Portion 24 Vayikra Leviticus 1:1-5:26, Portion 25 Tzav Leviticus 6:1-8:36

Olah, the burnt offering 1:1-17, 6:1-6
For what sin does the olah (burnt offering) atone? Noah offers a burnt offering in Genesis 8:20. Rabbi Tamarat and several others say that Noah sinned by not interceding on behalf of the people to urge God to refrain from unleashing the flood. Likewise Moses did not intercede on behalf of the Egyptians when Pharaoh offered to let the Israelites go free if they left their livestock behind. Perhaps the burnt offering is a perpetual atonement for the sin of not acting on behalf of justice for our oppressors. Sometimes we care for our own animals better than we care for our human opponents. Psalm 51:16-19 expresses the idea that one can get the message of animal offerings in other ways, and that if one does so, then they are not required. Ibn Ezra considered Psalm 51:20-21, which contradicts 16-19, to be an addition.

Minchah, the grain offering 2:1-16, 6:7-16
Perhaps a mincha offering serves the purpose of a burnt offering for those without means. In 6:12-16 the priest offers a mincha offering on the occasion of his anointment. Perhaps a mincha offering by a layperson is a reminder that we are to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. The combination of incense and unleavened bread implies that we are to conduct our society in such a way that the poorest among us are to be treated with the same reverence that we treat our priests.

Zevach Sh’lamim, offering of thanksgiving 3:1-17, 7:11-38
One of the purposes of the thanksgiving offering is that the ritual makes what might otherwise have been an individual expression of gratitude into a communal expression of gratitude. The offering of a thanksgiving must also include a minchah offering. Perhaps this is a reminder to welcome the poor to the festive meal. Deuteronomy 12:15 allows the pure and impure alike to partake of a festive meal together.

Chatat, purgation offering 4:1-5:13, 6:17-23
4:3 I have been told that the Hebrew word often translated as blame, also has the connotation of shame. The people aren’t guilt for the priest’s offence, although the entire community is shamed when it’s spiritual leader sins.
4:6,17,25,30,3: Dipping our finger in our wine and sprinkling it out during the Passover Seder when the plagues are read is reminiscent of the priest dipping his finger in the blood and sprinkling it on the alter as part of the purgation offering. This part of the Seder can therefore be interpreted as an acknowledgement of our culpability in wars fought in our name.

Asham, reparation offering 5:14-26, 7:1-6
In Mishpatim, Exodus 21:1-24:18, reparation must be made for a criminal act. One of the reasons that killing a criminal is so sinful is that it deprives the guilty of their sacred obligation to make reparation.

Blood prohibition 7:26-27
In all of the offerings, blood belongs to God and is not to be consumed by people “for the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have assigned it to you for making expiation for your lives upon the altar; it is the blood, as life that effects expiation.” - Leviticus 17:11
We do not eat the blood of an animal as a perpetual reminder that we are not God and do not have the authority to extract the life from another human being. The penalty for doing so is to be cut off from the people, as Cain was for killing Abel, and Moses was for killing the Egyptian taskmaster. Perhaps the prohibition against eating the fat around the organs that are offered up is a similar prohibition against usurping God’s role.

8:1-36 Moses performs the priestly role in anointing Aaron and Aaron’s sons. In a dramatic break with the biblical pattern, the younger son gives the blessing to the sons of the oldest son.

Portion 19 T’rumah Exodus 25:1-27:19
Portion 20 T’tzaveh Exodus 27:20-30:10
Portion 22 Vayak’heil Exodus 35:1-38:20
Portion 23 P’kudei Exodus 38:21-40:38

Plaut refers to Isaac Abarbanel who considered the table and bread to refer to the pagan practice of feeding the gods. The Torah subverts this idea. “Table and bread are removed from the Holy of Holies; the table vessels remain empty, and the bread is consumed by the priests themselves as part of the sacrificial rite.”

Perhaps this is a general rule. The various parts of the Tabernacle and priestly attire made reference to the practices of neighboring cultures and subverted them. But to understood how the subversion worked in many cases would probably require a deeper knowledge of these cultures than we currently have.

Using symbols of an opponent to subvert the opponent’s ideas is a common tactic in social justice movements. Last year, at the annual stock holder meeting of Peabody Energy, the Sierra Club held a press conference and distributed an “alternative annual report” of Peabody Energy. Like the company’s annual report it was filled with facts and figure about the company, and it had a similar “look and feel” to the official report. However, while the company’s report was focused on profits and stock price, the Sierra Club’s was focused on environmental degradation. If someone unfamiliar with company annual reports were to read the Sierra Club’s report, they would learn that Peabody is bad for the environment but they would miss the message contained in the “look and feel” of the report: that Sierra Club was making a point about what the real “bottom line” of a company should be. When it comes to understanding the Tabernacle we are in even worse shape because the Tabernacle is all “look and feel,” and we don’t know much (at least I don’t) about what the “official annual reports” looked like or meant.

