Mount Sinai and Us

May 15, 2009
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

     We are presented with a gift this week: the last two portions in the Book of Leviticus. The penultimate portion is Bihar and the final portion is Bichukotai. Bihar begins with the words "Adonai spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, [saying]: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them." And the final sentence in Bichukotai reads, "These are the commandments that Adonai gave Moses for the Israelite people on Mount Sinai." So we have a unit that hangs together. It is only unusual because this group of laws is from the Book of Leviticus, where most laws are directed at Aaron and priests.

     As we stand at the end and look back on the whole Book of Leviticus, we can learn a number of important lessons. We can see that this book is made up of many groups of laws, each with a distinctive flavor. In fact, Leviticus is a library of priestly regulations, some aimed at the priests of the Jerusalem Temple and some obviously directed at priests scattered through the countryside.

     Most of the little law codes are dependent on an agricultural system and herding system that could not possibly have existed in the wilderness at Mount Sinai. Scholars tell us, and we can see for ourselves, that these priestly laws were brought together much later than Mount Sinai, certainly after the period of the judges and probably after the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel. The codes themselves may be older individually, of course, but not as a collection.

     Among the traditions that were preserved in this way was the command that the priests be the teachers of God's commandments. To do this, there had to be lists of commandments directed at the people, not just at the priests. So several collections of laws for the people of Israel are also included in the library of Leviticus. The group of laws in Bihar and Bichukotai is one example, but the most famous example is the Holiness Code of Leviticus 19, which is given the privilege of the center of the Torah, where God declares time and again, "You shall be holy; for I Adonai your God am holy."

     If only for these small collections of laws, especially ethical laws, the Book of Leviticus would continue to be of great value to the lives of the people of Israel from that time to this time. They were so important in the scheme of things that the priests who compiled the Book of Leviticus stressed that all these laws were given to the people through Moses at the mountain of Sinai.

     If some of these groups of regulations actually came from Sinai is a mystery. Even inside the regulations, there are some assumptions made about sacrifices which were already well-known and traditional. But certainly once the Temple was operating and priests were accepting sacrifices at local shrines, these laws were redefined to serve a national purpose, to bind the people together in a systematic way, through purity and atonement and worship of the One God.

     Leviticus goes even further, adding a dimension of freedom and a promise of salvation or redemption. In the portion called Bihar, we read about an ideal system of national life that cycles every 49 years -- seven weeks of days and seven years of weeks -- culminating in a Jubilee year when the poor shall be released from debt and the land shall revert to its original owners. In those days, we can "Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof," in the words of Leviticus 25 that are also enshrined on our Liberty Bell.

     Almost dead center in the entire Torah is the command that Rabbi Akiba later taught is a summary of the Torah and its teachings, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev. 19:18).

     Nevertheless, it seems to many Jews that most of the laws of Leviticus are irrelevant to their lives. We certainly do not want to revive the cruelty of the animal sacrifices of ancient times, nor would we want to deal with women as the ancient law codes did -- seeing them as property and dealing with them as in no way equal to the males of Israel, nor would we want to deal with illnesses and rashes in the superstitious way that priests dealt with them according to laws laid down in Leviticus.

     So we retain what we think is really important for our daily lives: The Holiness Code and its ethical teachings, the hope for economic justice, the promise of liberty and redemption, the rituals of circumcision and the redemption of the first-born male, and the tradition of burying away from the synagogue in consecrated ground.

     If Leviticus gave us only these things as its contribution to our Jewish way of life, dayeinu, "it would have been enough." But it continually gives us more. It reminds us of God's words in Exodus addressed to all Jews: "You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation" (19:6). Leviticus challenges you to find ways in your own life to be a Jew, to be holy and sacred, and to act with all the care and attention of one of God's priests. You are holy because you serve God; you have been chosen to be holy. And let us say: Amen.