Parashot Aharei Mot, Kedoshim
(dedicated to Ellen & Gabe Margolis, their immediate and extended families and friends, on the occasion of their celebrating many life cycle milestones)
The rabbis call the third Book of the Humash - Torat HaKohanim, תורת הכהנים - the Priests' Handbook or Torah. Though we are all called a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation," the kohamin are entrusted with specific responsibilities to maintain the nation's purity.
With Aharei Mot we enter the section of VaYikra labeled the "Holiness Code". (Ch. 17:1 -26:46) This parashah and the next 4 address the sanctification of topics as: shehitah (ritual slaughter and sensitivity to animals); family and social relationships; sexual behavior; Temple artifacts; property - real and human; all leading to the climactic blessings and curses. Embedded in the priests' Torah we also learn some of the most basic ethical principles of our tradition, including:
Correct Slaughter - Sensitivity to Animals; LifeBlood; Family;
Ethics, Relationships Morality (Ch. 19)
Family Morality, and more
It's quite a set of expectations! How can we prioritize these expectations? Which ones, if any, should we try to fulfill, if we have to make choices? Are there mitzvot that are more important to God? How would we know?
Chapter 17, verse 10, for example, comes in the midst of several verses reminding us of the prohibition on consuming blood; even the ritual use of an animal's blood for the purpose of expiation of our sins is carried out according to the strictest rules of sensitivity to the animal and the notion that all blood is considered the "life force" of God's creatures.
ונתתי פני בנפש האכלת את הדם (ויקרא יז:10)
"...I will set My face against the person who partakes of the blood..." (Lev. 17:10)
This is so critical an element of early Judaism that God will "cut off" (vi'hikhrati) the violator Himself. And if anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers residing among them partakes of any blood, not that only of consecrated animals, "I will set my face against that person,,. and I will cut him off." If we treat an animal's blood cavalierly, God knows we will likely treat human life carelessly.
God says, "I will set My face against the person" (vi'natati fanai). Rashi explains this enigmatic comment as follows: "Even p'nai sheli - My leisure, i.e., I will turn away (poneh) from all My affairs (even My spare time) and concern Myself only with him [the violator]." Rashi plays on the word root p'n'h, connoting "face", "turn", and, when an aleph is interposed, "free time" or "leisure". He also has God declaring that He will change His priorities, take time from His "affairs" and "concerns", His "business" ('asakai), and "deal" ('osek) with the egregious violator of a cardinal principle of Judaism. [Note: 'Osek is the same word in the b'rakhah we say each day when we "engage deeply in the words of the Torah" so we know that when occupied with His "affairs," God is not just fiddling around.]
God will turn aside, take precious time to act directly and punish anyone who violates the core lifeblood prohibition. God is not confused among the important, the meaningful and the urgent!
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Parashat Kedoshim continues the theme of the struggle to become and remain "holy".
Speak to the whole Israelite community and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. ((Lev. 19:2 ) -
20:7-8 - You shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I the Lord am your God. You shall faithfully observe My laws: I the Lord make you holy.
20:26 -You shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy, and I have set you apart from other peoples to be Mine.
We, the places we inhabit, the communities we help construct and support all must have the right criteria to be holy. "'HaMakkom'" (The Place) is one of The Holy One's names... the identification of "the Place" with The Holy One, Blessed Be He, turns every place where one meets God into a makkom, as expressed by the Kotzker Rebbi: "Where does God dwell? Wherever one brings him into his heart."
Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik expresses a similar idea, in the course of a Halakhic analysis of the concept of kedushah. (See "Days of Repentance and Holiness" in Divrei Hashkafa (Yerushalayim, Dept. of Torah Ed. and Culture in the Diaspora, 5755, pp. 117-119).) He notes that from a Halakhic standpoint, there is no inherent holiness in objects or places per se. Sanctification of place or time is but the result of an intentional human action, in which one sanctifies something as an instrument for the service of the Creator - who is infinite, incomprehensible, omnipresent and found in every object. So it is with 'objects of heaven': One sanctifies an animal for a sacrifice - or money or some object for the Temple - by speech; a Torah scribe sanctifies a Torah scroll, tephillin or mezuzah by the very writing for the sake of fulfilling a mitzvah; the Bet Hamikdash itself was sanctified by the erection of walls which separated it from the unhallowed areas outside it, etc. Even the Shabbat day, whose holiness is "set forever" from the six days of creation, is sanctified by the kiddush over the wine, in which man expresses his agreement with the sanctity of the Shabbat.
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