By Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum
Torah Reading: Parshas EMOR, Leviticus 21:1-24:23
EMOR will this year be read in the Synagogue on Shabbat May 3.
SAY TO THE PRIESTS
As discussed in Universal Torah #20 TETZAVEH, the Torah conception of the
priests and their relationship with the people is radically different from the
conception of the priesthood in other traditions. The Cohen of the Torah does
not absolve the Israelite of his obligation to forge his own personal
relationship with G-d. The Cohen is not an intermediary who performs mysterious
rituals that magically guarantee that all will be well for the ignorant
worshipper who stands by watching.
In many religions, the priests held or hold a monopoly on religious knowledge,
often actually discouraging the pursuit of such knowledge by the masses, whose
very ignorance is necessary in order for the priest to maintain his position.
By contrast, the Holy Torah was given as a fountain of truth and wisdom to
Israel and to all others who want to drink its waters. The entire people of
Israel is intended to be a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation: the goal is
for each Israelite to develop, build and cultivate his or her own bond with G-d
in every detail of life. How can we do this? We need to learn how to do it. For
this reason, pride of place in the Torah tradition goes to the sage and
teacher, because he is the one who can tell us how to do this. Even a MAMZER
TALMID CHACHAM (an outstanding sage who is of illegitimate birth) takes
precedence over the High Priest!
In our present parshah of EMOR, which is largely taken up with laws
specifically relating to the priests, we see that Moses was commanded to
instruct not only the priests themselves in these laws but also the Children of
Israel. The Children of Israel are not to be excluded from all knowledge and
understanding of the priesthood. On the contrary, they too are to study the
laws relating to the priests. This is because the Israelites, as a kingdom of
priests, have to have a model to learn from. The Cohanim are a kingdom within a
kingdom. The Cohanim are to be to the Israelite what the Israelites are to be
to the world.
The Temple is G-d's palace on earth: a center-point for all the world to see,
in order to contemplate the profundity of the message it contains and thereby
to draw closer to the King. Everything about the Temple is about coming closer
to G-d, particularly the KORBAN ("sacrifice", from the Hebrew world
KAROV, "close"). The entire Temple services center upon the
sacrificial rites: the daily animal, grain, wine and incense offerings, the
lighting of the Candelabrum, and so on. Like life in a royal court, life in the
Temple was a spectacle. This was particularly so for the Israelite who brought
a personal KORBAN, be it a SHLAMIM ("Peace") offering, or an OLAH and
particularly a CHATAS - sin-offering.
The animal is substituted for the person to undergo the slaughter, flaying,
cutting and burning the sinner really deserves. (Those who worry about the
alleged cruelty to the animal should first go and complain about the millions
of animals daily slaughtered all over the world, often with great cruelty, as
"sacrifices" for the gratification of men's selfish lusts. To
understand the meaning of the KORBONOS, we must be willing to think of the
Temple as it actually was and will be, not try to adapt it to man-made moral
"standards".)
The SEFER HACHINUCH (explaining the meaning of the 613 commandments) discusses
the sacrificial rituals at length in Mitzvah #95: Building the Temple. The
ceremony consisted of various stages: SEMICHAH (the penitent's laying on of
hands on the animal's head), SHECHITAH, the slaughter of the animal, KABALAH,
collecting of its blood and sprinkling it on the altar, the flaying and cutting
of the carcass, salting of the meat, the burning of the altar portions and
eating by the priests of their share. The SEFER HACHINUCH explains in detail
how the different stages of this unsettling and even shocking ceremony all
communicated an unforgettable lesson to the penitent about how man must bring
his animal side under control. We are to learn how to "slaughter" and
elevate our animality by devoting our energies to G-d's service and thereby
burning our fat on His altar. (See also Nachmanides' commentary on Leviticus
1:8).
The priests in the Temple, who conducted these ceremonies, were actors in a
drama that was calculated to awaken people and induce them think and repent
rather than to hypnotize them with hocus-pocus. The role of the priest was as a
facilitator, enabling people to understand the lesson for themselves.
