Look to the Middle

Sh’mini

 Lev. 9:1-11:47

Précis:  On the final day of the week-long ordination ceremony Moses instructs Aaron and his sons on the proper rituals. Aaron makes his offering. Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu offer “strange” fire before God. They are slain. Moses tells Aaron that he must not engage in the normal mourning rituals. The Priests are prohibited from drinking alcohol while they are engaged in their sacred duties. Next, God tells Moses and Aaron to instruct the people about the animals they are permitted to eat (part of the laws of kashrut). A general warning to guard against defilement and to be concerned about ritual purity is given.

Lev. 11:42 "You shall  not eat, among all things that swarm upon the earth, anything that crawls on  its belly, or anything that walks on fours, or anything that has many legs; for  they are an abomination."

            Billy Dreskin, writing in 10 Minutes of Torah (4/16/12) noted that there are 304,805 letters in the Five Books of Moses, and that according  to the Babylonian Talmud (Kiddushin 30a),  the exact middle letter of the Torah occurs in this particular verse, in the center of the word “gachon” (“belly"). What is the significance of this occurrence?

            Jews tend to focus on beginnings (brit milah, bar/bat mitzvah, marriage) or on the end (funerals, shiva, and yahrzeit) and we tend to ignore the “middle.”            

            The Book of Leviticus, in which we are now deeply engrossed, has as its principle focus the “middle” things in life, which is where, after all, we live most of our lives. The Book instructs us on how to live our lives on a daily basis: what we eat (as in the current verse) and how we treat our fellow human beings. We are told how to create a civil society, courts of justice, and how we are to treat the most unfortunate and needy among us. We are taught how to relate to God on a daily basis, and how to express our thanks and appreciate for the gifts bestowed to us. The theme we hear repeatedly in Vayikra is "For I the Eternal  am your God: you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy."  

            Holiness is central (in the middle) of our everyday actions. We can find something spiritual in our mundane activities if we chose to open our eyes and encounter it.