Parasha Emor, If Words Could Kill: Leviticus 21:1-24:23, Haftarah, Ezekiel 44:15-31

Recently in Uganda a body guard killed the Minister of Labor then turned the gun on himself, a terrible thing.  The Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament shared the bad news with the others and added “that was God’s plan.” What an odd thing to say, a murder-suicide was somehow part of God’s plan?  What, if anything, does that have to do with our Torah reading, parasha Emor, anyway?  The parasha itself speaks to the greater Leviticus theme of tahor (pure) and tamai (impure). There are Laws regulating the lives and sacrifices of the Kohenim (21:1-22:33) and the set times of the Biblical Jewish festival calendar (23:1-44). The laws continue about bringing clear olive oil for lighting the sanctuary menorah as well as the ingredients and placement of the displayed loaves of sanctuary bread (24:1-9), concluding with laws dealing with profanity, murder, and the maiming of others (24:10-23).  Okay, but again, what does this have to do with a political assassination in Uganda? 

The fact is that it has nothing do with Emor, although the response of the Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament’s does when he said, “that was God’s plan.”  We find a similar statement here in the Torah.  In the very beginning of Emor, Leviticus 21:1, it says “The Lord spoke to Moses,” followed by all the laws mentioned above. Yet in Leviticus 21:9 we find the most puzzling, and even somewhat disturbing Law that says, “When the daughter of a priest defiles herself through harlotry, it is her father whom she defiles; she shall be put to the fire.” Since it was, “The Lord [who] spoke to Moses,” are we to assume that like the political assassination it “was God’s plan” that the daughter a Kohen would be put to death even under this circumstance?  In context, it is based on what we read in the Haftarah of Ezekiel 44:28 of the Kohenim, “This shall be their portion, for I am their portion; and no holding shall be given them in Israel, for I am their property.” In other words, the Kohenim were defined by their service to the Temple and the community, which included extra standards of purity and the need to have no outward blemishes, fully devoted to God.  It is one thing to hold oneself to standards based on a sense of high calling but why does the sin of the daughter deserve such an extreme and unethical response?

Rabbi Ellen Nemhauser writes on Emor by saying “Perhaps the problematic passage in this week's reading, reflects ancient peoples' perception of the way God operates in our world, indeed revealing our human, and yes imperfect, understanding of the Divine.”  While referring to the high bar of the Kohenim and its conflict with the imperfection of people in general (cf. Lev. 19:14; "Do not insult the deaf, and do not put a stumbling block before the blind, I am the Lord) in the end she is suggesting this was how that community perceived God's standards in their midst.  Likewise the same may very well be so with Leviticus 21:9 and the daughter of the Kohen who became a prostitute.  Early Jewish writings did not seem to concern themselves with this ethical conflict.  In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 49b) it spoke to the “reason” by saying that  “burning is more severe than stoning [but the reason for one over the other] is the severity of this transgression [where she] profanes not only herself but her father as well.”  An early Midrash (Sifra, Emor) concerns itself with the “legitimacy” of the Leviticus law saying, “I might think that even if she desecrated the Sabbath she should be subject to burning [saying there is no distinction between] profanation [of the Shabbat and] fornication.”  Yet although the Rabbis struggled with this verse there is no evidence (that I can find) that this was ever carried out, but it was also not eliminated from the Mikra (Hebrew Bible) either.

Rashi in his commentary to the above Talmud passage (Sanhedrin 49b) suggests the real meaning has to do with the distinction of the holy and the secular more so than a punishment of death.  In general this larger chapter of Talmud (cf. Sanhedrin 49b) says these punishments (burning, stoning, etc.) are “merely a stringency.”  According to Marcus Jastrow (Editor of the Lexicon of Aramaic words) the Aramaic worth that translates to “merely a stringency” (חוּמְרָא, choomra) is more of a  “restrictive measure” that warns the “people to be more careful” with their deeds recognizing the negative consequences associated with perpetual ":higher crimes." In other words, we can read this passage with the idea that fire illumines the severity of the ramifications that are caused by misdeeds, let alone underscoring the need to metaphorically burn away the wrongs in our midst.

When the early Rabbis encountered a dichotomy (and the burning of a daughter I’d say fits that bill) in resolving it they would say לָא קַשְׁיָא (la Kashya), which means, “It’s not difficult.”  Not to minimize the black and white meaning of our text in question I think in some ways it is לָא קַשְׁיָא (la Kashya) to resolve the meaning of “That is God’s plan.”  On Friday night when we light Candles for Shabbat we make a distinction between the secular (Chol) and the Holy (Kadesh) and then after Shabbat when we light the Havdalah Candle we make a distinction between the Holy (Kadesh) and the secular (Chol).  Secular here is not unreligious it is just normal.  In other words while all days were created equal the first six days of the week are normal (secular) while the Shabbat day is Holy and invites us to focus primarily on spiritual matters if we choose (maybe for some it's a bit of both).  Therefore Leviticus 21:9 can teach that in the same way the daughter of the Kohen needs to recognize that her choices impact both her and her father with devastating results, this passage can remind us to make a distinction between the Holy (Kadesh) and the secular (Chol) given how the acts of tamai (impure) can produce negative results for self and others.

Can we read this passage that way?  Well I cannot ever imagine a parent burning their child to death and saying “that was God’s plan,” at least not in Jewish culture. If God has a plan here (and I guess throughout Leviticus) it is about the distinction between the holy and secular, the pure and the impure, a profound sense of right and wrong in how we act and how our actions will have positive results or negative consequences.  A hard passage for sure, no doubt, but its one that Torah asks us to struggle with.   

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Adam