Leviticus

ויקרא

Va-Yikra Leviticus 1:1 — 5:26

A SPIRITUAL GUIDEBOOK

Last week we finished reading the Book of Exodus, the second of the five books of the Torah. Moses and the Israelites had just completed the construction of the Mishkan, the portable, desert sanctuary. The cloud of glory that symbolized God’s presence, which had guided our people to Sinai, had descended from the mountain and rested upon the sanctuary, where it would remain in view of all the Israelites throughout their journeys. The Exodus experience had come to an end. We had escaped from Egypt. We had received the Covenant at Sinai. We had built a central shrine. God had settled in our midst. We were ready to continue our journey.

If the Torah’s chief concern were with the history of our people, Exodus would logically be followed by the continuation of the story of our ancestors’ wanderings on the way to the promised land. We would jump ahead over the Book of Leviticus, the third and next book of the Torah, to the middle of the fourth book, Numbers, to continue the adventure.

But the Torah, although describing an historical moment, is not interested primarily in history. Its foremost concern is to present a way of life and a pattern of life based on a continuing relationship between God and the Jewish people. Just when we are ready to learn what happens next, the Torah focuses on another issue — what it means to have God’s sacred presence situated in the midst of the people of Israel in the beautiful, new Mishkan.

Therefore, the Book of Leviticus, Vayikra in Hebrew, is concerned with a spiritual issue rather than an historical one. It is a spiritual guidebook, but unlike contemporary spiritual literature, Leviticus does not focus on how we are to feel about spiritual issues. It does not contain moving stories, sentimental verse and gentle encouragement. Rather, it is a book of rules and regulations. Leviticus describes in detail the rites and rituals that are to be performed in the sanctuary. It tells us about sacrificial worship, the cycle of the holy days and ritual purity, and presents a demanding moral and ethical code of behavior.

In this way it models a very Jewish approach to spirituality — that by participation and practice one gains spiritual insight. Leviticus provides powerful guidelines on how to respond to the holy and sacred presence of God among the Jewish people. Its goal is to teach us how to live lives of holiness so that we can be in communion with God through worship, and with each other, members of God’s holy people, through righteousness.

Not all of Leviticus is directly applicable today. Many of the rules and regulations contained in the Book of Leviticus, particularly the laws pertaining to the long lost Temple and its rites, no longer have direct significance. Some of the laws refer to social, political and economic structures far different from our own. But throughout our history, our teachers and sages have struggled with the underlying challenge of Leviticus — how to respond to the holy God who dwells within us — to interpret the ancient laws in light of the changing circumstances of Jewish life.

In English we call the third book of the Torah “Leviticus” because most of the rules pertain directly to the tribe of Levi, whose task was to serve God in the sanctuary. This name, however, is misleading. Leviticus is not a technical manual for priests, but a spiritual guide for all of us. It is addressed not to a specific tribe or clan, but to all Israel. At the beginning of the book and at significant moments within it, God calls on Moses to speak to all the b’nai Yisrael, to all the Jewish people.

Leviticus is not always easy to read or simple to understand. It speaks to us from a time and place in our history far distant from our own, when we dwelt in the wilderness in a massive encampment with God’s sanctuary directly in our midst. But the Torah is much more than a history book, and its teachings are not tied to any particular historical period. The Torah teaches us, wherever we may find ourselves, how to live lives of holiness in the presence of the Holy God who dwells with us. Thus, the middle book of the Torah, the Book of Leviticus, is our people’s first spiritual guide.

Tzav Leviticus 6:1-8:36

THE THANKSGIVING OFFERING

Leviticus is a challenging book for the modern Jew. This book, which for the most part addresses sacrifices and other priestly concerns, does not open up as easily to spiritual and moral discussion as other sections of the Torah. It is far easier to mine the well known stories in Genesis and Exodus for religious and ethical insights than it is to glean such insights from Leviticus’ detailed description of sacrifices and other priestly duties.

Reading Leviticus and studying the way our ancestors worshiped God and expressed their deep religious feelings can, however, be rewarding. By looking at this book through the eyes of an anthropologist or an historian, we can obtain some understanding of the relationships between our ancestors and other ancient peoples and the way our ancestors’ rituals expressed and celebrated their religious world view. We can see the evolution of the religious rituals and practices of our people, and, aided by the writings of the rabbis of the Talmud and other ancient sources, gain some insight into the way in which these traditions were expressed and reinterpreted by Jews during the Second Temple Period and later, after the fall of the Temple to Rome in 70 CE.

More importantly, however, Leviticus shows us the centrality of religious worship in the lives of our Biblical ancestors. They, like us, found great strength and comfort in worship. Their need to approach God at times of joy and sadness to confess sins, seek absolution, offer thanksgiving and praise the Source of All resonates with us because it is also our need.

Leviticus challenges us so much not because of the “why” of worship — that we understand — but because of the “how.” The highly developed system of sacrificial worship, which had its origins in the period of desert wandering after the Exodus from Egypt in the 13th century B.C.E. and lasted until the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E., is radically different from the style of worship that we Jews have used in our synagogues for the last two thousand years.

The rabbis of the Talmudic period clearly articulated that difference when they described the worship in the Temple as Avodat Korban (sacrificial worship led by the cohanim) and the worship in the synagogues as Avodah She-be-leiv (the worship of the heart led by Jewish laypeople). Building on the vision of the biblical prophet Hosea (14:2-3), they taught us that our prayers are as acceptable a form of worship as the sacrifices offered by the cohanim, the priests, in the Temple.

Contemporary Jews have ambivalent feelings about sacrifices. Some stress the historical reality of the ancient system of sacrifices but do not envision a restoration of sacrifices in a messianic future, while others look forward to the reestablishment of the biblical form of worship in messianic days.

Such ambivalence is not merely a product of modern Judaism. Our prophets were concerned that the dramatic, ceremonial nature of the sacrificial worship often led people to forget the deeper religious and moral imperatives that make worship truly worthwhile (Amos 5:22-25; Jeremiah 7:22). They taught us that God wanted our commitment to the ethical and spiritual aspects of the covenant more than sacrificial worship.

While never giving up the hope for a renewal of Temple worship in the messianic period, the rabbis of the Talmud and the philosophers and scholars of the middle ages believed that prayer and good deeds were, at least, on par with sacrifice. Although many teachers and thinkers sought to provide a positive valuation of the sacrificial system through mystical and spiritual interpretations, others downplayed the importance of sacrifice. For example, Moses Maimonides, the great 12th century philosopher, explained sacrifice as a concession to human weakness that was necessary to ease our ancestors’ transition from pagan worship to true belief.

But whatever our personal feelings are concerning the ultimate future of sacrificial worship, Jews have generally understood that the messianic world will be different from our own and the spiritual needs of that better time will not be the same as ours. In the world as it is now, most of our worship is directed to healing the spiritual wounds brought on by our transgressions. In the messianic period, as our sages of the Talmud have taught us, when the human propensity to sin and err will have been overcome, all those prayers and sacrifices, which make up the bulk of our worship, will become irrelevant. What will remain, however, is an abiding sense of thanksgiving, and the only prayers and sacrifices that will continue beyond our age are those that express that our everlasting gratitude to God (Leviticus Rabba 9:7 on Leviticus 7:12).

