Monthly Archives: April 2014

Not Kohens nor Levites, but all the people are holy

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It is shocking to read in sidra emor about the particular physical qualifications which must be met by the hereditary priesthood, in particular the restrictions which the bible describes in this week’s sidra. “No man among the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a defect shall be qualified to offer the Lords offerings by fire.” we are told, “he shall not enter behind the curtain or come near the altar, for he has a defect. He shall not profane these places sacred to Me, for I the Eternal have sanctified them”

The defects are described in the text – blindness, lameness, hunchback, cataracts – all of them physical and external, all of them beyond the control of the individual. Indeed we are told in later rabbinic commentary (on Bechorot 45a) that an internal defect does not disqualify one from priestly service, only external defects do this.

The priests were a group apart, their status protected and hedged around with strict regulations. They could not touch a dead body except that of an immediate blood relative. They could not shave their heads nor cut the sides of their beards. They could not marry a divorced woman- their wives had to be above any suspicion and come from families that also were seen to be pure. In return for their work in the Temple service they were given special privileges and obligations. To this day in Orthodox Judaism the person who considers themselves to be of a priestly family is called to the Torah reading first, is privileged to do the duchenan (the priestly blessing) on festival days, and will perform pidyon haben – the ritual of release of the firstborn son. Reform Judaism does not make such people more special than others in the community. We do not aspire to a third Temple so the role of priest/ Kohen, is defunct. The disbenefits for a Kohen are real, and can complicate their lives, which, given the reality that we have no real way of knowing who is actually a descendent of the Aaronide family can cause problems that do not need to be caused, and anyway Reform Judaism understands that religious leadership is no longer in the hands of the hereditary priesthood, but has passed into the hands of rabbis and scholars and is now embedded in Rabbinic Judaism.  

It is often a surprise to Jews from a traditional orthodox background to find that we do not accord any special privileges to the Cohens and the Levites in our services; that we have no difficulty with them attending funerals like other Jews; that we perform their marriages to proselytes. It is sometimes a shock to them that we have taken for ourselves the wonderful “priestly blessing” formula, and that we use it at the end of most of our services to invoke the blessing of God on the community on a daily or weekly basis. I have occasionally overheard complaints about what is seen as our lack of respect for the priesthood, yet I do believe that this particular reform was one of the most powerful and significant for us. Far from rejecting our history, I am certain that by making all Jews equal within our liturgical practise we are proclaiming that we are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Instead of defining holiness within the confines of the ritual of the Temple service, we are opening it out into the lives of all who are looking for it. By rejecting the notion of a priesthood whose holiness or lack of it is expressed in terms of physical defect or perfection, we are free to become a people whose holiness or lack of it is expressed in more inner terms, in our prayers, our hopes and intentions, our yearnings, as well as in the actions which result from our inner lives.

The priesthood described in the bible is a complex structure designed to contain purity and holiness as it was understood then, and shows, I believe, clear signs of having accepted concepts from outside societies as well as creating new forms and ways of being. The notion that physical perfection was required in anything which came near to the place of the sacrifices was taken on board in the biblical tradition, but that doesn’t mean it was divine, nor that it was right. Today one can argue that we know much more about physical disability and are less afraid of it, But more than having a different approach to disability, we have developed a different approach to holiness. Maimonides tells us that the sacrificial system was a necessary step to the more religiously sophisticated and satisfactory practise of prayer. His argument could be extended to communal holiness – we no longer need a special group of people to be holy on our behalf, the professional liturgists and holders of ritual power. We have graduated from such a need and now the special privileges and obligations are the property of the whole Jewish people. It means that we must all take on the work of attending to God’s service, rather than leave it to the people who were born to it, or who are the heirs presumptive. We all have the job of seeing to it that holiness is part of the practise and the being of the Jewish people, that it is expressed both internally and externally, that we truly work together to become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. If we don’t do that now, then we will be, in the words of sidra Emor, “profaning Gods holy places”, for the holy places of God are always found within a community of people.

Following the golden rule – the rest is commentary

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The Golden Rule, phrased in Leviticus as “Love your neighbour as yourself” appears in many forms and in many different religious literatures: Jesus is reported in the New Testament as saying that the two great rules of behaviour were “You shall love the Eternal your God with all your heart, your soul and your might”; and “you shall love your neighbour as yourself” On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” . – in other words the Shema (from Deuteronomy) and the Holiness Code given here in Leviticus together give us all we need to live a good life.

Perhaps the most powerful telling for me is the story found in Talmud, when we are told “It happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, ‘Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.’ But Shammai repulsed him with the builder’s cubit which was in his hand.  When he went before Hillel, Hillel said to him, ‘What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it.’ (Shabbat 31a)

Hillel shows great patience and openness to what is clearly – from the context – someone determined to test both of those qualities. But his formulation of the golden rule is genius. Not to do things to other people that are hateful to you is vastly easier than the somewhat obscure commandment to love ones neighbour as one loves oneself. What if what you would like is not what they would like? What exactly is a neighbour? What if one doesn’t particularly love oneself?

The end of that story as told in the Talmud – that this principle of paying attention and not doing to others what you would not like done to yourself is the WHOLE TORAH – everything else is commentary , is also something we should keep hold of.

Judaism is a strange beast, neither solely race nor religion nor culture, nor faith but a collection of ideas we have held on to and transmitted with clarity down the generations. Ultimately how we behave towards others is the whole of Torah and everything else is there to make sure we do it the best way we can. So all the rituals and the laws and the fences around Torah are there to do one job only – to protect the teaching that bible tells us was given to us by God, of looking out for others the same way we would look out for ourselves; of not doing something to someone else that we would find distressing if done to us. No more and no less – it is indeed the one principle we should keep before us always, and everything else will fall into place.

