From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 1:51 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Emor, 5764



                                                 Beyond Time

                  By Rabbi Joshua (timelessly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


 In honor of Avrohom Reuel (Corey) ben Moshe Kapp on the occasion of his bar mitzvoh, which occurs this Shabbos.


This week's parsha begins with various laws that pertain to the kohanim who serve in the mishkan, and continues with laws regarding sacrifices brought there, laws of sanctifying God's name, laws of Shabbos and the festivals, and a few other miscellaneous laws. There does not appear to be a pattern of continuity to these seemingly disparate laws. However, I believe that, if we take note of the laws mentioned at the end of the previous parsha, that of Kedoshim, and understand their link to the laws that precede and follow them, we can discover a framework within which the continuity of the various laws in Emor can be understood.

Parshas Kedoshim contains many mitzvos which are fundamental components of Torah, to the extent that the midrash says that the parsha is actually a restatement of the mitzvos in the Ten Commandments, or Decalogue. According to some counts, the parsha contains seventy mitzvos. Following the midrash, they are all either part of the Decalogue or mitzvos that are connected to it. Being that the mitzvos in that parsha are of such an essential character, we would expect it to end in a kind of climax, with an all-encompassing mitzvoh, similar to the way in which it begins, with the mitzvoh of "you shall be holy." Actually, however, we find such a climax in the penultimate verse of the parsha, in which we read, "You shall be holy for me for I, God, am Holy ; and I have separated you from among the peoples to be Mine" (Vayikra 20:26). It would be fitting for the parsha to end with this verse. However, it continues with one final verse, which states the punishment for anyone who practices the forms of necromancy known as Ov and Yidoni. These are forms of divination which people resorted to in order to find out what would happen in the future. The necromancer would speak to the dead by means of a certain kind of bone from a corpse. Such practices, the Torah tells us in this posuk, are punished through 'sekillah,' which is commonly translated as 'stoning,' although it really entails pushing the guilty off a two story platform and then rolling a stone onto his body. What is so distinctive about this prohibition that it should serve as the end of parshas Kedoshim?

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch points out that, actually, Ov and Yidoni are mentioned three times in parshas Kedoshim ; once in mention of the prohibition (Vayikra 19:31), once in mention of the punishment of kareis, or excision (20:6), and, finally, at the end of the parsha, in mention of the punishment of sekillah, when done willfully, after being warned by two witnesses (20:27, and see Rashi there.). Thus, the practice of Ov and Yidoni does seem to be a central fulcrum around which parshas Kedoshim revolves. Perhaps the idea is that consulting or practicing Ov and Yidoni constitutes the relinquishing of one's capacity of free-will to an irrational power, thus negating the very basis of a life based on Torah. On another level, the resort to Ov and Yidoni reflects an undue attachment to the physical and the time-bound, attempting to consult with the spirits of the dead, as King Shaul did when he went to the witch of Ein-Dor to conjure up the spirit of the prophet Shmuel. This emphasis on the physical is also a negation of the spiritual, and is in opposition to our charge to be holy, as stated in the beginning of the parsha as well as in its second last verse, as we have seen. With this in mind, we can now turn to parshas Emor, and understand the theme that connects its seemingly disparate parts.

The Midrash Tanchuma tells us that the punishment for consulting Ov and Yidoni is followed by the mitzvos addressed to the kohanim to teach us that if someone wants to know about the future, he should go to the kohein in the mishkan, rather than to a necromancer. The kohein gadol is able to consult the ''Urim ve-Tumim,' contained in the high priest's breastplate, and satisfy the questioner's curiosity. Rabbi Henoch Leibowitz, in his Chidushei HaLev, notes that the midrash recognized an inherent need of people to know about the future, and, so, it provided a means of dealing with this need. The idea is to go to the mishkan and follow the procedure appropriate there. I believe that there is a wider message here, beyond the specific process of actually consulting the stones on the breastplate. The idea, I believe, is that a visit to the mishkan, which is permeated with an atmosphere of spirituality and holiness, will enable a person to put things in a broader perspective and not become attached to the physical, as one does when he practices Ov and Yidoni and consults with the dead. The midrash, in fact, mentions the incident of Shaul and the witch of Ein Dor in this regard as an example of how we should not act. Seen in this context, the laws of kohanim that follow reflect this kind of perspective.