My favorite subversion of a ritual is the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge has all the elements of a pledge of obedience to the state, a ritual of nationalism. However it utterly but subtly subverts that notion. The flag that we pledge our allegiance to is the flag of the United States of America. But that is just its name. The flag doesn’t stand for the United States of America. Instead the flag stands for an ideal republic where there is liberty and justice for all. We pledge our allegiance to this ideal republic not to the government of the United States of America. Indeed allegiance to the ideal republic, if we take it seriously, often entails defying the government of the United States of America.

Perhaps the same can be said for many of the rituals of biblical Judaism. They incorporated elements of neighboring cultures and utterly but subtly subverted their meaning. For example, several modern commentaries presume that circumcision was commonly practiced in biblical cultures, but most commonly as a rite of puberty. Infant circumcision subverted this practice by changing the meaning from one of preparation for marriage to one of renewing the marriage of Israel with God.

Portion 21 Ki Tisa Exodus 30:11-34:34

30:15 We indict our society, not Torah, when we project the head tax onto our nation’s extreme wealth inequality and declare it unjust.

30:32,37 Reminders that we are not to be like gods.

31:12-17 Sabbath instructions for the foremen, Bezalel and Oholiab. Moses is to tell it to all of the Israelites so that they will be able to hold the foremen accountable (in the same way that the instructions for priests are given to all and instructions to Judges in Mishpatim are given to all). Perhaps the intent of the passage is better expressed by “whoever assigns work to be done on the Sabbath day shall be cut off from among the people.” We indict our society, not Torah, when we project Sabbath work restrictions onto our nation, where many people are compelled to work the Sabbath out of economic necessity and fear of loosing their livelihood, and declare them unjust.

32:1-4 The idolatry is not in the desire for or construction of the calf, for this is to replace Moses not YHWH. The idolatry is in the line “for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt.”

32:5 Perhaps Aaron here is trying to move the focus away from Moses and his bullion bovine substitute and back to God.

32:7 God repeats to Moses the idolatry of the people, that they are associating Moses with God.

32:11 Moses assures God that Moses understands that it was God not Moses or any other human who led the people out of Egypt.

32:19 Moses is angry, because the calf and those who made it challenge his authority as the sole intermediary between God and people. Moses feels like the people have been unfaithful to him.

32:20 Moses forces the people to drink the calf, similar to the test, Numbers 5:11-31, that a jealous husband can force his wife to undergo when he suspects her of adultery. Nothing in the text indicates that they failed the test. But Moses remains convinced of the peoples unfaithfulness to him.

32:26-27 God renounced punishment in 32:14. Moses is idolatrously equating his own desire for vengeance with the will of God and imposes his own murderous punishment, in violation of God’s will and the results of the adultery test.

32:31-32 Moses does not recognize his own sin.

32:33 God subtly tells Moses to pay attention to his own sin.

32:35 Are those Levites who carried out Moses’ murderous orders the target of the plague? This would serve the purpose of demonstrating to the people that they are not to treat Moses like a god. God leaves it to the people to teach Moses that Moses is not to think of himself like a god.

33:16 Moses identifies himself with the people instead of with God, thereby winning God’s favor.

33:17 -23 It is only when we identify ourselves with the people without seeking to dominate others that we will see God in our midst.

34:35 Moses, having learned his lesson, veils himself when not teaching the Torah so that people will not associate the pleasure of the radiance with anything else he says or does. Moses’ unique role, requiring him to be the only human permitted to approach the boundary between heaven and earth, is fraught with danger for Moses, who is continuously tempted by godlike power, and for the people, who are continuously tempted to usurp Moses’ power.

Portion 18 Mishpatim Exodus 21:1-24:18

21:1 Like the covenant with Noah, these are minimal standards. Several of the rules in this Torah portion are explicitly or implicitly repudiated by the Torah in other places. The higher standards of the Garden: nonviolence, and men and women working and worshiping in equality as the image of God, are still to be aspired to.

21:2 The word “Hebrew” is almost always used to describe the Israelites to or by a foreigner, such as Pharaoh in Egypt. Could the Torah be indicating that by taking a slave, an Israelite has alienated himself from the covenantal community?

21:2 Since a primary reason (or perhaps the only reason, no debt slavery is allowed 22:24-26) to be sold into slavery is for a thief to make restitution, this is effectively a maximum jail sentence of six years, far less punitive than U.S. law.