With that assurance, I, for one, am content to put aside the discussion on the future of sacrifices and try to do what must be done to improve this still imperfect world. This, I believe, it just what our prophets and sages hoped that we would do.

0N MIRACLES

This week's Torah portion, Tzav, continues the lengthy discussion of sacrifices that characterizes the entire book of Leviticus. This is a discussion that we find strange and even a bit alienating and was a discussion with which our ancestors in earlier days also had problems. Like us, they, too, searched for spiritually deeper meanings in the highly technical and detailed cultic regulations.

For example, the Talmud teaches us that in the messianic period all sacrifices and prayers may be discontinued except for the offering of thanksgiving and prayers of thankfulness will never cease. To the rabbis of the Talmud, one way of stressing the lasting value of an idea or a concept was to claim that idea, concept or practice would continue after the end of this world and be part of the coming world order, Olam HaBa.

Thus, they saw that the thrust of Jewish religious activity, be it the sacrificial worship of the Temple cult or the prayer worship of the synagogue liturgy, was the cultivation of the feeling of thankfulness, the development of the sense of thanksgiving. True spirituality is built on our ability to appreciate all the goodness that has been offered us.

This is the season of miracles. Last week, as part of the liturgy for the holiday of Purim, the prayer "Al HaNissim," (For all the miracles) was recited in synagogues in thanksgiving for the great deliverance we celebrate on the holiday of Purim. This weekend our Christian friends celebrate their great miracle -- the Resurrection of Jesus from the grave. In a few weeks, Jews all over the world will celebrate our great miracle, the miracle of the deliverance from Egyptian slavery.

For many of us, no matter what our religion, our religious faith appears to be grounded in great miracles like these. We believe that we believe because of the signs, wonders, and miracles that took place at this time in those days. The truth of our faith rests, so we think, on the historical veracity of these great events.

We know the lengths to which people from all faith traditions go to prove the historical veracity of the miracles of old. We read of the series of expeditions to Mount Ararat in search of Noah's Ark. We are familiar with the hope certain Christians placed in the shroud of Turin. We may even have learned that the roots of the modern science of archaeology lay in the attempt to prove the Bible.

In the Middle Ages, a time when people took miracles far more seriously than they do today, inter-religious polemics between Jews, Muslims and Christians were based on the claims that our great miracles were acts of God while theirs were the illusions of the Devil. In a slightly more sophisticated approach the Jewish Philosopher and Poet Judah HaLevi argued that the Jewish miracle of Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, was the more reliable than the Christian miracle of the resurrection and the Muslim miracle of the revelation of the Qumran, because those miracles were witnessed by a few and the Jewish miracle was witnessed by 600,000 men.

Yet, for the modern believer, the truth of a religion does not lie in the claims it makes about its great miracles but rather in its ability to enable it followers to experience the small miracles of life. A religion works, so to speak, when it helps the believer find God in a baby's smile, a sunrise, a comforting word from a friend, a rainbow. A religion is successful when it teaches its followers to see God's power manifest in the creativity of humanity -- the inventiveness of the engineer, the healing hands of the physician, the skill of the teacher, the wisdom of the farmer.

Like the rabbis of the Talmud, we believe that it is these small wonders, these little miracles that fill our lives with the power of God. For them we will render prayers of thanksgiving in this world and in the next.

The Reconstructionist approach to Judaism stresses this approach to the miraculous. The spirit of thanksgiving that enabled our ancient ancestors to see God's hand in the deliverance from Egypt, in the crossing of the Red Sea and in the nation-forming event at Sinai still exists in the Jewish people. The experience of the being in the immediate presence of God is an experience we all can share. The forthcoming holiday of Pesach is a time when we can sharpen our vision with feelings of thanksgiving as we see God's great power in the new growth of Spring, in the love shared by all within our families, and in the blessings freedom has brought us.

All faiths claim great miracles, but all people have the opportunity to experience small ones. Modern faith unlike traditional faith puts its trust not in the great miracles of ages past but in the countless myriads of miracles we all can experience every day.

The great Jewish prayer, Nishmat, which is recited in traditional synagogues every Sabbath and forms part of the traditional Haggadah Shel Pesach, tells us that even if our mouths were as full of praise as the sea is full of water, we would be unable to adequately thank God for one thousandth of the millions of miracles God performed for our ancestors and for us. “What are these miracles?” the rabbis asked. The answer they gave was the uncountable drops of rain. Each one of which is as great a miracle as the deliverance from Egypt.

Shemini Leviticus 9:1 — 11:27

CAUTION: SPIRITUAL POWER

These days spirituality is a “hot topic.” People of all religious backgrounds are seeking spiritual direction and those who claim to provide spiritual insight and guidance are in great demand. People are comfortable in sharing their spiritual lives and are returning to churches and synagogues to reconnect with their spiritual center. Books and tapes on spirituality abound and celebrities discuss their spiritual lives on late-night talk shows.

Spirituality plays an important role in contemporary culture, and though spirituality is a difficult word to pin down, it is not unintelligible. We use it to describe an extremely personal set of experiences that involve a person’s sense of self and his or her relationship with a greater being. Those involved in spiritual growth talk about their experiences in terms of embracing transcendence, transformation, integration, healing, and wholeness. “Being spiritual,” “finding one’s spiritual center,” and “connecting spiritually” are ways of describing a process that seeks to overcome a sense of loneliness, isolation and alienation and to ultimately bring one to God.

In many ways, we have all benefited from the renewed interest in spirituality. Our rabbis and other teachers have sought to make Judaism more accessible to Jews. Our synagogues are more responsive to the spiritual needs of individual members. There has been a renewed interest in practicing Judaism and returning to Jewish life. The secular and community based Jewish agencies and institutions are rethinking what the Jewish part of their names means in terms of the services they provide and the mission they pursue.

Although we focus on the beneficial aspects of spirituality, we need to remember that the spiritual power we experience — the perceptible power of God in our lives — needs to be treated with respect and handled with care. If it is misused or misapplied by devious or deluded leaders or teachers, a myriad of sorrows and troubles can appear. Even decent people trained and experienced in the world of spiritual growth need to be careful as they explore the spiritual world. Not only can they hurt other people, but they, too, can be harmed.

This lesson is taught in this week’s Torah portion, Shemini. In it we read of the sudden and unexpected death of Aaron’s eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu. During or shortly after the ceremonies investing Aaron and his family as priests in the Mishkan (the sanctuary during the period of the desert wandering), the brothers, perhaps momentarily blinded by their newly conferred status, committed an error in ritual practice by entering the holy presence carrying incense pans burning with an eish zarah, a “strange or alien fire”. Immediately, they were stricken down by a sudden burst of divine energy (Leviticus 10:1-2).

In its biblical context, this story serves as a warning to the cohanim, the priests, reminding them of their awesome responsibility as the spiritual leaders of ancient Israel. It was their task to foster the spiritual connection between our ancestors and our God, the God whose power overthrew Pharaoh, split the Red Sea, thundered out from Sinai and rested as a pillar of cloud and fire over the Mishkan in the midst of their desert encampment. It is a powerful reminder of our ancestors’ awareness of the energy generated by God’s presence. The tragic story of Nadav and Avihu is an abiding lesson that we need to treat this energy with the greatest care and respect.

