Emor

Cohanim, priests, lived a very different life than the ordinary Israelites. Of course they had a massive lot of Temple duties of all different kinds, from sacrificing to baking special bread and mixing incense. They even ate different food. Only they and their families could eat tithes, and they had to be in a state of special ritual purity to do this.

This week's Torah talks about the limitations concerning mourning. Priests could not go to graveyards, in case they came into contact with a corpse either directly or indirectly, and so they could not bury people who were not immediate relatives (unless there was absolutely no one else around to do it). In addition, they were forbidden to express their mourning in ways that must have been quite common then, like shaving their heads, cutting off their beards, cutting their skin, or tattooing themselves. In effect these laws soon extended to the whole of the people, and this is why they are now forbidden to us all.

Tattooing? Forbidden? Yup. We are supposed to treat our living and dead bodies respectfully. We can’t deface ourselves, and tattooing counts as that. It also counts as following pagan customs. In modern terms this means trying to imitate a code of practice that conflicts with Jewish values. Can we seriously argue that this is what tattooing is about? Well, it certainly is an expression of rebellion, an expression of secularity, and a statement of where one wants to belong, what one wants to say about oneself.

The idea of priests is the idea that some of us can aspire to higher standards. Higher standards should lead us to live a fuller, more satisfying way of life. A tattoo doesn't mean much in itself. But it is what it really means, beneath the surface, that counts.

Acharei Mot & Kedoshim

These two sections of the Torah are normally read separately. The question that intrigues me is whether it is possible to find a common theme that unites them. Is the fact that they come together this year just a phenomenon of the calendar? We require several combinations of sedrot in order to squeeze the readings of the Torah into the number of available weekends in the Jewish year.

On the one hand, in both sedrot there are a wide range of laws, and there are common themes. In both there are crucial ethical laws relating to sexual, social, and interpersonal behavior. On the other hand, both contain references to non-Jewish pagan practices as the negative touchstone by which we measure what not to do.

What exactly is wrong with paganism? Medieval Jewish authorities were divided. Maimonides, in his Yad Hachazaka, sees the problem as one of intellectual error. The pagan misunderstands the way to appreciate the Divine. Early man saw the agents of nature and life, the heavenly bodies, as being the vehicle for Divine intervention and so they worshipped them instead. They knew full well that the symbols were of no intrinsic value. As depicted in the story we were told of Abraham's father, the idol maker, they were not fooled, really believing that the images had powers of their own. They were no different than modern Hindus who know that Kali or Krishna or Vishnu or Ganesh are just ideas, symbols of different aspects of life. The error is simply in failing to appreciate the purity of the monotheistic direct line to the Source.

Alternatively, in his Bet HaBechira, Meiri suggests that it is nothing to do with the concept of the Divine. Rather, it is whether one has a "moral code" or not. Paganism accepts no objective moral constraints. It leads to pure licentiousness and abandon. Monotheism imposes obligations and limitations as an expression of the Divine, rather than permitting self-indulgence so long as one performs set rituals. Otherwise, "Where the heart wishes to go, the mind is sure to follow."

Tazria & Metzora

Tazria

When a woman gave birth in Temple days, she had to bring a Sin Offering. Naturally enough one wonders what for. What did she do wrong? Some commentators try to suggest it is because of something she did. Maybe she cursed in her pain. Maybe the burden of pregnancy made her do things she otherwise would not have done. But this doesn't seem very fair to the woman, who after all has made a really special contribution to life in general and Jewish life in particular.

The Sin Offering was not used solely in cases where people did something wrong. The word "sin" (chataat) itself has a double meaning. Actually it also means to purify, to clean out, and to prepare for a new phase. So the word is used to describe cleaning the alter from one holy sacrifice before the next one is offered up (Exodus 29). And it is used several times in Numbers (Chapters 19 and 31) to describe priests preparing themselves to serve. The Sin Offering is required of the Nazirite after he has completed a period of special withdrawal from ordinary levels of observance to a higher level. Something that one would expect to applauded rather than condemned by requiring a Sin Offering.

So, in effect, the woman is asked to bring an offering to celebrate and to acknowledge her transition from one phase to another and to prepare herself mentally for her return to "normal" life. There is a common assumption that talk about "purity" and "impurity" in the Bible means what it sounds like--impure being something bad or dirty. But it does not mean that at all. It means "ready" for a particular function or state, as opposed to not being ready. So an impure priest is simply not available for Temple service. In every other way he is a "normal" member of society. Likewise, in the case of a woman the state of "impurity" meant that she was protected from certain functions so that she could concentrate on other ones. It did not carry any of the negative connotations that post-Biblical societies attached to it.

Metzora

We know leprosy as a disease associated with poverty and Third World countries. Is this what the Torah was talking about when it laid down a whole series of laws involving the priest coming to check discolourations and bubbles of decay on bodies, clothes, and buildings?

You could, indeed, say that the Torah was concerned with contagious diseases and wanted people to learn how to avoid them and use hygiene in a constructive way. After all, these are important principles that go towards creating a safe and clean society and a world in which we minimise the chances of catching diseases. So there is a moral and spiritual message in that.

But then many of the phenomena the Torah talks about do not bear any resemblance to the things we see nowadays. Some commentators have suggested that the Biblical word for leprosy meant something quite different than the disease we know today.

This is why the Biblical "disease" is taken to be associated with gossiping and spreading rumors. Rumors and gossip spread like a disease and can do terrible damage. So Miriam is stricken with leprosy when she speaks out against Moses, and Moses himself gets a dose at the burning bush when he is disparaging about the Jewish people. The involvement of the priests in examining the problem and prescribing solutions implied that there was a religious dimension and that religious penance might be one stage on the road to a cure.

But the chapters on leprosy also remind us that there are many different dimensions and elements at play in life that we often don't understand and may even not be aware of. The message is that we should try to be sensitive to these other levels of existence and reality. Science is importance but it has its limitations and it isn't the complete picture.

Shemini

This week a big chunk of the Torah is devoted to the animals, birds, and fish that we are and are not allowed to eat. For ages people have been trying to discover one theory that explains the animals that are kosher and those that are not. I have seen theories about hygiene (but there are separate guidelines in Jewish law about eating anything unhealthy). There are theories about needing to preserve transporting and working animals and that is why horses and camels are "out". There are theories about avoiding animals that feed in the dirt, likes pigs and shellfish. Some claim it is to do with aggression and that is why we cannot eat sharks and birds of prey. Yet others suggest it all has to do with sacred animals. This is fine for Egyptian sphinxes but what about the holy bull of Babylon? And so on. But no theory fits all the variations; the Bible is pretty good at defying classification. So what are these laws all about?

The one theme that seems to run consistently through the Bible is that people should think about their actions. The difference between a thinking human being and an animal is that a human thinks before acting and, if he or she has a moral code, then sometimes self control and self discipline may prove stronger than simple desire or natural tendencies or even instinct. On the other hand, some humans act just like animals and do give in entirely to indulgence and desire.

So it is this ability to reflect that is crucial to humanity. Most of the Biblical laws are designed to get us to think before we act. Some of them are abstract, like thinking what it is like to be poor or a slave so that we may be more charitable and caring. But others get us to think before mundane actions like eating. Bearing in mind that we all tend to eat pretty regularly at some time every day, regulating our eating habits is a good way of getting us to think and value what we do on a regular basis. This attempt to raise eating to a higher plane and to add a spiritual dimension is what is really behind the kosher laws.