Leviticus Unto this Day

“There has never been a prophet like Moses until this day” (Deuteronomy 34:10).

Inspired by that expression, until this day, let us ask how much of Leviticus still inspires life in modern Israel “until this day”

I will look at aspects of the sacred nature of time (the focus of this week’s Torah reading, Emor) and space (the focus of next weeks’ Behar). Israel will be a holy place where the sacred calendar will be observed. The focus on time and space sometimes overlap tightly; Leviticus sets out the concepts that land use must permit a sabbath year of restoration, and that the whole order of land ownership must reset in the fiftieth year – seven times seven plus one – the Jubilee.

Leviticus begins by specifying rules for rituals; as it builds, it expands its imperatives into the dimension of ethical treatment by Israel for all of Israel and all who dwell within it (Leviticus 19:9-18, 19:33-34). It anticipates the return to the Holy Land, where God alone is sovereign, and both space and time are sacred. God says that he owns the land – “And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is Mine; for ye are strangers and settlers with Me” (Leviticus 25:23, JPS Tanakh 1917, from Parashat Behar). The Levites, the Priests, will not have dedicated land allocations; they will be supported by the other tribes so that they can specialize in the ritual sanctification of the land and its people (Leviticus 25:32–34).

In the Holy Land, the nation of priests will observe the sacred divisions of space, including honouring the Sabbath, the festival days, and the day of atonement. Although a Jewish population remained in Israel through all of its history, most of its population were dispersed after the destruction of the second temple. Those who stayed within the Tradition longed to return to the promised land. It took almost two thousand years for the Holy Land – or at least a part of it – to return the sovereignty of a Jewish nation. When it did, its majority had to decide how biblical it would be.

What parts of Leviticus, the most priestly of the five books, are embodied in the modern state?

The Jewish nation state law of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People (2018) distills much of what it means for Israel to be the modern Jewish state. The basic state law does not commit to a particular theology. No one is required to believe in Traditional Jewish doctrine – not the Jews, not the non-Jews. The basic law of Israel of Human Dignity in fact guarantees religious freedom. The modern state was founded, and joined in, by Jews who believed in the self-determination in the form of statehood for the Jewish people – even if they were unsure whether God existed or ignored the people in their millennia of distress. The foundational texts of Israel do, however, commit to the concept of Jewish homeland in which some basics of the Tradition are supported by the state.

The biblical idea that no individual owns the land is reflected in the modern basic laws of Israel. The Israel Land Authority has title over all land (Basic Law: Israel Lands, 1960); individuals or organizations can have the long-term use of it, but in principle, it is never fully and perpetually owned. The Israel Land Authority has to balance competing demands that are legitimate, but never easily reconciled. Its aims are to promote the prosperity, environmental soundness and individual rights of Israelis, both Jewish and non-Jewish. In the Parsha Emor 24:22 we are told:

“מִשְׁפַּט אֶחָד יִהְיֶה לָכֶם, כַּגֵּר כָּאֶזְרָח יִהְיֶה; כִּי אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם

Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for the home-born; for I am the LORD your God.”

The Basic Law of Israel on Human Dignity has been interpreted by the High Court as including the principle of legal equality for all individuals in Israel whether they belong to the Jewish majority or any minority group, including Arab Israelis.

The freeing up of land for private use, however, has been slow. Housing prices rise, much of Israel is not authorized for development. Successive governments have looked for solutions.

Leviticus commands the observance of the Jubilee year, in which the land is rested and all are freed from their mortgages (Leviticus 25:8–13). Leviticus contemplated that after an original just distribution of land among tribes and their members, there would be times of hardship for some, but every few generations, every fifty years, there would be a reset. There would be a limit to how much any individual could accumulate or be disenfranchised from.