Aaron and his sons were appointed to serve as spiritual leaders of a generation that experienced directly what we know intuitively, that spiritual energy can overthrow tyranny, redirect the destiny of peoples and make a nation out of a mob. As the teachers and guides of our people, they were empowered to make this spiritual energy accessible and available to their charges. By diverging from established ritual for what seems to have been self-centered reasons, Nadav and Avihu could no longer connect the people to God’s power. Rather, that energy was turned against them.

We are truly blessed to have access to the life changing spiritual power of the Divine One. When directed properly, we recognize it as the power that can lift us from despair, shatter the bondage of addiction, relieve the burden of guilt and heal the heart torn in grief. But handled carelessly or improperly, this same energy can give us a false sense of power that can destroy lives and shatter communities.

With good teachers and careful effort, we can learn to use the spiritual energy that is available to us to change our lives for the better. With it, we can shatter the walls that confine our soul and learn to soar with angels.

Fire From Heaven

In the second blessing of the Tefillah, also known as the Amida, “the Standing Prayer”, the blessing called Gevurot, "God's power", we praise God as the one who brings both life and death. While the blessing centers on God's ability to restore life as seen through the gift of rain and the promise of resurrection, it acknowledges that God is both the Destroyer and Creator. God is meimit u-mechayeh, the Sovereign One who brings both death and life and through this, somehow, allows salvation to sprout.

Our spiritual tradition holds in balance two contradictory experiences. The first is that for us as individuals there are always beginnings and endings. We are born to die, and, hopefully, according to the insights of our ancient sages, to come alive again, although this can only be described poorly through analogy. What we know for sure is that all things created will come to an end within this order of creation.

The second is our sense that there is something beyond us; something that extends beyond the power of our imagination; something that is always present but just beyond our grasp. We experience this in the cycles of nature and the expanse of space and time. It drives the questions of what was before the beginning and what will be after the end.

Both experiences push us to seek meaning beyond the reach of reason's power. It is in these mysterious places, that we find or place the Divine. It is not that God is the space holder for what human science has not yet sufficiently described. We have a good grasp on the workings of creation, yet, creation still inspires awe, reverence, fear, love, and beauty. It is in this spiritual space that the Divine becomes present. It is here where we encounter God and it is an awesome, threatening, dangerous, inspiring, transforming space.

Twice in the weekly Torah portion, Shemini, [Leviticus 9:1-11:47] we read about the power of the Divine Presence. In the first, it brings forth awe and rejoicing, and in the second, it results in death and mourning. The same power and the same experience end differently in both stories.

First, the fire from the Divine presence ignites the altar in the Mishkan, the Desert Tabernacle, upon which our ancestors offered their offerings to God.

"Fire came forth from before the Eternal

and consumed the burnt offering

and the fat parts on the altar.

And all the people saw, exalted, and fell on their faces." [Leviticus 9:24]

Our ancestors responded to their experience of God’s presence with joy and reverence; singing praises to God and bowing in respect.

God approved of their efforts in building a place for the Divine Presence and God willingly accepted their offerings. They knew that they had a place to meet God and a way through sacrifice to commune with the One who created all and liberated them from bondage. The power that overthrew Pharaoh, defeated the sea, and shook the mountains, now rested safely in the midst of their community. The Hebrew word korban, which we often translate as “sacrifice” comes from a root that means to come close.

In the second, however, the fire from the Divine Presence is not a source of joy. Instead of symbolizing the protective, life-enhancing experience of God's closeness, it marks the unrestrained nature of Divine power.

For some reason, unexplained in the biblical narrative, Aaron’s two older sons, Nadav and Avihu, bring an incense offering lit by a “strange” fire before the Divine Presence in the Mishkan. The response to their unauthorized act was their death. Like the offerings on the altar about which we read only a few verses before, they, too, were consumed by the fire of the Divine Presence.

“Fire came forth from before the Eternal and consumed them;

thus they died in the Eternal’s presence.” [Leviticus 10:2]

One can find in the commentaries on this passage, numerous explanations of Nadav and Avihu’s motivations and the results of their actions. What is significant, however, is the juxtaposition of these two passages in which the God of Life and the God of Death are the same God. The same fire shooting out from the Divine Presence consumes (the same Hebrew word is used) both the offerings on the altar and Aaron’s sons. It is here, as it is in the Gevurot blessing of the Tefillah, that we encounter and experience the Divine. It is in the ambiguous spaces in life where we meet the Divine Presence – someplace between joy and sadness, rejoicing and mourning, life and death. God is found in the balance.

As often is the case in the Torah, Aaron represents us, the members of the community; human beings in our full humanity. He expresses our thoughts and feelings, just as Moses expresses God’s. Perhaps this is his role because as a priest, he stands for all of us before the Divine Present. Since Aaron’s experiences are our experiences, we can imagine all that he felt after these two events – the high; the confirmation of the spiritual role he was to play, and the low; the death of two of his beloved children.

To his grieving brother, torn by the contradictions of life, Moses says,

“This is what the Eternal meant by saying:

Through those near to Me, I show Myself holy,

And gain glory before all the people.”

And Aaron was silent. [Leviticus 10:3]

And it is in this silence, the place in which we seek balance, that we often encounter the Divine. [1 Kings 19:12]

Metzora - Leviticus 14:1-15:33

REIMAGINING A TEXT; WORDS THE HURT AND WORDS THAT HEAL

INTRODUCTION

Ever since our people began the practice of regular, weekly readings of Torah, a practice our tradition claims was introduced by Ezra the Scribe shortly after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Exile in the fourth century B.C.E., certain passages were notorious for the problems they presented our preachers and teachers who sought to give contemporary meaning to an even then ancient text. This week's Torah portion, Tzari'a/Metzora is one of these preacher's nightmares.

THE CHALLENGE PRESENTED

The main topic of the portion is the diagnosis, treatment and ritual/cultic implications of an uncomfortable and disfiguring skin disease known as tzara'at.

The rabbis of the Talmudic Period years ago when the land of Israel was ruled by the Romans and after the destruction Temple Jerusalem by their present masters had to find meaning passage that dealt with ritual impurity resulting from a medical condition and the role of the by then obsolete priesthood, the Cohanim, in relieving, if possible, both the malady and the religious impediments it presented to the sufferer.

When we look at the response of the Talmudic Rabbis to this passage, we will see that we are not the first generation that has had difficulty in drawing meaning from a literal reading of the words of the Torah. We will understand that the rabbis of old were neither fundamentalists nor literalists. We will learn how they used the interpretative tools of their day to find deep moral and ethical lessons in what seems on the surface to be an obsolete medical discussion of an unknown skin malady called tzara'at by the Torah.

WHAT TZARAZAT ISN'T

Although the traditional translation of tzara'at is "leprosy", it is generally understood that the Biblical illness is not Hansen's Disease, modern leprosy. From our reading of the description of the condition in the Torah portion, we will see that is more like psoriasis, eczema, or a similar dermatological condition than is like Hansen's Disease.

