Iyov had rejected the philosophy that limitations are desired, that evil should be made good. The ideal fear of God is not achieved through ordeal and tribulation. He denied the law of paradoxicality, the mystery of the red cow. But Avraham and his way were chosen by God. Out of impure, pure; out of death, life – suffering the constraints of the physical gives sense of the spiritual. Avraham established this path when he declared himself to be “dust and ashes,” a declaration that earned his progeny the great mitzvah of the red cow, as Chazal say: You said “I am but dust and ashes.” By your life! I am going to give your descendants atonement through them, as it says: “For the unclean, they shall take some of the dust”; “A person who is clean shall gather the ashes of the cow.”35