{"id":45716,"date":"2018-12-15T19:34:28","date_gmt":"2018-12-15T17:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=45716"},"modified":"2022-07-08T16:47:07","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T13:47:07","slug":"perfection-but-at-what-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/perfection-but-at-what-price\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfection, But At What Price?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[374,770],"acf":{"old_id":"45716","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":45610,"related_cahpter":"111","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Being perfect means losing a part of the core of being a human being","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Perfection. Of all the powerful aspirations and driving capabilities within human potential, the attainment of perfection is not one of them. As hard as we might try to reach it, we can always count on human frailty and imperfection to bring us back down to earth. And yet it appears that one category of the people of Israel are expected to rise above this standard of the human condition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Throughout the book of Leviticus, we are told of the distinctions between these animals and those animals, these bodily functions and those bodily functions, the people here and the people there, pure and impure, clean and unclean. In chapter 21 of Leviticus, the text tells about specific norms that members of the priestly family need to meet in order to qualify as serving as priests, maintaining the dignity of the family, or marrying into the group. Furthermore, the High Priest is given even stricter rules to marry a virgin of the family and is prohibited from mourning for even his closest relatives. These rules apply different, more stringent expectations to this group than to other members of the Israelite community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The text makes perfectly clear why the priest must maintain such scrupulous standards: \u201cFor they are holy to their God and you must treat them as holy\u2026they shall be holy to you, for I God who sanctifies you am holy,\u201d (21:7-8). The work of the priests is so sacred and carries so much power and weight for the whole community that they have to hold to these different standards. There is no margin for error, nothing short of perfection will do. And yet no other people among the Israelites are expected to be perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whereas every other human being within the people of Israel can fall short of these standards, for the priests, the High Priest, and the rest of Israel, the distinguishing factor is the obligation to be entirely whole, unblemished, perfect. And the higher one rises through the ranks, the tighter the restraints become. It is clear why these rules are put in place, as the priests serve the greater religious and spiritual needs of the community and need to be different in order to perform those duties. And in order to do so, they must sacrifice a piece of their humanity, their ability to fall short and be imperfect. They cannot mourn as other people do, they cannot have physical disabilities as others do, and they cannot marry as others might, in order to serve the higher power of their people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They must be perfect and to be perfect means losing a part of the core of being a human being.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>illustration:\u00a0Alexey Kljatov, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Snowflake_macro_photography_1.jpg<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":45756,"id":45756,"title":"Snowflake_macro_photography_1","filename":"Snowflake_macro_photography_1.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Snowflake_macro_photography_1.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/perfection-but-at-what-price\/snowflake_macro_photography_1\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"snowflake_macro_photography_1","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":45716,"date":"2018-12-15 22:46:42","modified":"2018-12-15 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