THE GOAL OF THE RABBIS WAS TO TEACH MORAL AND ETHICAL LESSONS

The Talmudic rabbis and their students were not interested in abstract medical issues or in restoring the power and authority of the Priesthood, the kohanim, who the rabbis had replaced after the destruction of the Temple.

The rabbis and their students were interested in teaching moral and ethical lessons. Therefore, they reinterpreted the discussion of the fate of the sufferer from tzara’at, the metzor'a, from that of a physical ailment to that of moral flaw -- slander, carrying of malicious tales. The metzor'a was no longer the one who suffered from tzara’at, he was the motzi ra, short for motzi shem ra, the one who slandered his fellow Jew by transmitting false and misleading tales, the slanderer.

For the rabbis of the Talmud word play was an important interpretive tool, but this word play, deriving metzor'a from motzi ra was reinforced by a story the book of Numbers in which Miriam, Moses’ sister, is stricken with tzara’at as a punishment for slandering Moses and his Kushite wife. (Num. 12:1-10. See also b. Shab 91a)

THE DANGER OF SLANDER

Slander, leshon ha-ra, literally ''the evil tongue", was a serious problem for Jews living the villages and towns of Roman occupied Israel. It threatened the social cohesiveness of the community. It rendered the victim defenseless. And it was a tool in the hands of the Roman oppressors who, as any other oppressor, used spies and talebearers to reinforce their control. The rabbis of old needed to fight the one who was a motzi ra, a slanderer, and they did so by threatening him or her with an uncomfortable and disfiguring skin disease, tzara’at.

Therefore, they used today's Torah portion Tzari'a / Metzora as a pretext for preaching against slander.

BUT THE RABBIS WERE ALSO INTERESTED IN COMPASSION.

As dangerous as slander was to the welfare and integrity of the Jewish community, the rabbis found their line of reasoning uncomfortable. By explaining the metzora, the one who suffers from the severe dermatological condition of tzara’at, they were placing moral censure on a person who was already ostracized from the community due to his disease. This was for them an untenable position. They knew then, as we know today, that people who suffer from severe and dangerous conditions, need our loving support and not our self-righteous censure. They knew then, as we know today, that there is no direct and immediate connection between our moral and ethical behavior and our fate. From at least the time of the writing of the biblical book of Job, Jewish literature has grappled with the challange that at times the good suffer and the wicked prosper for no reason apparent. The rabbis needed an antidote their seemingly clever connection between metzora and motzi ra.

THE SOLUTION

They found their solution in the Book of Kings, in a story of four sufferers of tzara'at, four metzora'im, who went out of their way and sacrificed great wealth transmit good news to the citizens of the city of Samaria, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Israel.

It was a story of four metzora'im who were each a motzi tov, a bearer of good news, and not a motzi ra, one who bears an evil report.

This was the story the rabbis selected as this weeds haftara, the complimentary selection to the Torah portion chosen from the historical and prophetic books of the Bible. For haftarot, haftorahs, the rabbis picked passages that in theme, imagery or language reinforced what they saw as a major lesson of the weekly Torah portion.

Today, we see the haftara, as the rabbis of old wanted us to see it, as a form of commentary on the Torah. To teach up not to blame the sufferer of tzara’at, the metzora, for the moral offense of motzi ra, our rabbis directed us to read the story of four righteous metzora'im. These four men were cast out of the city of Samaria because of their affliction at the time when the city was under siege by the Arameans. There was starvation in the city and the men knew that they would face death if they entered the city or stayed where they were or went to the Aramean camp. Their best chance seemed to be to go to the Arameans who they hoped would let the four of them go away in peace.

They approached the Aramean camp at twilight and found it deserted. They entered a tent on the outskirts of the camp and refreshed their starving bodies with the food and drink they found in it. They gathered up silver, gold and fine clothing and hid it. But then, they decided to leave behind all the wealth left by the Arameans and return to the city of Sangria bearing the good news that the siege was over and food and drink was plentiful.

Four men, four metzora'im, who were forsaken by their brothers and sisters and cast out of their city in the time of war and siege returned to those who had forsaken them bearing the good news of deliverance.

CONCLUSION

The rabbis of old knew, that the ritual regulations concerning those who buffered from the uncomfortable and disfiguring skin disease called tzara'at found in today's Torah portion needed to be radically reinterpreted to be meaningful to the Jews of their time. So they used the text of this week's portion as a pretext to teach two very important lessons. The first was to combat the evil effects of slander. The second and more important was to teach compassion for those who suffer serious, frightening and disfiguring diseases; to teach up that we cannot judge the inner worth and moral fiber of a person from his or her physical condition. To remind us that a person's state of health tells us no more about who he really is than does his material wealth or social standing. As the rabbis of old taught us in their choice of the haftara, the sufferer from tzara'at, the metzora, can be either one who bears an evil report, a motzi ra, or one who carries good message, a motzi tov. It is not who one is, but what one does that counts.

Tzaria Leviticus 12:1-13:59

DISEASE, IMPURITY AND THE SACRED

Our reading of the Book of Leviticus brings us into the religious and spiritual world of our biblical ancestors. It is a world whose structures and concerns are far different from our own. Some of its features, such as the elaborate descriptions of the sacrifices offered by the kohanim, the priests, fascinate us. Others, such as the demand to pursue holiness, inspire us. While others, such as the concern for ritual purity and impurity, perplex us. A sincere reading of Leviticus challenges us to expand our spiritual imagination as we strive to comprehend and learn from its spiritual teachings. What are we to make of our ancient heritage?

The Torah portion for this week, Tazria, and next week, Metzora, are among the most perplexing. These portions deal with issues of ritual purity and impurity as they pertain to individuals who are afflicted with an poorly understood skin malady the Torah calls “tzara’at.” While in the past the word tzara’at has often been translated as “leprosy”, today scholars and scientists generally agree that tzara’at is not what we today recognize as true leprosy or Hansen’s disease. Whatever medical condition tzara’at refers to, the interest in the condition in our Torah portions is not medical but ritual. The Torah portions instruct the kohanim how to recognize the disorder on people’s skin, when to declare the individual ritually impure and how to restore him or her to ritual purity after the disorder goes away.

The impurity brought on by tzara’at had serious consequences. The sufferer was required not only to remove himself from the sanctuary but to dwell on the outskirts of the community and announce to all that her was in a state of impurity (Leviticus 13:45-46). It appears that concern with the impurity brought on by tzara’at was not restricted to our Israelite ancestors alone. It was part of the cultural and spiritual world they shared with their neighbors. The haftara, accompanying reading from the Prophets, for this week’s Torah reading, Tzaria, discusses the visit of the Syrian general Naaman to the Israelite prophet Elisha in search for a cure for the disease (2 Kings 5:1-19).

As contemporary readers of the Torah, we are often put off by this approach to a apparently serious disease that removes the sufferer from what we would see as the spiritually healing powers of community and faith. We know well how devastation caused by isolating people who were afflicted with disorders that society found frightening such as mental illness, cancer and AIDS. Our natural response to those who are ill is not informed by the laws of ritual purity concerning tzara’at but our Torah-based traditional teachings on bikur holim, visiting and caring for the ill.

