneath anger, silence, or exhaustion. But it’s still there. And it can rise again — when there is safety, when the timing is right, when someone holds on to the belief that it exists.

And that applies to you, too. As a parent, you also carry a well. A source of strength and compassion that may not always feel accessible, especially in moments of fatigue or fear. But it’s been carrying you, quietly, through the hardest parts of the journey. The water hasn’t left you. It’s just been flowing out of view.

When the Road Makes No Sense — But Is Still Holy

Parshat Chukat does not offer closure. It is filled with disruption — the death of Miriam, Moshe’s moment of collapse, the frustration of the people, serpents and battles, detours and disappointments. And then, near the end, a quiet moment of song. The parsha doesn’t follow a clean arc. It moves in starts and stops. It leaves questions open. It’s hard to track — and harder to resolve.

But that, too, is Torah.

Because the experience of raising a struggling child doesn’t follow a neat story either. It rarely moves in predictable stages. It’s more like a wilderness — full of uncertainty, slow progress, and long periods where nothing seems to make sense. Sometimes there’s silence. Sometimes there’s resistance. And sometimes there are small, fragile steps forward that take everything to hold on to. It’s not a straight line. It’s not supposed to be.

And still, it is a path worth walking.

The pain does not cancel out the holiness. The setbacks don’t erase the progress. And the presence of confusion does not mean G-d has left. The path may be hard. It may feel endless. But it is still being guided — even when we can’t see where it leads.

So we keep walking. Not because we understand. But because we believe we’re not walking alone.

We walk because the well is still there — even when the water is hidden, even when we feel empty.

We walk because emunah doesn’t require clarity.

It asks for courage.

It begins not when the path becomes easy — but when it doesn’t, and we keep going anyway.

a road that twists, doesn’t make sense, and yet still leads somewhere holy