Acharei Mot–Kedoshim
Leviticus 16:1-18:30, 19:1-20:27
Ezekiel 22:1-22:19
Amos 9:7-9:15
By now Passover and the interesting challenge of eating no chametz is past, and we are moving joyfully forward into spring and the season of the Omer. It’s interesting that at this point in our Torah reading cycle, we encounter the classic text of Yom Kippur, the expiatory cleansing of the sanctuary.
While later on this becomes the Yom Kippur rite and is connected to the annual “fall soul-keeping” ceremonies, in the story of the Mishkan we are given reason to wonder at the reason for this “cleansing” — is it connected to the cumulative missing of the mark of the people? Is it a rite of initiation for the priests? Is it a result of the unusual offerings and subsequent death of the sons of Aaron in our last parshah?
There is no question that in the modern world, the whole issue of animal sacrifice is hard for us to understand, if not morally problematic.
We have moved beyond the power of the living beast’s death to change our relationships with the Divine. Or perhaps we have simply moved so beyond the culture of animal husbandry and daily contact with birth, loss, eating and death of the animals in our care, that these depictions make us uncomfortable or mystified.
Blood is more of a metaphorical than symbolic fluid in our lives, unless it is ours, than it was in the times of our ancestors. For them, and clearly for God, blood is life, in an immediate, throbbing reality. The blood of the bulls and goats here used to change the nature of the sanctuary is a substance of great potential.
The wrongdoings of the people, preceded by the wrongdoings of the priest himself, are taken into the animal as it dies, and what flows from it as it is killed, the life force, then anoints the shrine of the innermost sanctuary. It is as if the death of the animal takes the symbolic role of the end of our sins.
The life, the blood, which we have displaced by the weight of our transgression, can then act to revive the holy locations, the holy relationships, the holy people. It is sprinkled seven times, reminding us of the re-creation we are engaging in: this time not of the world itself, since God has already created it, but of our connection to the Divine.
This very specific location of the blood on the altar in the sanctuary by the priest is in remarkable contrast to the blood in the story of the Exodus. The first time we encounter it, it is everywhere, uncontrolled, in the wells, the river, the pots — all of the water (the life force) is transformed into blood in the first plague. This is not the blood of life, but of death, the stench of rotting carcasses, the terror of the Egyptians. The fear and the disgust are evident even in the short narrative.
The second blood episode is the placement of the lamb’s blood on the doorposts of the houses — again, at a specified location, in small quantity. This blood runs the line between life and death — it serves the protective function for those within, and heralds demise for those without or outside.
The movement of the active locale of the blood from the public to the individual — to the centermost, private location — is an interesting journey tracing the dedication of the Israelites to their new relationship.
God goes from a public power to an individual protector, to the special, secret power within the community. And with this, the power of the community is enhanced — as it comes to be freed of tyranny without and with, so it reflects even more brilliantly the glory of the Divine.
So may it be for us this year, as we move through the uncertainty of the omer to the quiet of the summer, and gently into the harvest … and the new year.
Rabbi Elisheva Salamo is the spiritual leader of Keddem Congregation in Palo Alto.