Starting this week and continuing into August, the weekly Torah readings in Israel will be different from those outside of Israel. I plan to include both readings each week: first the Torah reading in Israel, followed by the one read outside Israel.
Like Yourself
No doubt the most famous verse in this week’s reading, Kedoshim, is Lev 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor like yourself.” Rabbi Akiva declared that this verse was nothing less than the “great general principle of the Torah” (Sifra Kedoshim 4), and even before him, Jewish scholars spoke of the two verses beginning with the words “And you shall love” as embodying the whole of the Torah: this verse and the one in the Shema that begins, “And you shall love the Lord your God…”
But what exactly is this verse asking us to do? Does loving your neighbor mean that if, for example, you win the lottery, you have to pick someone else, your “neighbor” or your “fellow,” and split the money 50-50? And who is your neighbor? Any fellow human being? Any fellow Jew? The Jews of the Dead Sea Scrolls community were told to hate everyone other than the members of their own community, in fact, they looked forward to the great “day of retribution,” when God would strike all other Jews down. But how could they reconcile this with our verse? Apparently, they interpreted it as meaning “You shall love your neighbor-who-is-like-yourself,” that is, anyone who was a member of their community was to be loved. Everyone else deserved eternal hatred.
If that’s not the right interpretation, then what is? The traditional rabbinic interpretation holds that this verse is intended in a rather limited sense: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” So you don’t have to split the money you won 50-50, but you can’t do anything to your neighbor that you wouldn’t want done to you. This sounds a bit less lofty than actually loving your neighbor—but the rabbis had a good exegetical reason for interpreting in this sense.
I should mention that the words quoted from Lev 19:18 are only are only part of the verse. The whole verse reads, “You shall not take revenge or hold a grudge against your countrymen, and you shall love your neighbor like yourself: I am the Lord.” The rabbis apparently interpreted the latter part of the verse in light of the former. How so?
Taking revenge or holding a grudge sounds pretty serious, like the blood feuds that still go on in the modern Middle East, sometimes lasting for generations. But the rabbis of Mishnaic times interpreted “revenge” here in a very down-to-earth way. Suppose, they said, you ask to borrow your neighbor’s scythe, but he says, “No, it’s a very delicate instrument, I’m afraid I can’t lend it out.” Then, sometime later he asks to borrow your shovel, and you say, “You didn’t lend me your scythe, I’m not going to lend you my shovel”—that’s taking revenge. No blood feud, just a little nasty pettiness.
But if that’s revenge, then what’s “holding a grudge”? It sounds like it’s the same thing, but the rabbis said: Not quite. Suppose he refuses to lend you his scythe, and later he asks to borrow your shovel. If you say, “Sure, take it! I’m not a cheapskate like you!”—you may not be taking revenge, but you’re still guilty of holding a grudge.
In light of these two examples, what do the words that follow them, “And you shall love your neighbor like yourself,” seem to imply? There is indeed a great general principle in human relations, but it doesn’t require you to do the impossible. Instead, what is demanded is that you take the high road and not do anything to your neighbor that you wouldn’t want done to you—even if your neighbor has already done it to you.
Shabbat shalom!
Weekly Torah Reading (outside Israel) Aḥarei Mot, May 7, 2016
Two Sanctuaries
The very beginning of the reading for this Shabbat ought to appear somewhat surprising. Following the death of Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu, in the wilderness sanctuary (mishkan), God says to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron not to enter the Holy of Holies at any time… lest he die.”
This of course doesn’t mean that Aaron is never to enter the Holy of Holies: the passage goes on to describe how Aaron himself, and all the High Priests who will follow him in history, are in fact required to enter the Holy of Holies—but only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. The words “not to enter at any time” thus really mean “not to enter at any time that he might choose.”
But understood in this fashion, the statement is hardly less surprising. After all, the High Priest (kohen gadol) was the holiest individual in Israel; in this sense, he might be considered God’s intimate, the human being who was closest to God. Yet what this verse is saying is that he is really not that close. He can’t decide to walk into the most sacred part of the sanctuary, where God is deemed to be present. Even in a time of great crisis, when (Heaven forbid) the very existence of the people is threatened, the High Priest is required, according to this passage, to stand back; he has no right to intrude into God’s space and stand before Him. In fact, the mention of the death of Nadab and Abihu might be understood as a subtle hint to Aaron and all future High Priests: “Don’t forget what happened to these two when they overstepped their limits in the sanctuary.”
But where did this leave the rest of the people? If the High Priest himself was allowed to stand directly before God only once a year, and all the other kohanim (priests) in the sanctuary were not allowed even that, while ordinary Israelites were kept at a still greater distance and could not even come close to where the priests and Levites stood… then what sort of access to God did ordinary Israelites have? They were, at best, spectators, three jumps away from God’s real presence. Was the mishkan (and later, the Jerusalem temple) thus basically the province of the priesthood alone?
It seems that, from the very beginning, the Torah had presented an alternate form of proximity to God—one might even say, an alternate sanctuary. When, following the exodus from Egypt, God first approached the people of Israel at Mount Sinai (in Exodus ch. 19), He offered them an extraordinary deal: If you just obey Me and keep the conditions of My covenant—that is, the laws that I am about to give you—then you will be My treasured possession, my ‘am segullah, from among all peoples. The text then adds: “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
Scholars have wrestled with the meaning of this last sentence. Is a “kingdom of priests” a kingdom in which the priests are kings? This seems unlikely on the face of it: there is no trace of such an idea in the rest of the Torah, nor, when Israel did become a kingdom, did anyone suggest turning to the priesthood for a suitable monarch. In fact, even the words “you will be to Me a kingdom of priests” seem to undercut such a notion. God is saying that you won’t actually be priests—there will still be real priests to offer sacrifices on the altar—but to Me you will be like priests, that is, “a holy nation,” as the verse goes on to say. How will this come about? The verse itself says this will happen “if you obey Me and keep the conditions of My covenant.”
As best I can see, this is the straightforward meaning of the text. If you keep My commandments and do them, you will be like priests in a sanctuary. This verse thus describes a kind of alternate sanctuary, a sanctuary made up of mitzvot. Keep My commandments and you will enter this other kind of sanctuary, in fact, you will stand directly before Me whenever you do what I have said. And this went on to become one of the most basic tenets of Judaism. The blessings that we recite before performing a mitzvah always start off, “Blessed are You…who have made us holy through Your commandments”—as holy as priests in a sanctuary.
The big difference between the sanctuary of the High Priest and the sanctuary of all Israel, that is, the sanctuary of mitzvot, has to do with accessibility. Not even the High Priest can stand in God’s presence anytime he chooses; he gets to do that only once a year. But the ordinary Israelite can enter the sanctuary of mitzvot anytime he or she likes: it is right there, “in your mouth and in your heart to do it.”
Shabbat shalom!