But before we judge these Torah portions too harshly, we need to understand them within their own context. First of all, they are not describing an general approach to illness. Their concern is with a very specific condition, tzara’at, within a very specific context, the maintenance of the ritual purity of the sanctuary and of the Israelite community.

In this week’s Torah portion, tzara’at not only describes an unusual condition that causes an unnatural discoloration of the skin, it is also used to describe a discoloration on clothing and on the exterior of buildings. To our biblical ancestors, one acquirers ritual impurity as one approaches the boundaries of life — the experience of birth and death. Tzara’at brings on ritual impurity because the discoloration brought on by this disorder of the skin, of clothing or of buildings gives the appearance of hanging between life and death, soundness and decay.

Ritual purity is a spiritual state in which one’s heart and mind are open to experience the encounter with the eternal God whose presence fills the sanctuary. The powerful and overwhelming feelings of awe, dread, grief and astonishment that fill our souls as we approach life’s limits render us impure because we no longer have the spiritual openness to experience God. We need to let go of the impurity before we can re-enter the holy precinct and experience God’s glorious presence.

One of the goals of the Book of Leviticus is to describe a living, working system in which the purity of the Temple is maintained so that the place, those who work in it, and those who enter can experience the fullness of God’s presence. Thus, within Leviticus, the biblical book most interested in the sanctuary and worship, concerns for ritual purity often take precedence over other spiritual and ethical concerns.

Other biblical passages that deal with tzara’at, however, treat it as an affliction similar to other illnesses that need to be treated. Its victims are often isolated but are not forgotten (2 Kings 7:3-10). Since the disease was seen to have been often brought on by divine displeasure, spiritual intervention was an effective treatment strategy as we can see in Moses’ prayer for his sister Miriam’s recovery (Numbers 12:10f) and the Elisha the Prophet’s cure of Naaman’s illness through immersion in the Jordan River (2 Kings 5:9-16).

But Leviticus’ detailed instructions concerning sacrifice and its powerful interest in ritual purity reflect its commitment to build a sacred space, reflective of God’s heavenly abode, in which our ancestors could encounter God in prayer and worship. Its understanding of tzara’at as a special condition reflects the common belief of the time. It does not prescribe additional hardships and gives the kohanim great leeway in determining their diagnosis. We need to go to other biblical passages for the roots of our concern for the ill, but as we read the Torah portions this week and next we can not help but be impressed by the extraordinary means our ancestors took to ensure that our holy sanctuary remained a sacred space in which to encounter the Eternal God beyond the earthly experiences of death and decay.

Achare Mot — Kedoshim Leviticus 16:1 -18:30

THE GOAT SENT TO AZAZEL

The ancient Jewish ritual of the scapegoat is one of the Yom Kippur rituals described at the beginning of this week’s double Torah portion, Achare Mot / Kedoshim. We also read the passage describing this ritual on Yom Kippur morning, and it is poetically retold during the Avodah service on the Day of Atonement. As we read this passage and recite the Avodah, we can relive this fascinating and puzzling ritual and explore its meaning for us today.

During the Avodah service we are transported back to the ancient Temple in Jerusalem through the power of our imaginations. We see the two identical goats being brought before the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest. By drawing lots, he would select one goat to be led to the sacrificial altar as an offering to God and the other to be sent bearing our sins into the wilderness to Azazel. Though we no longer remember who, what or where Azazel was, we still experience a sense of spiritual relief as we visualize our transgressions being carried away.

The scapegoat ritual provided a dramatic moment in which our ancestors could feel and see their sins being born away. They understood, as we do, that the ritual was not magic. They knew that there could be no atonement without teshuvah (repentance), but the experience of the sin-laden goat being led into the wilderness provided a catharsis, a spiritual cleansing, as they watched the acts and attitudes from which they repented being sent far away.

This need to act out our desire to be free of our sins still plays an important role in Jewish religious life. The Tashlich ceremony, during which we stand by a body of flowing water on Rosh HaShanah afternoon and figuratively cast our sins into the depths, has seen a renewal of popularity. Today, it is an important part of High Holiday activities of all the synagogues in our community.

There are still those among us who preform the ritual of Kaporas. In this ceremony, which takes place before Yom Kippur, we take either a cloth full of money or a live chicken and slowly and gently swing it around our heads while expressing the wish that it bear away the sins we so deeply regret. Afterwards, we give the money or the chicken to the poor so that they can properly celebrate the festival.

The extensive cleaning before Passover gains deeper meaning when we see it as a physical expression of a spiritual cleansing. Just as we are to remove the physical chametz (all leavened products) from the hidden corners of our homes and replace it with matzah, the bread of simplicity, we are also to remove the spiritual chametz, our puffed up sense of self-importance and self-righteousness, from the corners of our hearts and replace it with a more humble and honest self-evaluation.

We can easily visualize what happens to our regretted errors in these rituals. On Rosh HaShanah during Tashlich, we cast them as breadcrumbs into the water, where they sink to the bottom or are devoured by fish. Before Yom Kippur, through Kaporas, we let go of our sense of sinfulness by an act of tzedakah. Prior to Passover, we burn the chametz and declare whatever might remain as no more than ashes and dust. But what does it mean to send our sins to Azazel?

Traditionally, Jews have used three different understandings of the Hebrew term “leAzazel” (literally, “to,” “for” or “as” Azazel) to explain the scapegoat ritual. Each explanation offers us a unique way of reliving the cathartic experience of having our sins carried away. Ideally, we can use all three to help us reach our real goal of teshuvah, turning away from our sins and turning toward a better way of living.

One explanation provides the linguistic foundation for the English word “scapegoat”. It is based on a reading of our text that says the second goat was selected “as the Azazel,” which, if read in Aramaic, an ancient language closely related to Hebrew and used by the Jews during the Talmudic period, means “as the az azel” — as the goat that departs or escapes (with our sins). This explanation encourages us to focus on the experience of watching our sins depart, never to return again.

A second explanation describes Azazel as a demon. Some Ancient Jewish traditions identify Azazel with one of the fallen angels mentioned in the sixth chapter of Genesis, those angels who gave up their heavenly abode because of their lust for human women. We send the goat to the demon Azazel, not as a propitiatory sacrifice, which is specifically forbidden later in our Torah portion (Leviticus 17:7), but as a way of sending our rebellious acts and attitudes back to one whose own rebelliousness makes him a perfect recipient for all our sins. With this understanding, we personify our sense of rebellion and cast it with our sins far away from the center of our lives.

A third explanation envisions Azazel as a mountainous place in the wilderness. According to this interpretation, Azazel derives from azz el, which means “the hard or difficult part of the mountains.” This reading parallels the later description of the place to which the goat is sent as a “craggy, rugged land” (Lev. 16:22) and corresponds with the Talmudic description of the goat being tossed off a high cliff so that it can never return to human habitation. Here, we imagine discarding our sins in a place so far removed from us that we could never find or revive them.

