Bechukothai: Value

The parsha begins with a general description of the rewards for keeping the mitzvoth: peace and prosperity.  This is followed by a much longer ( about twice as long)  depiction of the consequences that devolve from from violating the mitzvoth: total degradation and (near) destruction. This is the roller-coaster of favor and disfavor, being treasured or rejected. The relationship between Gd and Israel is not linear, the mitzvoth are not individual points. When the payback begins, opportunity for correction is provided, but if it is missed, the punishment intensifies. The resentment that flows from castigation need to be overcome  by a broader view of the situation that leads to obedience. Those are the instructions.

I grew up in America, the delicious  (rica in Spanish)  land of entitlement.  In this worldview pain, suffering, decline, strife- these are not only unexpected, but violations, injustices. The idea that everything should go well is a deeply imprinted model that I involuntarily  impose on a surprisingly cooperative reality.  But on a "scientific" level, I know that entropy is stronger than the great promulgator of order: life.  Decline and death, scarcity and defeat, are more probable than the gifts Gd grants to the favored.  The purification of animal excrement to bacteriogically sterile sugar water by a plant is not a given, it is a miracle. And the miracle of my family's success after escaping from the wrath of the Nazis ( and Gd?) is comparable.

Immediately  following the description of the horrors of Heavenly rebuke ( and the eventual deliverance of the remnant), the text turns to the monetary values of persons.  This juxtaposition is disquieting.  The valuations are expressed as the amount that would have to be paid ( to the Temple treasury) if one pledged the value of a person, based upon gender and age. It feels like a yizkor pledge ( money pledged in honor of the departed at the  festival memorial ceremony )  or, perhaps, a formula for reparations.  It is,perhaps, another way to gain perspective.  Every life has infinite value... and finite value. 

Every life is a miracle...are miracles banal?

 Behar: Abstraction

The  first Rashi of Behar is very famous: 

בהר סיני. מָה עִנְיַן שְׁמִטָּה אֵצֶל הַר סִינַי — What has the matter of the Sabbatical year to do with Mount Sinai  

Why are we told that these laws that deal with an economy based upon land ownership were given at Sinai?  Rashi points out that this information would have been more timely if it were delivered on the plains of Moab, after the Israelites had conquered some territory and were poised to enter the Promised Land, where these laws would actually apply. The entry into the land will not take place for some time to come ( 39 years) the conquest and settlement of the land will take another 14 years.  These laws will not apply for the next 53 years. 


The information about Sinai is not temporal, it is conceptual. It comes to tell us that the practicalities of the situation must yield to the ideal. The law is not ad hoc, it precedes  the problems that it is intended to adjudicate. It is the justice, not the temporal outcome, that is addressed.

But the application of the law has real life consequences.  People descend to poverty, the fear of the Sabbatical year can tighten credit. Can the reassurance that Gd will provide  keep people from acting to avoid a self imposed famine?

These laws about land were given to landless people. Even before the 210  year Egyptian bondage, the ancestral claim to the land, based upon Divine promise and monetary purchase, had been weak. These slaves and desert nomads had no concept  of property value appreciation or employment contracts. They were provided for, first by their masters and then by Gd.  Now, decades before it will be practiced, they are commanded to respect the land, respect each other , establish an economic system in which inherited land  plays a central role. And there is no land and no assignment of acreage.

Perhaps, more significant, this Jewish people, who preserve the law,  not only in Biblical text but in Talmud and discussion, are bereft of a land for most of their history.  Having been taught that a heritable estate is the antithesis of the odious slave state, they live for more than 100 generations as alien bondsmen, their wealth never secure.

The law is independent of its application.  Its concepts permeate life regardless of the circumstances. Respect for persons, respect for the earth, respect for freedom  - the messages of Sinai- are always applicable and the discussion of  their details always important

Emor: The defective

I am never sure whether or  not a parsha is intentionally symmetric.  It is always possible that the partitioning of the Torah reflects some superimposed pattern of topics and lengths of  writing, creating  the appearance of symmetry.  This weeks parsha has the appearance of symmetry.  It opens with disqualifications for the priestly service, first on the basis of dealing with the dead and then because of inborn or acquired physical defects , either in the Kohen or in the animal. 

The parsha ends with the youth of compromised ancestry , half Egyptian, scorning the Gd of Israel. The Rabbis of the Talmud  say that confused youth doubted the comestible  quality  of show bread that had lain on the gilded table for a week and that would now be distributed in tiny potions to the Kohanim.  But I would attribute a better question to him.   Why is contact with the dead a disqualification for a Kohen who will, as all people do, die? Why does a challenge that comes from Gd's  intervention ( or failure to intervene) in embryonic  development disqualify  participation in the service?

