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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