In modern-day Israel, some young people inherit expensive land from their parents; others may have no hope of ever anything but renting. Israel has to find a way to provide reasonably equal opportunities in practice for everyone to share in the use of its land, regardless of whether they are newcomers. Initially, Israel was a place where almost everyone came with nothing; they had to start new lives over when their birthplaces had become too dangerous or hostile and when they were pulled in by the dream of the return to Zion. Leviticus commands justice for the ger. According to the High Court of Justice, the Basic Law of Israel that assures human dignity (Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, 1992) includes respecting the legal equality of all citizens of Israel, including the non-Jewish minority.

The boundaries of Israel – at least the 1967 borders – leave outside lands that were essential parts of the Israelite story. Jews who wish to live in the historical homelands of Israel beyond the Green Line should not be seen as fanatics and colonialists. Many are profoundly committed to realizing the restoration of the Jewish identity of a land they believe was promised them by God and earned through the struggles of the ancestors to build the land and the commitment of the later ancestors to preserve its holy traditions and eventually come back. Against these aspirations are the need to respect the wishes of the non-Jewish majority in Judea and Samaria – The challenge of reconciling the competing rights and interests remains a great challenge within Israel and in its relations with the wider world.

Leviticus contemplates the consecration of time as well as space: – the observance of the Sabbath, Yom Kippur and other festival days (Leviticus 23:1–44). The constitutional order in Israel authorizes the government to pass laws to promote their observance – while respecting the rights of other faiths to observe their own. Leviticus was set in the Wilderness, in the camp of the Israelites, and it proposed extreme penalties for public departures from the sanctity of the holy days. Israel struggles with how to balance the rights of the non-observant with the rights of the faithful. As with many issues, the best outcomes are the product of compromise and consensus. As Yair Lapid has pointed out, there is no law in Israel that compels everyone to respect the sanctity of the day; yet the overwhelming majority of Israelis, including the secular ones, in fact do so. It is no longer fashionable to taunt the orthodox by carrying out barbecues.

Rabbi Hillel was famous, among other things, for his recognition of the need to adapt. The “reset” in the Jubilee year proved counterproductive in some ways; instead of helping the poor, it made it impossible for them to get credit when lenders were faced with the imminent write-off compelled by the Jubilee year. Hillel found a workaround: a legal channel whereby lenders could make interest-free loans and then assign them to the courts, making them immune from the write-off required of private creditors (Talmud, Gittin 36a). Hillel recognized that the underlying purpose for a rule might require modification in how it is applied. Jewish law would recognize overriding principles that limit the application of strict biblical laws; you must put the preservation of life against commandments as sacred as the observing of the Sabbath.

It has been argued that one of the purposes of rituals, like daily prayers, is to restore our sense of wonder when we become jaded. Whether supernatural or not, it is a wonder that the ancient book of Leviticus is still alive in the land of Israel. The consecration of the holidays, the sense that the whole country is held in trust for a higher purpose than individual ownership, the acknowledgment of the rights of minorities.

Reconciling and balancing these ideas is a never-ending challenge, as it was in ancient times. It is not possible in theory or human practice to always get the balance right. Sometimes, there will be excesses and errors leaning one way interest the other. But part of Leviticus is not only the highest aspirations, but an acknowledgment of human fallibility – and the belief in redemption through self-scrutiny and active efforts to correct wrongs as they arise. We can console ourselves that all will be fulfilled, all reconciled, in the time of the Messiah.

In the meantime, we can take more consolation, but gratitude – and even  astonishment –  that there is a distinctively Jewish homeland, inside the boundaries of the historic promised land, living and breathing so much of the inspiration contained in the book of the ancient priests, the Levites. The need to respect the rights of minorities and to do justice to individuals are not modern innovations; they too are expressed in the book of Leviticus.

Leviticus proposes a holy people with the highest aspirations, who will succumb at times to their human willfulness and error, and who will find a path to reflection, self-scrutiny and restoration of sanctity. In looking at modern Israel, we see all of this. We need not suspend our critical judgment; we have always been a self-critical people. We should not, however, suspend our admiration for the endurance and aspirations of the nation of priests upon their return.