{"id":51381,"date":"2019-03-14T13:37:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T11:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=51381"},"modified":"2022-06-13T10:53:32","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T07:53:32","slug":"calling-and-preservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/calling-and-preservation\/","title":{"rendered":"Calling And Preservation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Leviticus begins with calling.\u00a0 Moses is called by God to speak with him from the Tent of Meeting.\u00a0What follows is 27 chapters of instructions on how to expiate various types of sin, often through sacrifices. There is another description of the holidays of the Jewish calendrical year in parshat Emor, and a few narratives, about a man who blasphemes God and Aaron\u2019s sons who offer strange fire and die.\u00a0There are skin diseases described in detail –and by color.\u00a0The Yom Kippur ritual with the goat sent to Azazel, chosen by lot, to have the sins of the Israelites placed upon it and sent off to the wilderness is detailed here in all its mystery.\u00a0There are laws about sexual morality too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But what is the essence of this book known to the rabbis as \u201ctorat Cohanim\u201d the \u201cinstructions for the priests?\u201d (The English \u201cLeviticus\u201d has a similar meaning, from the Latin and Greek names of the text, connecting it to the tribe of Levites, the priests). And more importantly how can we as modern interpreters grasp a religious system of sacrifices – and learn from it \u2013 when it has long been dismantled?<\/p>\n

A modern Biblical scholar, the late Jacob Milgrom in his commentary on Leviticus wrote that the way to understand Leviticus is through the language of ritual, that the book proclaims rituals which provide meaning for the society practicing them. He wrote:<\/p>\n

A ritual must signify something beyond itself, whose attainment enhances the meaning and value of life.\u00a0 This, I submit, is the quintessence and achievement of Leviticus\u2026 In other words, properly unpacked, Leviticus reveals a series of values that can help us resolve the vexing moral and social issues confronting humanity in our time.<\/p>\n

That is why we continue to read Leviticus, to gain an understanding of the values behind the rituals so that we can apply them in our own time, so far removed from when the rituals were first undertaken and practiced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Likewise, the medieval commentary Sefer Hachinuch 95, on Exodus 25:8, about the need to build a tabernacle and offer sacrifices, says, \u201cOnly by doing an overt act to atone for his sin, by taking rams from his enclosures and troubling himself to bring them to the Temple, give them to the priest and perform the entire rite as prescribed for sin-offerings, only then will he impress upon his soul, the extent of the evil of his sin and will take measures avoid it in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

For commentators both earlier and more contemporary, we are called, as Moses was, to understand the ethical value underlying the rituals Leviticus details.\u00a0The sins we commit are, as humans, unfortunately of many of the same categories as they were at the time of the Bible.\u00a0We learn from it to be called to act ethically, and when we fall short, to atone.\u00a0And to impress the messages of Leviticus on our own souls by continuing to find its meaning in our own time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image: photograph by the author- Torah scroll in Alcuin Library at St John’s University, Collegeville MN<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":51384,"id":51384,"title":"vayikra-scroll","filename":"vayikra-scroll-1.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/vayikra-scroll-1.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/calling-and-preservation\/vayikra-scroll\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"vayikra-scroll","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":51381,"date":"2019-03-14 11:37:42","modified":"2019-03-14 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