{"id":50383,"date":"2019-02-27T12:03:11","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T10:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=50383"},"modified":"2022-09-21T13:31:50","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T10:31:50","slug":"the-levites-obsoleted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-levites-obsoleted\/","title":{"rendered":"The Levites Obsoleted?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One cannot overstate the importance and significance of Chapter 12 in Deuteronomy in making Jerusalem the center of Jewish life for generations. It is the first chapter in the Torah that states that God can only be worshiped with a sacrifice in one place. All sacrifices should go \u201conly to the site that the LORD your God will choose amidst all your tribes as His habitation, to establish His name there. There you are to go\u201c (verse 5). It never states where that place is, but for thousands of years, it was understood, and probably rightly so, as Jerusalem.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I find peculiar in this chapter, is the combination of laws. It starts with this \u201ccentralization of worship\u201d law (verses 1-18), but then it moves to a law about caring for the Levites (verse 19), then a series of laws about eating meat but not eating the blood (verses 20-27). At first glance, it seems like a weird combination of laws, but a deeper look will reveal the connection between the laws.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regarding the law about the Levites in verse 19: \u201cBe sure not to neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.\u201c It seems so out of place! Why is it here?<\/span><\/p>\n

I think that this is an example of a policy maker that is trying to think of all the predictable and unpredictable outcomes of a policy that was never tried before. The new policy is, of course, having a central worship location for the whole nation. Before this, Israelites worshiped God in many temples around Israel. This is the image that comes out of many scriptures in the Tanakh, as well as archeological evidence around Israel. So this notion of only one place of worship was revolutionary! This kind of revolution has huge ripple effects.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is where we connect to the Levites. The Levites are said to have been the servants of the temple. But the truth is, that they were the servants of the temple<\/span>s<\/b>. They were scattered around the land working in different temples of God. Now, with this new policy in place, they became unemployed overnight! The policy maker of this chapter thought this through and made sure the Levites are taken care of. Verse 19 in our chapter, together with verses 27-29 in chapter 14, create a kind of a \u201ccare package\u201d for the newly unemployed Levites. <\/span><\/p>\n

How great it would be to see some of this forward thinking in the policy-making today! <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

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