Chukkim

Chukkim are the commandments of the Torah that are kept regardless of whether their purpose or intent can be explained. Rabbinic tradition categorized them separately from mishpatim, the rules that reason would have discovered unaided. Tradition assigned to the chukkim the rules that are confusing or archaic, such as the red heifer, the scapegoat, mixed fibers, and dietary restrictions, all based on the authority of the text alone. This distinction likely reflects lost history and context rather than deliberate obscurity, since many of these commands were based on ritual practices that had disappeared centuries earlier, leaving later readers without the setting that once made them intelligible.