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Jewish experience has been variously shaped by gender, by place of dispersion, by language, by history, by interaction with other cultures...The term distinctness suggests, however, that the relation between these various communities-- Jewish to non-Jewish, Jewish to Jewish-- should be understood not in terms of hierarchical differentiation but in terms of part and whole.
Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai
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While last week's parasha detailed the different kinds of sacrifices, this week reads like a ritual instruction manual for the priests on how to perform them. No wonder these chapters in Leviticus are among the most difficult passages for modern readers to relate to. Animals are being cut up and burned on the altar, while blood is being spattered on Aaron and this sons and their clothes. What a mess. (Remember- this was before dry cleaning. In the recent animated movie the Incredibles, the fashionista informs the superhero of her new redesigned costumes: "And they're machine washable- that's a new feature, daah-ling.")
Although at first glance we may be put off by the animals and the blood, there is actually another deeper thematic element that runs through Leviticus that warrants our attention. The whole book of Leviticus is really preoccupied with holiness, and the boundaries between the holy and the profane. This week's parasha focuses narrowly on the world of the priests who function in the ritual realm, but holiness is to be a preoccupation of all the Israelites, not just the Levites, (for we are to be a kingdom of priests, a holy people, according to Exodus). In a few weeks we read the ethical and moral imperatives that we must all obey: "You [all] shall be holy, for I, Adonai, am holy (Lev. 19:2)." In the Torah, holiness for the priests was realized in the regulations that erected barriers (physically, as in the Mishkan) or in hierarchies that made distinctions between individuals, animals and even in time. The verb 'to be holy' (k.d.sh.- which forms the root of words like Kiddush, Kaddish and Kadosh) includes the meaning 'to set apart,' as Rashi's commentary indicates. And the Torah actually makes the connection between 'holiness' and 'separateness' explicit in Lev. 20:24-26: "I am Adonai who have set you apart [hivdalti- from the same root as havdalah] from other people, so you shall set apart the pure beast from the impure... You shall be holy to Me, for I, Adonai am holy and I have set you apart from other peoples to be mine." In one breath, (as it were) God talks about separating the Jewish people like we separate our meat and milk dishes. Note how Shabbat too, begins and ends with these two words: Kiddush separates Shabbat and sanctifies it, and Havdalah separates Shabbat from the rest of the week. It is through these separations that Shabbat is made holy. It is not an exaggeration to say that at its core, holiness in Judaism is fundamentally about making distinctions.
Separation is critical to the creative act; in Genesis, God separates [vayavdeil] light from dark as the first act of creation. If we didn't make separations and the world was allowed to lose all differentiation, it might revert to 'tohu vavohu' the primordial chaos of Genesis. Same-ness runs the risk that nothing is special, nothing feels sacred. But Leviticus goes further. Not only must we make distinctions, but boundaries are critical. This is perhaps why animals that cross boundaries (animals that live in water, but do not swim like fish, or mammals that fly) are not kosher. Similarly, the Torah's prohibition against homosexuality and cross-dressing can be seen as crossing the boundaries of heterosexuality. Bodily fluids (menstrual blood, semen, emissions and discharges) contaminate ritual purity because they cross the boundary of our bodies. A corpse defiles, because a dead body, once alive but no longer, crosses the boundary of animate and inaminate. Robert Alter (in his astounding new translation and commentary, The Five Books of Moses) points out that while the bulk of Leviticus contains either priestly laws or moral and ritual codes of behaviour, the two short narratives in Leviticus illustrate crossing boundaries. The first is the episode of Nadav and Avihu who bring 'alien fire.' Commentators disagree on what exactly they did wrong, but clearly, bringing fire from outside to inside violates sacred space. Alcohol is also a liquid that erodes 'boundaries.' It is therefore not surprising that immediately after the death of Nadav and Avihu, the Torah warns against being drunk, precisely "so that they may distinguish between holy and profane" (Lev. 10:10). The second example is of an Egyptian who utters God's sacred name. God's space can be guarded, and only those authorized can enter. But God's name cannot be protected in the same way, and nothing can prevent it from being used in the 'public' domain.