The service is imperfect. The intentions are not 100% pure, but it is (generally) guided by the need for a good performance. Thh holidays are listed so that there can be joy filled, imperfect, family centered celebration.  I know that these rules intensify the joy and meaning. 

The harsh rules about qualification for service is culminated in the draconian rule if inclusion.  The Israelite with the Egyptian father( a father who told him of myths that inflate the powers of gods)  must live up to the standards of belief of all Israelites.  His birth and environment are no excuse

My mother used to say: "Even when I am wrong I am right."

Kedoshim: The precepts of sanctity

Kedoshim: The precepts of sanctity

Kedoshim,  motivates us to keep the mitzvoth with a call to be holy ones, kedoshim. 

The third sentence of the parsha ,אִ֣ישׁ אִמּ֤וֹ וְאָבִיו֙ תִּירָ֔אוּ וְאֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתַ֖י תִּשְׁמֹ֑רוּ אֲנִ֖י the first sentence of instruction,  inverts the ten commandments Fear your parents (5) is followed by keeping the Sabbath (4) and ends with I am the Lrd (1).  According to Rashi, this give  the method for resolving situations in which instructions conflict with one another

ואת שבתתי תשמרו AND MY SABBATHS SHALL YE KEEP — Scripture places the commandment of observing the Sabbath immediately after that of fearing one’s father in order to suggest the following: “Although I admonish you regarding the fear due to your father, yet if he bids you: "Desecrate the Sabbath", do not listen to him” — and the same is the case with any of the other commandments. This, it is evident, is the meaning since Scripture adds —

אני ה' אלהיכם “I am the Lord your God" (the plural) — both you and your father are equally bound to honour Me! Do not therefore obey him if it results in making My words of no effect (Sifra, Kedoshim, Section 1 10; Bava Metzia 32a). 

Thus, annually the parsha reminds me how the Yeshiva my parents sent me to  put me in conflict with them.  It is a variant of the dystopian theme of The State turning children into informers against their parents ( cf. 1984, cold war anticommunist propaganda).  My parents voluntarily  paid to turn me  into a true believers that wouldn't let them turn off electric lights on Shabbath (under penalty of death by stoning).

As a participant (victim?/beneficary?)of  this process I can attest to its success. Had I tried to reproduce the post-Holocaust, ambivalent Judaism of my parents , my life would be very different.  I do not think it would be happier.  It would (almost certainly) be less ( recognizably) religious. The ancient portion, the connection to the text and tradition, would have been weakened.

The tradition is transmitted by parents to children.  Patents teach us  to keep the Sabbath and the Yeshiva teaches them how it should be kept.  The resolution of the conflict is the stuff of kadosh, sanctity.  Perhaps that is (part of ) the meaning of "You shall be holy for I, Y' your Gd am holy." Gd, who deals with conflicting issues, instructs us to do the same  - righteously.

Do as I say, not as I do.

Achrei Moath: What did they do wrong?

Achrei Moath: What did they do wrong?

What an introduction to the parsha: "after the death"...As an oncologist, a physician whose patients occasionally die, the phrase, "after the death"  induces a  disturbing range of  questions: what could have been done differently?  Did we miss some way to rescue the patient? What action or what gene caused this?

The detailed description of the Yom Kippur service of atonement is placed in the context of the untimely death of the sons of Aaron. The implication is that something went terribly wrong, some deviation  caused this tragedy. The context emphasizes the danger of this most holy service of expiation, the service that saves all the people from tragedy and death.  The service defuses the bomb of Divine Retribution.  One false move ... and  it blow up  and the hero  dies. 

Whenever someone dies, all the more so when the death is unexpected, there are many questions. Why did this happen to him and not me?  Why won't it happen to me? What action caused the death? What gene? What can I do to avoid the same fate?  There is no real expectation of a satisfactory answer.  The questioning affirms that we are still alive and lets us not dwell on the underlying inevitable. 

This is  Holocaust Remembrance week, the week of the big WHY. Now we deal with the nuclear retribution, the 6 million whys? The parsha , after stating the fact and context of the untimely deaths,   proceeds to technical details of the mystery.  The answer is to go on ... and be more careful.  The question of why  is not openly validated.  The parsha is the Rabbinic answer: we do not understand. I do not think that means that you do not ask, just don't ask anyone else. Don't expect an answer. Just pay attention to the details

 Three chapters ago aron's sons died in an unauthorized service.  Now, after two weeks of leprosy, we are told the details of the service of expiation.  Who knew that