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. 21:1 “Adonai said to Moses: ‘Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, ‘None shall defile himself…’”
Rabbi Irving (“Yitz”) Greenberg reminds us (Myjewishlearning.com, 4/23/13) that even for the priests, family connections can be more important than “professional” obligations. Priests may not have any contact with dead bodies to remain ritually “pure” and able to conduct their prescribed duties. (A remnant of this tradition is found among observant kohanim today who will not enter a funeral of an individual other than a close relative, nor enter onto cemetery grounds.) However, despite this overall prohibition, priests are directed to undertake “normal” care for those close relations (parents, siblings, wives, children) who die.
Greenberg cites Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik who taught that for Judaism, “the world is the scene of a cosmic battle of life against death. God creates life and loves it. Death is the enemy, the antithesis of God.” Since the Temple is the House of God in this world, it became a symbol of devotion to life. No form of death could enter. No person who came into contact with the dead could enter the Temple until they were “purified” through specified rituals (perhaps the origin of the idea of being “born again” to life).
Priests were dedicated to God and worked in His Temple. Because they were commanded to avoid contact with the dead, they represent, in Soloveitchik’s sense, the fundamental Jewish opposition to death itself, the foe of all holy things. Nevertheless, they are commanded to care for their immediate relatives. Here we see another important aspect of our tradition: we cannot ignore our families, even when our “principles” suggest avoidance.
Like the priests, we cannot repudiate our loved ones. At times, it may be a task we find almost impossible to bear, but bear it we must, because it is our part in the “cosmic struggle” for life against death.