Parshas Emor begins with the laws instructing the kohanim on how they should react when a death that occurs among the nation. A regular kohein, the Torah tells us, cannot tend to a dead person, because that will render him tamei - impure - and unfit to perform his duties in the mishkan. However, if one of the seven family members for whom he must mourn dies, or if someone unrelated to him dies and does not have a sufficient number of people to bury him ('meis mitzvoh') he is charged to make himself impure by tending  to the deceased. A high priest, however, cannot even defile himself for a deceased relative. He can only defile his purity for the burial of a meis mitzvoh. The idea here, as explained in the Talmud, is that the kohein serves 'before God,' which implies being in a joyous state, a state of simcha, and confronting death would seem to negate such a state. The high priest, however, needs to transcend this state of death and concentrate on serving God at all times. Rabbi Nisson Alpert explains that the high priest represents the collective of the Jewish people, and he cannot interrupt his service for them to deal with his individual calamity. The fact that he does defile his sanctity for a meis mitzvoh, notes Rabbi Alpert, is an indication that the meis mitzvoh is really a communal matter.

Rabbi Alpert's comments take on more significance when we take note of the words of the Ba'al HaTurim to Shemos 19:6, on the words which God told Moshe to relate to the nation at Mt. Sinai before the Torah was given, "And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Based on a number of midrashim, as noted by the commentators, the Ba'al HaTurim writes that, originally, all of the Jewish people were destined to be high priests, but the sin of the golden calf prevented that from happening. However, in the future, they will all be high priests. This being so, just as a high priest transcends the physical and temporal limitations and does not defile himself for a deceased relative, so too, the ultimate goal of the nation should be to transcend the vagaries of time, to see beyond the immediate reality, and focus on the spiritual underpinnings of existence. I believe that the other mitzvos in parshas Emor reflect this idea, as well. For example, one of these mitzvos is the requirement to wait until an animal is eight days old before bringing it as a sacrifice. The Maharal of  Prague taught that the number seven signifies the natural order of the universe and the number eight signifies the meta-natural. Here too, then, we see the concept of transcending time in connection with holiness. Although the format of Netvort does not permit a study of the entire parsha in this light, I would like to focus on two other sections of the parsha, one in the middle and one in the end, that bring out this point, as well.

In the midst of the section of the Moadim, the annual holidays of the year, mentioned in parshas Emor, the Torah presents us with the mitzvah of Sefiras HaOmer, counting forty-nine days from the bringing of the Omer meal offering on Pesach until the bringing of the meal offering of the Shtei Halechem on Shavuos. There is a requirement to count these days both in terms of days and in terms of weeks. In regard to the weeks, the Torah says (Vayikra 23:13) " … seven weeks, they shall be complete (temimos)." The midrash, commenting on this verse, says  that the weeks are considered complete only when we do the will of God. Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, in his LaTorah U'LaMoadim, explains that everything in our physical world is fleeting, and doesn't last forever. This is true of people, of things, and of the world itself. Still, he says, things do exist in this world for some amount of time. The one exception is time itself. As King Shlomo writes in Mishlei (23:5), one lays his eyes on the moment and it is gone. Man, however, has the capacity, through involvement in the study of Torah and the performance of mitvos, to eternalize the moment. This, he says, is the message of this particular mitzvoh, of counting the Omer. Rabbi Zevin notes that many sources view this mitzvoh in a wider sense, as referring to a man's lifetime, the seven weeks denoting the seventy years of one's life. By taking control of this time and using it properly, then, we can transcend its limitations and give it eternal meaning.

At the end of the parsha, we read of the mekalel, the man who cursed God. Rashi, citing the midrash, writes that what led this person to curse God was a look at the mitzvoh of Lechem HaPonim, or showbread, which immediately precedes the section of the curser in our parsha. The kohanim were to prepare, each week, twelve loaves of bread to be placed on the table in the mishkan. The bread was baked on Friday, placed on the table in the mishkan, and eaten, on a regular week, nine days later. This man, hearing of the details of the mitzvoh, scoffed and asked if it is the practice of a king to eat stale, cold, nine day-old bread. Surely, he argued, a king should eat warm, fresh bread. This statement generated a fight, and the man ended up cursing God. Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin, in his commentary Oznayim LeTorah, pointed out that, had the man waited nine days, he would have seen that the show bread was as warm and fresh on the day it was eaten as it was on the day it was baked. His inability to see beyond what was in front of him, to transcend time, led him to curse God and incur the death penalty. Thus the parsha ends as it started, teaching us that in order to fulfill our task as a nation of priests and a holy nation, we need to transcend time, to view things from a wider, spiritual perspective, as reflected by the kohanim as they performed their service in the mishkan.   



Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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