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.