T orah P ortion
Leviticus Asks Tough Societal Questions
BY RABBI JOSHUA WAXMAN
PARSHAT VAYIKRAH
EVERY YEAR AROUND this
time we complete our reading
of the Book of Exodus and roll
over into Leviticus.

Suddenly, our Torah read-
ing is all sacrifices and blood,
skin diseases and emissions.

For casual modern readers, the
contents of this book can feel
far from edifying. It can feel
irrelevant, confusing and even
offensive. What gives?
The key to Leviticus, which
we begin reading this week, is
recognizing that the ancient
Israelites were a community that
asked and grappled with import-
ant questions about how we are
supposed to function as a society.

What does it mean to create
a society where God can truly
dwell in our midst? What hap-
pens when members of that
society misbehave — how does
it threaten society at large and
what responsibilities do we have,
individually and communally, to
respond? How do we articulate
certain collective ideals and values
while still making room for people
who don’t conform to them? Who
can remain part of our society
and when is someone beyond the
pale? How much do the intentions
Books Continued from Page 20
a Boston bike messenger named
Zesty Myers — introduced
in Abramowitz’s 2017 debut
Bosstown — who has an interest-
ing past. His mother was a radical
bomb-tossing bank robber who’s
been missing for years, while
his father, now afflicted with
Alzheimer’s, used to run poker
games and had a shady role as a
“fixer.” Meanwhile, brother Zero
runs a moving/storage company.

Zesty’s own past is a bit mud-
dled, too, as he once refused to
testify before a federal grand
26 MARCH 14, 2019
behind our actions matter?
These questions, which form
the living heart of Leviticus,
are ones for which we are still
urgently attempting to figure
out answers in our time. In an
increasingly polarized society,
how can we — should we be? —
in relationship with someone
whose opinions and beliefs are
inimical to our own?
In a time of growing aware-
ness about behavior that we
now recognize as unaccept-
able but was often excused in
the past — perhaps making
advances on a subordinate, or
wearing blackface to a party
— when can someone who
has done something wrong be
rehabilitated and when does
that wrongdoing keep them
beyond the bounds of society?
How do racist or xenophobic
views held by some impact
society as a whole, and what
steps do we need to take to
purge the damage they cause to
our moral fabric?
None of these questions has
easy answers, then or now. But
the genius of Leviticus is that it
took these abstract, conceptual
questions that are at the heart
of how we try to build an eth-
ical and righteous society and
made them concrete, practical
and actionable.

The sacrifices, according to
many Biblical scholars, were
a system that wiped clean the
moral contamination that
resulted from individual and
communal misdeeds, allowing
the society to view these wrongs
as expiated. The distinction
between tahor and tamei — rit-
ually pure and impure allowed
the ancient Israelites to know
what circumstances put some-
one beyond the bounds of the
camp, literally as well as fig-
uratively, and provided a pre-
scribed procedure for bringing
someone back in.

Similarly, the institution of
the Day of Atonement, described
in chapter 16 of this book, pro-
vided the community with a
means to atone, to expiate the
offenses they had committed
before God and one another
in a cathartic celebration that
allowed them to move forward
with reassurance and hope.

All of these rituals, and so
many others described through-
out the course of the book, are
intended to uphold and promote
holiness. As God instructs, “You
shall be holy for I the Lord your
God am holy.” (Lev. 19:2) The
Israelites were aspiring to build a
society that placed holiness at the
center, that recognized that what-
ever actions take place between
jury in a tax evasion case.

At the beginning of the book,
Zesty’s performing at a stand-up
comedy club (his other passion
in life) when a homicide detec-
tive who was involved in the tax
evasion case shows up with a
Boston Globe reporter.

A Molotov cocktail is
thrown at the reporter, who
isn’t badly injured, and sets
into motion a series of events,
including wondering which
of her stories prompted the
attempted hit. Those stories
dig into the gentrification of
Boston, gangs infiltrating mid-
night basketball leagues and
Eastern Europeans laundering
money through real estate,
among other things.

That’s a lot to process, and
your head likely will be starting
to spin 100 pages in. Everything
does get explained by the end
— assuming you’re still read-
ing — but Abramowitz might
benefit by adhering to Occam’s
razor, the principle of logic that
says the simplest explanation is
usually the correct one.

Unfortunately, in a day
and age when even a superhe-
ro’s back story is complicated
enough to stretch a 90-min-
ute movie into one lasting 2½
hours, we’re likely to see even
fewer Occam adherents. l
JEWISH EXPONENT
CAND LE LI GHT I NG
Mar. 15
Mar. 22
people are not merely
personal and private, but involve
and implicate God as well.

With this awareness, we are
called on to assume the extra
responsibility of realizing just
how significant our behavior
is, not only on an interpersonal
scale but on a cosmic one as
well. When we fall short, we
must make amends not only
to the person we have harmed
but to God as well, and we are
given the gift of a specific path
that tells us how.

Imagine if we held to this
standard today! Imagine if
we took seriously the com-
mand, “You shall not wrong
one another but shall fear your
God, for I am the Lord your
God. Rather you shall observe
My laws and faithfully keep My
rules, that you may live upon the
land in security.” (Lev. 25:17-18)
Imagine if instead of try-
ing to evade responsibility for
our shortcomings — to vehe-
mently deny them until caught,
then practice damage control
by “apologizing to anyone who
might have been offended” —
we acknowledged and accepted
them, realizing that our society
can only become better by rec-
ognizing our shared responsi-
bility for building an ethical and
loving world and the critical role
6:49 p.m.

6:57 p.m.

that all of us play in increasing or
diminishing holiness.

The ritualized answers
Leviticus provides were
attempts to grapple with the
questions we ask as a society,
and the harm that occurs when
they are left unresolved. They
paint the picture of a society
built around a mission and
purpose — of realizing holi-
ness through our everyday
behavior and actions.

Although the specific
answers and
remedies Leviticus provides may not
speak to us in our own time,
as we read through Leviticus
in the months ahead we should
appreciate — and learn from —
the society that had the cour-
age to ask these questions and
the audacity to seek ways to
confront them head on. l
Rabbi Joshua Waxman is the
spiritual leader of Or Hadash: A
Reconstructionist Congregation
and serves as president of the
Board of Rabbis of Greater
Philadelphia. The board is proud to
provide the Torah commentary for
the Jewish Exponent.

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