21:3a It appears as if the slave owner can prevent the slave from marrying outside of the slave owner’s household. Are there any counter examples of this in the biblical literature?

21:3b It also appears that if a married male becomes a slave, his wife becomes a slave too for the period of her husband’s enslavement. Any biblical examples?

21:4-6 A counter example is Jacob working off the bride price for Laban’s daughters. But, perhaps this is not a counter example since Jacob fled without telling Laban.

21:7-11 The Torah is comparing Israelite marriage to female slavery, symbolically indicated in the Garden narrative by Adam naming Eve like he named the other animals.

21:13 There appears to be enough wiggle room here to prevent most death sentences. “A Sanhedrin which kills once in seven years is considered murderous. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said: once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon said: if we had been in the Sanhedrin, no one would have ever been killed.” (Mishnah Makot 1:10).

21:17 Etz Hayim says that this is about the children putting a curse on their parents. The curse of Noah and several of the other curses in the Torah apply to offspring so children cursing their parents curse themselves.

21:19 The goal of the covenantal judicial system is restitution not punishment.

21:21 The absence of restitution in this verse contradicts 21:3 which states that slave owners have the responsibility to insure that slaves under their care do not leave slavery in worse circumstances than they came into it.

21:23-25 Talmud interpretation is eye’s worth for an eye, etc. Plaut says that there is no story in the Bible where the literal meaning of the verse is carried out. Plaut believes the Talmud interpretation to be the original intent of these verses but he fails to mention if there is any story in the Bible where the Talmudic interpretation is carried out.

21:26-27 Using the Talmudic interpretation from 21:23-25, a slave can go free when the owner has caused damage to the slave equal to or greater than the value of a single tooth. Therefore the slave in 21:21 was already free when he or she died.

21:28 Do any Rabbis interpret the ox in verses 21:28-32 figuratively? The ox could represent our animal instincts, mental illness, passions, the evil inclination, etc so that this verse commands removing the source of violence within us instead of perpetuating the cycle of violence.

21:29-31 The death penalty can be replaced with a fine and redemption of life provided that the cause of death was an “ox.” Mishnah Makot 1:10, quoted above in 21:13, tells us that there is always an ox.

21:32 How much was thirty shekels of silver worth?

21:33-34 How much restitution? More or less than thirty shekels?

22:1 This verse has tunneled here from the death penalty section to give us an example of one species of ox. It is the animal instinct to strike first when you fear you will be attacked. This ox is exemplified by that voice inside us that says “If someone is coming to kill you, rise early and kill him first" (Sanhedrin 72a and parallels) The Torah does not condone killing out of fear or the presumed knowledge of someone’s intent to kill you. Such knowledge is always clouded in darkness anyway. But the Torah does forbid the imposition of the death penalty on those who have killed out of fear.

22:2a If some time has elapsed before the killing takes place then one can not presume that fear was the motivating factor. The owner is guilty of murder and of taking the law into his own hands. Verses 22:1-2a tunneled up into this place and stole the integrity of verses 21:37 and 22:2b-3, but the Torah did not kill it. It left it here so that it might teach us that by taking vengeance into our own hands we deny our enemies their right to make restitution.

22:2b This is the only verse that gives a reason why a male may be sold into slavery (and again only for six years maximum), to make restitution for a crime. Presumably females may be sold into perpetual slavery because being female is a crime worse than ox theft.

22:4-14 All of these verses emphasize restitution instead of punishment.

22:20-23 A reference to exile which the prophets attributed to social injustice, in particular injustice against strangers, widows, and orphans. The symmetry of these verses implies that one of the crimes of the leadership of Judah, when it was threatened with invasion from Babylon, was to put strangers to the sword, perhaps for fear that they were spies or terrorists.

22:24-26 Not only is interest forbidden, there is also no punitive action imposed, such as debt slavery or even the permanent forfeiture by the poor person of their collateral, when the poor person can not pay the lender back.

23:23 Any killing is to be done by God, not the people.

23:25-26 Jeffrey Tigay, in the Oxford Jewish Study Bible, claims that this hyperbole is typical of ancient treaties. I think the Torah places this here to remind us that we are the Canaanites when we treat our religious rituals as if they were magic spells that persuade or compel God to do good things for us.

23:31 These are symbolic borders to a symbolic land. Fox suggests that what is translated “Sea of Reeds” might really mean “Sea at the End of the World.” Regardless, it is the sight where God showed the Israelites that their salvation lies in them refraining from taking vengeance into their own hands. It is contrasted with the Sea of Philistia, where God steered the Israelites away so that they would not see war. The wilderness is the site of testing and of revelation. The Euphrates runs through the Garden of Eden where people lived in harmony and where people first were tempted and embraced the domination system.