When the world of the profane is allowed to cross its boundary, it contaminates the sacred sphere. Catherine Keller, (in "Roundtable: Feminist Reflections on Separation and Unity in Jewish Theology" in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Spring 1986) responds to Drorah Setel:
"The traditional (and not only Jewish) sense of the holy insists upon absolute boundaries between the sacred and the profane, the Wholly Other and the merely homogenous, the clean and the unclean, God and world, us and them, as well as between the multifarious types, species, and states of creaturely existence. Would a world of fluid boundaries not unleash endless, monstrous minglings, a chaotic flood of undifferentiation, an oceanic dissolution of identity in a holistic holiness of the indiscriminate?"
Liquids, typically cross boundaries and are the source of defilement. The liquids, [olive] oil, water and blood, from this week's parasha also figure prominently in purification rites. Olive oil is especially favoured as a liquid for purification perhaps because it doesn't 'mingle' with other liquids, and water, the primordial matter of creation is universally recognized as a purifying agent. Blood both defiles and purifies. Mary Douglas, an anthropologist who studies religious systems has noted that dirt is matter out of place. Dirt in the kitchen is dirt; outside in our garden, it's soil. Blood belongs in our bodies; inside them, blood is a life force. Spilled on the ground, blood is out of place and defiles. In order for something to be out of place, we have to define limits and create a systematic order. That is what Leviticus is all about. In sacred space, everything is in order.
Lessons for Today
Holiness is about separation, and this theme is found throughout the Torah and reflected in today's Jewish ritual. Jewish laws specify separating meat from milk, pure from impure, men from women, Jew from non-Jew. According to Keller, separation cannot tolerate difference, and so it turns it into Other, the polluted, the unholy. What should we do when 'distinctions' don't create holiness but foster prejudice and discrimination? Or feel punitive and discriminatory, or racist and misogynist? Rosa Parks challenged the 'separation' of blacks and whites, and as Jews, we should know better than anyone, that an emphasis on differences often leads to inequities, notwithstanding the slogan, "separate but equal." Can we honour Judaism's dualism that insists on boundaries and distinctions, and still avoid hierarchies or oppression?
Feminist theory challenges the "oppressive nature of categorical separations" (The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir). In today's world of democracy and political correctness we are directed to not make so many distinctions and to value relationships. Consequently, many religious rules and restrictions are being re-examined, and old hierarchies are being questioned. Judith Plaskow articulates the challenge: "the central issue in the feminist redefinition of Israel is the place of difference in the community" (pg. 89, Standing Again at Sinai).
Ideas and structures within Judaism that reflect and foster models of domination-- a Torah that mirrors and reproduces men over women, an Israel that in conception and communal form constructs difference as hierarchy, a notion of God as dominating Other, a legal structure that defines sexuality in terms of possession-- must be reconstructed on the basis and the sake of a different mode of relation (pg. 233).
Distinction is necessary and inevitable; at the same time, we must remember that differences are also part of a greater whole and organic unity. Everything is both distinct and related at the same time. Try this game: think of any two things and figure out how they are the same and how they are different. A Siamese cat and an angora cat are different, but are both cats; a cat and a tiger are more different but still both felines; a cat and a horse are both mammals; a cat and a bird are both vertebrates; a cat and a spider are living creatures, and on and on. Can we reframe Judaism's insistence on separation, and find a way to consider unity and diversity that includes all of God's creation? The Havdalah blessing, for example, is problematic in how it makes a dangerous analogy: light, Jews, and Shabbat are superior to what is 'other.' But is this so? Isn't there a blessing in the six days of work? Shabbat is certainly a 'day apart' and should be honoured in its own way, but shouldn't we honour the six days of creation? Shabbat and the six days form a greater whole (the week), and Marcia Falk has rewritten the Havdalah blessing to reflect this:
- Let us distinguish
- parts within the whole
- and bless their differences.
- Like Sabbath and the six days of creation,
- may our lives be made whole through relation.
- As rest makes the Sabbath holy,
- may our work make holy the week.
- Let us separate Sabbath from week
- and hallow them both.
The world has holy and profane elements and boundaries are critical. But at the same time, not all distinctions have inherent holiness and we have to be cognizant of the dangers of making separations and implicit hierarchies.
Shabbat Shalom
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