Mishpaca

Emor

Lev. 21:1 - 24:23

 

Précis: This parasha is divided into four sections. First, it reviews procedures for the Priests to use to remain ritually pure. Second, it outlines the festival and holiday calendar. Third, it explains the use of the oil and the bread on display on the altar. Finally, there is a brief narrative about a blasphemer who is condemned to death.

 

Lev. 25:14 - "When you buy or sell to your neighbor, let no one wrong his brother."

Lev. 25:25 - "If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his near redeemer is to come to you and redeem what his brother sold."

Lev. 25:35-36 - "If your brother is impoverished and indebted to you, you must support him; he must live with you like a foreign resident. Do not take interest or profit from him but fear your God and let your brother live with you."

Lev. 25:39 - "If your brother becomes impoverished and is sold to you, do not work him like a slave."

Rabbi Sacks (Covenant and Conversation, 5/11/23) reminds us that Judaism is more than an ethnicity, but a call to holiness. However, we cannot ignore the ethnicity we have inherited. He reminds us of a 1980’s joke about an advertising campaign in New York. Throughout the city there were giant posters with the slogan, “You have a friend at Chase Manhattan Bank.” Underneath one, an Israeli had scribbled the words, “But in Bank Leumi you have mishpacha.” We are conscious of being a single extended family.

In the cited verses, we know that “your brother” is not literal, but rather “your relative” or “your fellow Jew” (if not your fellow human being). This was a revolutionary concept in human development. Jews are not just citizens of the same nation or adherents of the same faith. We are members of the same extended family. We are descendants of Abraham and Sarah. We share the same history and memories. We are more than friends. We are mishpacha, family.

The concept of family is essential to Judaism. Consider the book of Genesis, the Torah’s starting point. It is not primarily about theology, doctrine, or dogma. The Book of Genesis is almost entirely about family, and in key parts of Torah, God defines His relationship to Israel in familial terms.

The Rabbis continued this concept when the siddur was compiled. The highlight prayer of the High Holy Days is “Avinu Malkeinu,” “Our Father, our King.” God may be sovereign, but first God is a parent. We are the extended family.

Families are created by and foster altruism, and families are essential to free societies in which familial altruism is extended to neighbors.  We cannot, of course, ignore divisions within the Jewish People. After all, divisions within families are inevitable. Some suggest that these divisions are so great that we are no longer a single composite, but Torah is filled with examples of family rivalries and divisions. Yes, a bond remains. We can argue with a friend until he or she is no longer a friend, but a brother will remain a brother, and a sister will remain a sister. Even the most dysfunctional families can eventually come back together. That is a prayer for our immediate families and for the Jewish People as a whole.

Scapegoats still

 Acharei Mot-Kedoshim

 

Lev. 16:1 -20:27

 

Précis: Acharei Mot begins with Adonai speaking to Moses after the death (acharei mot) of Aaron’s sons. It describes the rituals for Yom Kippur, including the prescribed sacrifices. There are specific details about the purification of the Sanctuary, vessels, and the priests. Following this description, rules for the slaughter of meat (including the prohibition against eating blood) are reiterated. The parasha concludes with a listing of prohibited marriages. 

            The opening words of Kedoshim are “You shall be holy” (kedoshim tihyu), and it continues with various descriptions of how the People are to strive for holiness. Included are fundamental laws, such as fearing one’s parents and observing Shabbat. Consideration of the poor through the commandments to leave the corners of fields for gleaners is included, as are mandates which complement the ethical principles of the Ten Commandments (being honest, avoiding vengeance). Specific bans against magicians, soothsaying, witchcraft and defiling the dead follow, as are reminders to avoid human sacrifice. This parasha is often viewed as the very core of moral teaching for the Jewish People.

Lev. 16:21 “And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over him all of the iniquities of Israel, and all of their transgressions, even all their sins; and he shall put them on the head of the goat and shall send him away into the wilderness.”

            This verse is the proof text and origin for the concept of a scapegoat. It is generally defined as “a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place.” There are many scapegoats these days due to the partisan, racial, religious, and ethnic intolerance with which the world is plagued.

            As has been the case for thousands of years, the Jewish People are the epitome of scapegoats today. All the world’s sins are laid at the feet of Jews: we run the media (yet the media is filled with antisemitic tropes); we run the banks (yet the greatest wealth of the new billionaire robber baron class is predominately non-Jewish, and the Arab “sovereign wealth funds” can control the finances as they want); Jews maneuvered the United States into its war against Iran (and yet Trump “prohibits” Israel from bombing Hezbollah)​. 

             Israel, and Jews, are attacked from all sides. To those on the left, Zionism does not fit within the ambit of progressivism, as Israel is viewed as colonialist and the concept of a religious-oriented state is somehow inconsistent with liberal political theology (Muslim countries to the contrary). On the right, the so-called “America first” brand of Christian nationalism, increasingly common among MAGA adherents, has a difficult time accepting the “special relationship” between the US and Israel, and antisemitism is increasingly accepted among the podcast influencers ​(witness Tucker Carlson's insinuations that a Zionist cabal is responsible for Trump's failure to deliver his campaign promises).

The greatest scapegoating involves blaming all Jews for the acts of the Netanyahu government. Israel’s actions, although certainly merited in the most part, have become the basis for so-called “anti-Zionism” which is nothing less than the newest face of antisemitism. ​Both “mainstream” ​and “social” media are filled with pictures of destruction in southern Lebanon, but we never see the pictures of Hezbollah’s rockets striking Israel. No, Israel and the Jews are scapegoats for all of the world’s evils, while those protesting “Zionist colonialism and aggression” never seem to think about the horrid deaths in Sudan, the genocide by Syria against its Kurdish citizens, the slaughter of Iranian protestors by the Iranian regime, the Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians, or the countless other outrages around the world. Only Israel and the Jews are the target.

Make no mistake: as gas prices rise because of the war with Iran, Jews will be blamed by those who accept the idea that the United States is at war with Iran for and at the behest of Israel. Antisemitic stickers are already appearing on gas pumps. The scapegoat lives.