Counting Down the Days: Between Pesach and Shavuot

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Between Pesach and Shavuot we count. Every evening we tick off the day that has just passed, and we label it – adding up the weeks and the days of the omer, building up to the moment at Sinai when the covenant between God and the Israelites was signed, the moment when Judaism might be said to be created. It was at Sinai that the group of ex slaves who had descended from Jacob first got to understand something about God, and it was at Sinai that they began to realise that God required something from them that was more than the usual obeisance and paying off. An association was formed with obligations and expectations on both sides. Each party began to understand that the other was far more complex and ambiguous than they had appreciated until now, that much was hidden and even more was yet to emerge. At Sinai the God who had spoken to the ancestors, who had battled Pharaoh with plagues and signs and wonders, who had led them in the wilderness with a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire became something quite different – became of God of relationship and connection. And the disparate group of people with some shared stories and a collective present became united because of their experience there.

We don’t really know what happened at Sinai, some three months after the people had streamed out of Egypt into an uncertain freedom. But we know that the event shaped them and it continues to shape us – the revelation at Sinai, even while the people kept their distance from the mountain, made them the commanded people of God. We agreed to be God’s workers in the world and God agreed to be our God. Even now we struggle to make sense of that agreement, and we constantly nuance and finesse and philosophize in our struggle to seek its meaning. We take some control where we can, so we count the days from Pesach to Shavuot, waiting to get there and to experience it again – maybe this will be the year when we understand a little more.

Musings – what other foods might we put onto a seder plate?

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It is becoming common now to have an alternative seder plate with foods to remind us about the importance of the festival themes. So there is an orange to represent the alienated and isolated Jews, be they women, gay, transgender… There is the olive to remind us of the need for peace in the world, and specifically the need to make peace between the Israeli and Palestinian inhabitants of the Land. There is the fairtraid cocoa bean and also the tomato, to remind us of the modern slavery endured by others in order that we have such products cheaply… There is the cup of water filled for Miriam the prophetess who is credited with providing water in the desert.

Image I was asked last year what else I might choose to put on a seder plate, and here is my response:

I would choose a pomegranate to be on my Seder plate as a reminder of the many different strands of my Judaism and the fact that I am free to have a complex layered understanding of tradition. The pomegranate is one of the seven species the bible tells us about growing in the land of Israel, (the shivat haminim), fruits which are traditionally eaten on Sukkot, a full half year from Pesach, a reminder of the connection to the Land to which I remain spiritually attached. It was said to be one of the fruits brought back by the spies to demonstrate the fertility of the land – a tempting luscious fruit that can only be eaten sensually, as Song of Songs reminds us.

Tradition tells us that a pomegranate has 613 seeds – equivalent to the mitzvot, and I particularly like the chutzpah of such a statement and that fact that we remember it while knowing that it is not remotely true. I like that the mitzvot are likened to the jewelled seeds, and the implication of richness and nourishment within them, while remembering the hard pip within each seed that can be both irritation and pleasure, and that can stay with one long after the juicy flesh has been taken. And I like the way that pomegranates are so useful in so many ways – as health food, as astringent, as spice and decoration, as traditional remedy for any number of ailments right through the body, as drink and paste and marinade. It prompts me to think of the multi-faceted ways Judaism is expressed, from the traditional covenantal relationship and discipline of mitzvot, to the loose warmth of ‘kitchen Judaism’ as people respond to the remembered smells of the different festival foods though the year.

Bible tells us that Aaron wore a special garment as high priest, and it was decorated with alternate bells and pomegranates on the hem, so that when he moved the sounds of these objects clashing would be heard and people would know he would be safe – indeed the bible is starkly clear – “so that he will not die”. This brings me from the sacrificial system of Biblical Judaism right into the modern world of Jewish community – people will pay attention to how others are, particularly those who are vulnerable. They will notice if they haven’t seen or heard them, and do something so that their lives are sustained and preserved. The pomegranate is the standard bearer for communication in community.

Another tradition tells us that the forbidden fruit eaten by Eve in Eden was not the apple (a later pun on the Latin ‘malum’ to mean both bad and apple) but the pomegranate. If it is truly the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it would be a potent reminder at Seder that we have choices in what we do, a freedom in our lives with consequent responsibilities. We cannot accuse others for our not having achieved what we know we should have, or take refuge in the modern day ‘slavery’ to routine. The pomegranate would challenge us –“know what is important, do what is right”.

A pomegranate is similar in shape to a grenade (indeed its name in both English and Hebrew reflects this) and so it would be a salutary reminder that even that which is beautiful and health giving could easily become dangerous and destructive in the wrong circumstances, another warning on the Seder table to remind us that our Judaism can either sustain us in living well or in living selfishly and without care or thought for the other among whom we live. Choose Life! says the bible, but both blessing and curse are set before us and it is our freedom to decide which way to go.

And finally – the best way to eat a pomegranate is to cut it into two pieces, turn each upside down in one hand and hit it with a wooden spoon so that the seeds fall into a waiting container. A satisfying if difficult thing to do well, a metaphor for much of the Jewish world one might think. But the best bit comes last – once the Seder is over and a home must be found for the objects on the Seder plate, to eat a wonderful juicy fresh pomegranate must be the best end to the ritual I can think of!