Carrying the obligation to serve as ministers in the House and Court of G-d,
the priests are a nation set apart, and are subject to an even more stringent
code than the Israelites, as laid out in our parshah of EMOR. They are not
allowed to defile themselves for the dead except in the case of their closest
relatives. They are strictly forbidden to blemish their own bodies. They are
not allowed to marry a divorcee or a woman who has been involved in a
relationship tainted by immorality, etc. The Cohanim are to be a completely
pure breed, fit to serve as G-d's ministers on earth. The true Cohen is to be
an exemplar in his very life of the elevated purity to which every Israelite
should aspire, each according to his or her level.
The ultimate exemplar is to be the COHEN GADOL ("high priest").
Although the COHEN GADOL appears in costumes that are most gorgeous by the
standares of this world, he must remain completely separated from this world.
This is because his task is to keep our eyes focussed upon G-d's world. Thus
the COHEN GADOL is not allowed to defile himself with the dead even in the case
of his closest relatives. For in G-d's world, there is no death but only life.
Everything about the Temple is designed to lift us up above the often tawdry
world around us and to teach us how to draw closer to the underlying reality of
G-d. For this reason, the Temple must be a place of the imposing splendor and
beauty. Everything must be in the best repair. Not a flagstone must be loose
nor an altar stone chipped. The vessels must be the finest gold and silver. And
so too, the ministers themselves must be people of pleasing looks. Our parshah
details the physical blemishes that disqualify a priest from participating in
the Temple service itself (though not from eating sacrificial portions). The
parshah also details the blemishes that disqualify an animal from being offered
as a KORBAN. Everything offered to G-d has to be the very finest and most
beautiful. So too, we must seek to beautify our offerings of prayers, our
mitzvot and acts of kindness, and take care that they should not be blemished.
* * *
THE CYCLE OF THE YEAR
The calling of the COHANIM was very exalted. The separation and purity demanded
of them is not required of the Israelites, who on the contrary are required to
be involved in the world -- farming, manufacturing, selling and buying, raising
families, etc. As discussed in the commentary on the previous parshah,
KEDOSHIM, it is precisely through bringing every area of our actual lives under
the wing of the Torah that we attain holiness.
Only the Cohen Gadol is to remain within the Temple precincts or in his nearby
home in Jerusalem all the time. The people are to be throughout the country,
going about their lives. For the Israelite, the relationship of G-d is one of
"running and returning": "running" in the sense of
regularly rising above the mundane to make a deeper connection with the
underlying reality of G-d, but then "returning", in the sense of
going back to grappling with everyday reality.
The Torah appointed a rhythm of weekly, monthly and seasonal MO'ADIM,
"appointed times", whereby the Israelites rise above the mundane and
restore and strengthen their connection with the divine. Our parshah is one of
several in the Torah (Ex. ch. 23; Numbers ch. 23; Deut. ch. 16) that set forth
the cycle of festivals and their associated practices, each with its own
particular focuses.
In our parshah (Leviticus ch. 23) one of the main themes that runs through the
account of the various festivals and their associated Temple practices is that
of drawing ecological balance and agricultural blessing into the world. During
the ALIYAH LE-REGEL -- the foot-pilgrimage to the Temple on Pesach, Shavuos and
Succos -- the Israelites would leave the work of making a living and tilling
the ground in order to participate in ceremonies whose purpose was to bless
that work with G-dliness. Pesach, and Shavuos are particularly bound up with
grain, which is man's staple food. The Matzahs eaten on Pesach may be made from
one of the five kinds of grain. On the second day of Pesach, at the beginning
of the grain harvesting season, an Omer measure is to be brought from the
newly-ripened barley crop. During the coming weeks, while the wheat-harvesting
is going on, the Sefirah count directs our minds forward to Shavuos, when a
"new grain offering", the first wheat offering from the new crop --
two loaves of leavened bread -- was brought.
The observances of Succos are particularly bound up with the water-cycle. The
four species of Esrog (citron), Lulav (palm branch), Hadass (myrtle) and Arovos
(willow branches) all require ample water. Succos comes after the hot, dry
summer of Eretz Israel, prior to what should be the rainy season. We take these
four species in our hands and pour out our hearts like water in thanks and
praise, hinting to our heavenly Father how totally depend we are on His
blessings and mercy.