Our people have always known that our sacred rituals reveal their power in their ability to transform the human soul and to promote spiritual and moral development. That is their sole power. While verbal prayer makes up the bulk of our worship, ritual acts and sacred reflections preserve for us the memory of a time when dramatic ceremonies expressed our people’s spiritual desires. By understanding that prayer is more than spoken or sung words and by seeking out ways to pray through ritualized actions and through the evocative power of our imagination, the possibility for our spiritual transformation is enhanced.

Kedoshim Leviticus 19:1-20:27

BE HOLY!

Why be a Jew? What is the purpose of living a Jewish life? Is there a goal toward which Jews are to strive? What does God demand from us?

These questions are representative of those forming the foundation of our souls’ search for meaning through the twists and turns of our lives. These are the questions that rest at the base of our being and from time to time rise to the surface and confront us with intense urgency. Their enormity can seem overwhelming, but we are rewarded with spiritual and intellectual development whenever we respond to them.

As a chaplain I often encounter people dealing with these questions at points of anguish and stress in their lives, when the quietude of their lives has been punctured by disease, disaster or death. The need to reply to them has led our tradition to see moments of crisis as opportunities for growth.

As a teacher I know that these are the questions that people, primarily young people, ask as they endeavor to find their place in this world. The Jewish commitment to education grows out of the desire to provide our people with the courage to ask these questions and with the skills to formulate answers. Our hope is that these penetrating questions should not remain hidden but should stand behind all the decisions we make.

As a rabbi I hope that these questions are the questions people ask everyday so that every day can offer a moment of growth, transformation and truth.

One powerful answer to the question of what our goals in life should be appears in the heart of the Book of Leviticus and provides a focus for what seems to be a difficult compilation of ritual laws. It appears in the opening verse of the weekly portion Kedoshim, in which God instructs Moses to announce to the Israelites, “You shall be holy, because I, the Eternal your God, am holy,” (Lev. 19:3) What follows is a series of ethical directives and ritual laws whose purpose is to lead us to lives of holiness.

Unlike much of Leviticus, which seems to deal with the parochial concerns of the priesthood, these ordinances apply to the entire community of Israelites. In this passage we learn that for us the opportunities to experience holiness are found not only in religious rituals in sacred places but in the way we conduct our daily lives. Being honest in our commercial dealings is not only morally right; it is the holy thing to do. (Lev. 19:13 and 35) Respecting and caring for the elderly is a holy act. (Lev. 19:32) Providing for the needs of the poor is a sacred responsibility. (Lev. 19:9)

Much of what we understand as the ethical teachings of the Jewish people are rooted in this portion. The rabbis and teachers of the Talmud grounded their understanding of our relationships with each other on verses that ask us to be holy because our God is holy. The law that we are not to insult the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind (Lev. 19:11) serves as a warning for us not to take advantage of another’s weakness, ignorance or inexperience. The demand that we are not to stand idly by the blood of our neighbor (Lev. 19:16) is the proof text that we need to respond to human suffering. The command that we are not to hate each other or hold a grudge (Lev. 19:17) provides the basic guidelines for shalom bayit, full and rewarding life in the family and in the community. Finally, in light of this portion, the golden rule — “Love your neighbor as yourself”(Lev. 19:18) — is not merely a moral doctrine; it is a spiritual principle, part of the prescription for a holy life.

The directive to be holy because our God is holy, is Leviticus’ response to the question, “What is the goal of Jewish life?” If we take it seriously, it has transforming power. Imagine what our lives would be like if we confronted the seriousness of this answer to life’s questions. How would our personal and communal priorities change if we were to ask ourselves, our leaders and our institutions the question, “Is it holy?” before we question whether a project or policy is efficient, cost effective, or even moral?

If we accept as our goal the pursuit of holiness in our daily lives, if we seek to make the sacred real in what we say and do, we hold an answer to the fundamental questions of human life that will go a long way in our

THE DOUBLE STANDARD

Acharei Mot – Kidoshim

April 27, 2023

We may all be of an age to remember the Hebrew National Hot Dog advertising slogan – “We answer to a higher authority.” This slogan informed consumers that a Hebrew National Hot Dog not only met the standards of the FDA and other government regulatory agencies like all other hot dogs, but it also had to meet a stricter set of standards – the laws of Kashrut and, perhaps, the expectations of Jewish consumers for high quality products.

To be a Hebrew National Hot Dog, as compared to be an Oscar Meyer Wiener, one had to not only good but better. One had to pass a double standard. One had to be special and if one wasn’t special, then one failed. A Hebrew National Hot Dog could not be just a regular good hot dog.

To be Jewish, means to agree to be judged by a double standard. That is the thrust of the phrase repeated often in this week’s portion – Ahare Mot-Kedoshim – “you shall be holy, because the Eternal your God is holy.” The Torah tells us, over and over again, that for the Jewish people being and behaving like an average, normal people is just not good enough.

Of course, we would want every nation to be virtuous, every people good and compassionate, every community caring and supportive, but our Torah claims that for the Jewish people this is not something to be desired but a requirement. Being average is not enough. In the world of morality, for Jews “C” is a failing grade.

The TaNaK repeatedly informs our biblical ancestors that if they behave just like the peoples and nations around them, they will not be able to remain in the Land God promised to their ancestors. They got to do better. They have to be kadosh – that is holy, special, unique, better – because they are connected to the God who is kadosh.

This sense of striving to be better – spiritually and morally better – rests at the heart of being Jewish. We want to be and often claim to be an exemplar people. We judge ourselves by this higher standard and should not be surprised when others judge us similarly. This is true for us as individuals, as communities, as a people and, also, as a nation. For Jews, Jewish Organizations, Jewish Communities and even for the Jewish State, good enough is not good enough. We will be judged and we should want to be judged by the values we proclaim we are committed to whether they be found in the ancient texts of the Torah or recent text such as Israel’s Declaration of Independence. If we claim we answer to a higher authority, we better make sure that we do. We should welcome the “Double Standard” – that is the standard we chose for ourselves.

Emor Leviticus 21:1-24:23

KIDDUSH HASHEM — LIVING A JEWISH LIFE

“You shall observe my directives and perform them, I am HaShem. You shall not desecrate My holy name! I should appear holy among the Israelite people because I am HaShem who makes you holy, the one who took you out of the Land of Egypt to be your God; I am HaShem!” — Leviticus 22:31-33

How do we live a Jewish life — that is, a life that models the values, teachings and practices of the Jewish people as they have evolved over the millennia? In some ways, this is an easy question. The answer is a simple one: do it! Put into action the customs and ceremonies, the rules and regulations, and the insights and wisdom enshrined by our people in our sacred writings and holy books.

However, from that simple answer our people have created a wonderful complex, detailed, multi-faceted pattern of life. It is a way of life that we express in terms of norms and standards, things to do and not to do.

The guiding metaphor of Jewish spiritual living is that HaShem (“The Name”), the traditional euphemism for the ineffable, four-lettered name of God, gave us, the people of Israel, the Torah at Mount Sinai to bind us to God forever. Out of a sense of love and loyalty to God, who brought us out of Egypt, guided us through the wilderness and brought us to the Promised Land, pious Jews strive to fulfill God’s will. Thus, the laws, rules, judgments, and regulations found in the written Torah, the first five books of our Bible, provided our teachers and sages with the basic principles they used in describing the pattern of Jewish personal and communal life.

