Acharei MoΘ -Kidoshim

The naming of this weeks double parsha is used as a witticism:  Acharei  moΘ - after death ... Kidoshim - (they are) holy (ones). I heave heard it used as a kind of holocaust joke implying that regardless of their behavior  prior to death, now that they have been murdered, we consider them as holy. The relationship to the holocaust may have come from my own background.  I can see how this may be used as a more general statement about how to think about the departed.  This week I lost three friends to covid and two patients to cancer.  Their sanctity had been established quite independently from their deaths

These words of  introduction to  Yom Kippur temple service, "after the death"  are stunning. This juxtaposition has been sermonized to imply that the deaths of Aaron's sons was an expiation, vaguely suggesting that the deaths of ancestors will help the supplicant as she prays for a good year  on Yom Kippur. 

  In the context of the instructions that follow, the death of Aaron's sons  is a warning about the danger of entering the inner sanctum at the wrong time.  The service is powerful and dangerous. It must be carried out in the prescribed manner at the prescribed time. The service is to be performed, not understood.  [My mother told me that: "You do not need to understand your wife, just love her"]

The second parsha, Kedoshim, is filled with appealing , often platitudinous, commandments. It is introduced with: 

 קְדֹשִׁ֣ים תִּהְי֑וּ כִּ֣י קָד֔וֹשׁ אֲנִ֖י

You shall be holy, for I, the LRD your Gd, am holy.

Many of the statements are followed by: "I am Hashem your Gd. "

We are barraged with a collection of instructions about interpersonal relationships: fear your parents, love your friend as you love yourself, welcome the immigrant, etc.  Interspersed  among these humanistic proverbs there are detailed ritual laws concerning the consumption of the leftovers of voluntary sacrifices and the maturation of fruit trees.  The unifying principle seems to be that these are all Divine commandments, I am Hashem your Gd. To the righteous mind, no more need be said. But there is a meaning to this faith based obedience. It is an answer to the question: How do you understand the world? 

Our culture emphasizes understanding over belief. We believe that someone understands the principles of nature and these principles predict how the world will behave, including the outcomes of our actions. I have studied some science. I know that this is not completely true. The idea of the unpredictable, the necessarily inexact (noise), is now incorporated into the dogma of science.  Humans cannot understand the world. Their brains were not designed for the task.  Following Gd's instructions is an ancient, tested and often productive, alternative. 

There is a rather ancient tradition of using the book of Viyikra, the third of the five books of Moses, as the starting point for the study of  Torah.  Young children begin their  (lifelong) analysis of the core texts with  a book that deals with animal sacrifices, blood and forbidden fats. They do not yet have ingrained beliefs about how the world works  ( Newtonian mechanics, the central dogma of molecular biology). They are still sacred (kedoshim). 

On some mythical level, I anticipated the Covid 19 pandemic.  Just before it started, I thought about a problem in evolution.  An underlying principle in evolution is  events: Given a sufficient number of events... everything will happen. That means that it should not be possible to breathe.  There are myriads of potentially harmful organism that are all evolving in countless directions. Some of these mutations will be lethal for humans.  Humans have a large, but limited capacity, to fight these germs.  By the numbers, there are more of them, each with a potential for variation that equals ours, than there are of us. The odds are stacked in favor of the germs.  Coronavirus is bad, worse must come. The only hope: Divine intervention.  I believe!