The chapter in our present parshah of EMOR relating to the festival cycle leads
us in the direction of next week's parshah, BEHAR, which sets forth the
commandments relating to the cycles of Sabbatical and Jubilee years, which are
also bound up with agriculture, ecological balance and reverence for the earth.
* * *
HIDDEN CYCLES
Besides the cycles of festivals and Sabbaticals that give time its rhythm, the
world is also governed by cycles that are often not apparent, because one
generation does not know what happened in previous generations and therefore
cannot understand how what happens today is cyclically rooted in what happened
earlier.
To understand the incident of the MEGADEF ("blasphemer") in the
closing section of our parshah (Leviticus 24:10ff), it is necessary to
understand that "the son of the Israelite woman who was the son of an
Egyptian man" was in fact the issue of an illicit relationship. Our rabbis
teach that Shulamis Bas Divri was the wife of the Israelite whom Moses saw being
beaten by an Egyptian the first time he went out to visit his brothers. The
Egyptian would daily drive the Israelite out of his home and send him to his
labors, thereafter going in to his wife. (See Rashi on Lev. 24:10 and on Exodus
2:11).
There is a deep counterpoint in the positioning of this episode in parshas
EMOR, which centers on the special purity demanded of the priests. Shulamis Bas
Divri is the exemplar of the opposite: immorality. While the holiness of the
priesthood requires separation and the making of distinctions between pure and
impure, fine and blemished, she sought to erase distinctions, greeting everyone
with a naive "Peace be upon you, peace be upon you". As if friendly
chatter is enough to turn evil into good. It was Shulamis Bas Divri's endeavor
to erase distinctions that laid her open to the immoral relationship which led
to the birth of the blasphemer. The latter, however, discovered that, whether
you like it or not, this IS a world of distinctions. While the blasphemer was
an Israelite through his mother, he had no tribal affiliation, since this comes
only through the father. Accordingly the blasphemer had no place in the
Israelite camp.
Contemporary political correctness will cry out in the voice of Shulamis Bas
Divri that he should have been given a place -- isn't it unfair that he should
be excluded because of a quirk of birth? Endless similar questions can be asked
about other commandments in our parshah. Why should a blemished priest not be
allowed to serve in the Temple? Why should a divorcee not be allowed to marry a
priest? etc. etc.
Rashi brings a midrash that the blasphemer "went out" (Lev. 24:10) in
the sense that he departed from the Torah: he mocked the idea that the
Sanctuary Show-Bread (subject of the preceding section), which was eaten by the
priests when it was nine days old, was a fitting institution in the Sanctuary
of the King (Rashi ad loc.). The blasphemer could not accept G-d's Torah the
way it is. He wanted to adapt the Torah fit his own personal views.
There was a way that even the blasphemer could have found his place. As quoted
at the outset, even a MAMZER TALMID CHOCHOM has precedence over the High
Priest. If the blasphemer had been willing to submit himself to G-d and accept
the position G-d put him in, he could have been saved. But he was not willing
to submit and instead he opened his mouth and poured out a torrent of abuse.
Over sixty years previous to this, when Moses saw this man's father striking
Shulamis Bas Divri's husband, Moses knew that there was no potential. "And
he looked here and there and he saw that there was no man [that no man would
come forth from him to convert, Rashi] and he struck the Egyptian" (Ex.
2:12). The rabbis taught that Moses "struck" him by invoking the Name
of HaShem. It was precisely this name that the son of the Egyptian's illicit
relationship blasphemed. Prior to the Giving of the Torah, Moses inflicted
instant justice on the father. However, after the Giving of the Torah, Moses
was subject to the Torah like everyone else and he had to wait to hear from G-d
how to deal with the blaspheming son.
The account of the punishment of the blasphemer includes related laws of
punishments for killing and the damages that must be paid for inflicting injury
to humans and animals. The cycles of crime and its penalties and payments
revolve from generation to generation, but this is not apparent to the onlooker
who sees only the here and now and does not understand what was before and what
will come afterwards.
* * *
Shabbat Shalom!!!
Avraham Yehoshua Greenbaum
--
AZAMRA INSTITUTE
PO Box 50037 Jerusalem 91500 Israel
Website: www.azamra.org