Needless to say, the result of this endeavor to describe a way of life based on the teachings of Scripture, which has engaged the philosophical, mystical, legal and artistic genius of the Jewish people, is a vast and ever-expanding literature of spiritual insight and religious practice. Over the centuries, Jewish life has come to resemble a broad river with shifting currents and parallel channels, all flowing, however, from a single source to a common goal. No one can master it all.

So how do we live a Jewish life when the directions for doing so seem so immense, confusing, detailed, and intricate? Fortunately, our ancestors have found guiding principles within our Scripture to act as a spiritual compass as we travel down the river of Jewish life. We may not be master pilots of any specific section of the river, but if we know where we came from and where we are going, we will get along fairly well.

Embedded in the Torah portion Emor is one of these essential guiding principles. As Jews, whose basic existence is bound to the holy God, who liberated us from Egyptian bondage, we are to act in ways that promote and proclaim God’s holiness — “Kiddush HaShem” — and avoid behaviors that dishonor, discredit and defame God and ourselves, God’s people — “Chillul HaShem.”

We may not know, and no one knows, all the so-far accumulated Jewish exploration of the Divine will, but knowing the difference between “Kiddush HaShem”, “sanctifying God’s name” and “Chillul HaShem”, “desecrating God’s name”, puts us at a great advantage.

If the desire to make God’s holiness and sanctity real in our daily lives guides our decisions in how we interact with our families, neighbors, community, and world, we will be living meaningful Jewish lives. As we continue to explore the richness of the Jewish tradition and open our hearts to the spiritual wisdom of our sacred inheritance, our skill to instinctively turn to acts of Kiddush HaShem — to sanctify God and bring honor to our people — will be sharpened. When we incorporate this and other guiding principles of our sacred tradition — loving God, loving our neighbor, pursuing peace, teaching Torah — into our very being, we will live lives that intuitively reflect the centuries-old Jewish engagement with God and God’s living words proclaimed from Sinai and taught through the ages.

So how do we live a Jewish life? It is easy. We live a life that reflects the holiness and sanctity of God. We dedicate ourselves to the task of “Kiddush HaShem.”

COUNTING THE OMER - A SEASON FOR CARING

The core festivals of our people, Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot, are of ancient origin. They along with Shabbat and the New Moon structured the spiritual celebrations of our people in Biblical times and still are the focal points of the Jewish year. Sacred calendars listing these festivals appear in five times in the Torah – twice in Exodus and once each in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The subtle differences between these lists open a window onto the various ways our ancestors understood and appreciated their shared traditions and enable us to see how they tied the epic history of our people, the people of Israel, the story of the Exodus and Wandering, to the agricultural cycles of life in our homeland, the land of Israel. Most striking, however, is the connection between offering thanksgiving to God and our responsibility to those less fortunate than ourselves.

According to the Jewish calendar, we are now in the season known as Sefirat HaOmer, the counting of the Omer. This practice reflects the teaching in the sacred calendar found in Parashat Emor (Levitcus 23) that instructed our ancestors to bring an omer of grain to the sanctuary daily during the seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot, the festivals that marked the beginning and the end of the grain harvest. Our ancestors presented the omer, a bundle of stalks of newly cut grain, to the priests in the sanctuary to acknowledge God’s claim over the land and offer thanks for its blessings.

Characteristic of Leviticus, this sacred calendar is full of detailed instructions describing the offerings to be given at each festival throughout the year. For many, the ritual details in Leviticus seem off-putting, yet they underscore the concern of Leviticus to create a community in which God’s holy presence can be found. In previous Torah portion, Kedoshim, we read a lengthy list of laws that demonstrated that high ethical standards and a deep concern for the vulnerable lay at the core of Leviticus’ understanding of holiness. The Levites and the Cohanim, the priests, had the specific task of maintaining the holiness of the sanctuary, God’s dwelling, place by the appropriate rites and rituals fitting for the Divine Sovereign. All Israel, however, had the responsibility to maintain a righteous, equitable, and holy community in which all people, who in themselves reflected the Divine image, were treated fairly and justly with love.

The directives found in Leviticus pertaining to the days of counting the omer, the harvest season of ancient Israel (23: 9-22), underscore these ethical teachings. After reviewing the ritual instructions concerning the days between Pesach and Shavuot, Leviticus concludes its discussion with a restatement of the law in 19:9-10 that required Israelite farmers to leave the edges of their fields as well gleanings left over after the harvest for the poor and the strangers in the community (23:22) While our ancestors were to thank God for the bounty of the land with the token offering of the omer, they were also expected to share that bounty with those needing support and protection.

Here as in the other sacred calendars in the Torah (see for example Deuteronomy 16:11, 14), care for the poor and vulnerable are essential for the proper celebration of our sacred seasons. Every season provides an opportunity for caring. Now, as we are counting the days of ancient Israel’s harvest season, let us find ways in which we can share the bounty our world provides us with those in trouble and in need. Let us make real in our lives the vision of our ancestors that we are not only required to offer thanks to God, but obligated to provide for the needs of the week, vulnerable and marginal members of our human family. In that way we can still create the holy community in which we can meet God.

Behar-Behukotai Leviticus 25:1-27:34

“THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S”

The earth is the Lord’s and all that it contains,
the world and those who dwell therein!
For God founded it upon the seas
and planted it firm upon the waters beneath.
Psalm 24:1-2

With these glorious words, the Psalmist begins a poem that pictures our God, the sovereign of all creation, entering into the Beit HaMiqdash, our holy Temple in ancient Jerusalem. The poem is a powerful statement of faith. It proclaims God’s rule and makes clear to us that we, human beings, are not the ultimate owners of the land upon which we live and the things that we possess. They belong to God and we, no matter what our stations in life may be, are merely one of God’s many creations.

This humbling understanding of our subordinate position to God leads us to a basic spiritual and moral question: What meaning do our material blessings hold in our lives?

On the individual level, our tradition, as poetically reflected in the Book of Psalms, teaches us that money and property are not reliable measures for evaluating ourselves or others. Who we are is not determined by the size of our bank account or the strength of our resume. We are continually reminded that in God’s sight it is our ethical and spiritual riches that determine our true worth. It is what we do with what we have been given that is of utmost importance, not how much we have.

Psalm 24 follows its profession of God’s sovereignty with a statement of

ethical standards required for one to come into God’s sacred courts:

Who may go up to the mountain of the Lord?
And who may stand in God’s holy place?
One who has clean hands and a pure heart
One whose mind is not set on falsehood
and who has not committed perjury.

In God’s house, wealth and power do not confer special privileges. What potentially opens doors in God’s house are one’s ethical behavior and spiritual attitude. In Psalm 50, a psalm that pictures God judging his worshipers, the psalmist mocks those who believe that they can impress God by the lavishness of their sacrifices and condemns those who associate with wrongdoers. Only those who follow God’s ways and are grateful to God for their blessings will be rewarded. Prayer, study and good deeds comprise our traditional recipe for spiritual success, a recipe beautifully conveyed in the Book of Psalms.

Although it may not be immediately obvious, the Book of Psalms and the Book of Leviticus, the third book of the Torah, are closely related. The focus of both books is worship in the Temple in ancient Jerusalem. Thus, both books deal with many of the same themes, albeit from different perspectives.

The Book of Psalms is a collection of prayers and hymns recited by those who worshiped in the Temple. It reflects our ancestors’ spiritual concerns — their desire to thank and praise God, their need to seek blessing and healing, and their search for peace, holiness and insight. The Book of Psalms addresses the needs of the individuals as they opened their hearts in private prayer and in congregational worship.

The Book of Leviticus deals with the worship in the Temple from a different point of view — that of the community of Israel and the institution of the priesthood. Leviticus centers on the need to preserve the spiritual and moral purity of that holy place in terms of ritual observance and ethical instruction. Unlike the Book of Psalms, however, which deals with the needs of the individual worshiper, Leviticus is addressed to the Jewish people.

Not surprisingly, the first half of this week’s double Torah portion, Behar-Behukotai, also explores the theme of God’s ownership of the land, but it does so with an interesting twist. While the Psalms examine the individual’s response to the claim that the land belongs to God, Leviticus explores society’s response. It presents us with the question of how we, as a community, can prove our worthiness to live in the land God promised to our ancestors, and it answers that question in terms of economic justice.

Like the Psalms, our Torah portion reminds us that God is the true owner of the land of Israel and we are merely God’s tenants (Leviticus 25:23). According to our portion, our claim to the Land of Israel does not rest on the cities we built, the fields we planted, and the infrastructure we created. Our right to dwell on God’s holy land stands on our ability to ensure that the blessings of this fruitful land are shared equitably among all forever.

Our portion sets forth a two-fold cyclical process by which this goal can be preserved. Every seventh year, the Sabbatical Year, shall be a year of release from debts and slavery. Every fiftieth year, the Jubilee, shall be the year of the restoration of land to its original earthly owners. This program’s foundation is the belief that God gave the Land of Israel to all the Jewish people as a dwelling place and divided it fairly among the tribes and clans of Israel. The change in people’s fortunes over the course of time could not be accepted as a permanent alteration of the original scheme. Every seven years, people were to be given the opportunity to escape the burden of debt and slavery, and every fifty years, they were to be restored to their ancestral holdings. In this way no family would be condemned to poverty in perpetuity, no person would be able to exert economic pressure indefinitely and God’s sovereignty would be acknowledged.

Although these policies reflect an understanding of economics that is far different from our own, the underlying problem that they address still challenges humanity on the local, national and global scales, as it challenged our Israelite ancestors living in their small cities and villages in ancient Israel. We know from bitter experience how difficult it is to maintain social cohesion and peace when the material blessings of this world are not equitably distributed. We understand that poverty not only destroys the poor but undermines all of society. We are aware of how people use economic power to oppress their fellow human beings and usurp the authority that is rightly God’s.

Our Torah portion teaches us, as members of the human family, that it is wrong for one nation, one class, or one social group to claim for itself an unfair share of the world’s resources. The earth belongs to God and we are called upon to share its bounty fairly with all God’s children. It is not how much of the earth and its wealth we hold that determines our worth, but how we use it to enrich all those less fortunate than ourselves.

The Psalms ask us to put aside our pretensions to wealth as we go before the One who has created all wealth and to concentrate on our individual ethical and spiritual development. The Torah demands that we reach further. As a nation and as ethical human beings, our Torah portion calls upon us to go beyond personal morality and to consider the morality of the systems that govern our lives. It challenges us to seek ways to make the Torah’s vision of an equitable distribution of the world’s blessings a reality for our time.

BLESSINGS AND CURSES

At the end of the traditional Birchat HaMazon, the Grace after the Meal, is a verse from the Book of Psalms that reads, “Once I was young and now I have grown old but I have never seen a righteous person abandoned nor his children begging for food (Psalm 37:25).” It is one of a series of biblical verses acknowledging God as the one who sustains all. There are many ways to sing the verse but I was taught. to drop my voice when I came to this passage and recite it in a whisper. Why? Because it is not an accurate statement of life as we know it and it may be a source of pain to one with whom we may have eaten.

In the course of my rabbinic career, having shared many meals with many good souls who happen to be infirm, impoverished, abandoned and lost, I have come to appreciate that lesson of spiritual sensitivity. The world in which we live is far too complicated to be explained by the simple moral calculus that the righteous are rewarded and that the wicked punished.

Yet, this apparently simple equation seems to play an important role in the faith of our Biblical ancestors. The lists of blessings and curses that appear in this week’s double portion Behar / Bechukotai at the end of the Book of Leviticus as well as a similar list at the end of the Book of Deuteronomy appear to support the belief that success and prosperity with bless those obedient to the our peoples’ Covenant with the Eternal and that defeat and disaster will curse those who disobey it and ignore its directives..

But our ancestors were not simple people. They were aware that in our present world the dream of proportional reward for good and evil was no more than a false vision. Our Bible testifies that their spiritual understanding of the mystery of God’s justice was far more subtle than the simple equation of reward and punishment. The Book of Job demolishes the quid pro quo explanation of suffering and many of our most comforting psalms express the pain and sorrows of the good and pious. They knew, as we know, that life in the present world does not follow such simple rules.

So we should not read the listings of blessings and curses such as the one that appears in this week’s portion as a description of the world in which we live but rather as a vision of the world as it should be. It is an affirmation of our ancestors’ faith in God’s sovereignty and their belief that in some future time God’s dominion will be manifest in its fullness.

By its use of blessings and curses, our Torah employs the literary traditions of the Ancient Near East to express God’s sovereignty. Law codes from ancient Mesopotamia, such as the Laws of Hammurabi, often conclude with a description of the blessings and curses that the divine patron of the code will visit upon those who obey or disobey its regulations. Scholars have pointed out that parallels between Ancient Near Eastern vassal treaties, including lists of blessings and curses similar to those found in our portion, underscore lasting, covenantal relationship between the people Israel and our Divine Ruler.

Our ancestors’ understood that at this moment God’s sovereignty is not fully present but some day all would be set right. Their world was, as our world remains, a dangerous place. Their homeland, the land of Israel, was a small nation surrounded by enemies. Their economic survival depended on the unpredictable winter rains. Prosperity, health and longevity were all too often fleeting dreams. The promise of a future restoration of the fortunes of Israel after a period of judgement which concludes the section on blessings and curses in our portion expresses their faith in a secure and just future.

The blessings and curses so carefully presented in here do not reflect a facile understanding of reward and punishment. Our ancestors’ knew that life and its challenges could not be so simply explained. The blessings and curses which we read as we come to the end of the Book of Leviticus are not a stark description of our world but a hopeful dream of a better and more just future. They express in the style and context of an ancient Near Eastern law code the poetic vision of the Psalmist that some day in the future all creation will rejoice as the God comes forth to rule the earth.

Let the heavens be glad, let the earth rejoice;
Let the sea roar and all within it give praise.
Let the field and all within it exult;
Let all the trees of the forest sing before the Eternal;
Before the Eternal, as he comes;
He comes to rule the earth,
To rule the world in righteousness,
And the nations by his truth.
(Psalm 96)