Assuring Jewish Uniqueness
Rabbi Yaakov Bieler
Parshiot Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 5764
The theme of Havdala (making separations, distinctions) is repeated several times in the book of VaYikra, (1) with Parshat Kedoshim serving as a particularly central platform for this concept. (2) The verses that draw attention to the need for Havdala do not refer to specific mixtures of finite particular objects that have to be distinguished from one another, but rather refer to Havdala in global terms. Distinctions must be drawn between what is holy and what is profane, (3) (4) between ritual purity and impurity in general and between these categories as they manifest themselves in the animal world, and between Jews and the rest of the nations.
The former categories of calling for continuous separations between Kodesh and Chol on the one hand, and Tuma and Tahara on the other, would appear to be inherently ritualistic, i.e., they are functions of the manner in which Jews worship God, while the distinction that we are called upon to make between ourselves and other nations who do not share our religious commitments strikes at the heart of relationships between man and man, and is therefore primarily sociological. However, one could also understand that at least one of the purposes of the many laws defining sanctity and ritual purity is an attempt to limit our interactions with other nationalities and ethnic and religious groups, and thereby promote and strengthen a sense of identity and unity among the Jewish people.
Before Mitzvot were given to the Jews at Sinai, the manner in which Jewish separateness was maintained appears to have been via cultural rather than ritualistic means. Aside from the commandment of circumcision that originates in Avraham's time, (5) no specific on-going ritual is recorded that would serve to delineate Jews from non-Jews in a clear-cut manner. (6,7,8) The one time when the possibility of assimilation arises most overtly prior to the descent into Egypt, i.e., following the rape of Dina, the King of Shechem proposes that Yaakov's family merge with the citizens of his city-state to everyone's mutual benefit, the issue of circumcision is raised as a means by which to discourage any further considerations of intermarriage and acculturation vis-à-vis the indigenous Canaanite population. (9)
Attempting to account for why the Jews managed to resist assimilation in Egypt, before they accepted upon themselves a comprehensive system of intrinsically Jewish behaviors as expressed in Jewish law, is probably what precipitated the following well-known Midrash appearing in VaYikra Rabba 32:5: "R. Huna said in the name of Bar Kappara: Because of four things were the Jews redeemed from Egypt-(a) they did not change their names, nor (b) their language, (c) they did not report one another to the authorities, and (d) there was not one to be found among them who was sexually immoral (an alternative reading for this last category is that they did not intermarry with members of the surrounding population, i.e., the Egyptians.)" (10)
What is particularly striking is the Rabbinic tradition in the Mechilta (the Midrash Halacha on Shemot) cited by RaShI in Shemot 12:6:
R. Matya ben Cheresh said: Behold! It said, (Yechezkel 16:8) "And I passed over you (the Jewish people in Egypt) and looked upon you, and behold, your time was a time of love"-there had arrived the time to fulfill the oath which I have Sworn to Avraham (Beraishit 15:14) to redeem his children. They however possessed no Divine Commandments (were not fulfilling them) in which to engage that they should merit to be redeemed-as it is said, (Yechezkel 16:7) "You were naked and bare" (bare of all merit earned through the fulfillment of God's Commands). He therefore Gave them two Commandments relating to the blood of the Pascal Lamb and the blood of circumcision-FOR THAT NIGHT THEY CIRCUMCISED THEMSELVES, (11) as it is said, (Ibid., v. 6) "When I Passed over you, I Saw you wallowing in your BLOODS (BeDamayich is in plural form), i.e., two kinds of blood…They were sunk in IDOLATRY. He Said to them: (Shemot 12:21) "Mishchu"-draw, i.e., withdraw your hands from idols-and take unto yourselves a lamb."
The implication that emerges when one combines these two Rabbinic traditions is that Jews who had abandoned circumcision, and even monotheism, nevertheless because they maintained their cultural heritage and loyalties, were deserving of being saved. Consider the following comments of Meshech Chochma on Shemot 12:22:
…It was not so (that they didn't change their names, languages, etc.) with regard to the Babylonian exile, where they observed basic Tora tenets, yet allowed the "fences" and "protections" to fall into disuse. Behold their children spoke Babylonian, changed their names, and married women from the dominant culture, as is stated in Nechemia 13:23-24. It would appear that when Israel is in exile, the most important element of them preserving who they are, are the "fences" and the "protections" that serve to assure that they will not become absorbed amongst the other nations…
The commentator even suggests that an appropriate way to understand Beraishit 26:5, in which Avraham is described as having "GUARDED My Guardings, My Commandments, My Statutes, and My Torot" is that he created "fences" and "protections" to assure that his offspring would continue in the paths that he and Sara had established, and which would cause their descendants to be considerably out of synch with the rest of the society in which they might find themselves.
So how do we preserve our distinctiveness and Jewish identities? Ibn Ezra on VaYikra 20:24 "…That I have Separated you from amongst the nations", claims that it is the Chukim (statutes-laws that seem to have no rational explanation), e.g., Kashrut, laws of ritual purity, Sha'atnez, etc. that single us out. Ba'al HaTurim notes that there are 70 different Commandments over the course of Parshat Kedoshim, representing the 70 nations from which we must separate ourselves. And Ohr HaChayim on 20:26 "And I will Separate you from amongst the nations to be to Me" suggests that the way that the Jewish people will be uniquely associated with God, as opposed to any other deity or nation, is by devoting themselves to His Mitzvot.
But Rabbeinu Bechaye makes the following statement: "The wisdom of the Tora obligates us to be separated by means of our eating, our drinking and our clothing…" This commentator suggests that the performance of the Mitzvot are not ends in themselves, but means for providing us with a different mindset, that will pervade our behavior comprehensively, rather than when we are engaged in specifically religious activity. Apparently it is not so difficult to think and act like a Jew when one is in the synagogue, or involved in some sort of overt religious activity; but will that necessarily be the case when one finds him/herself in an environment that is not conducive at all to such thoughts or practices? What will remind us then? How will we resist alien influences on those occasions? As RaMBaM writes in Hilchot Avoda Zora 11:1, "A Jew must be distinct from them and recognizable via his clothing and his other actions, just as he is distinct from them in his knowledge and his thoughts." While HaShem sets out the goal for us to retain our uniqueness, how we actually go about achieving such a state deserves careful consideration and reflection.
Shabbat Shalom, and may we live up to God's Expectations of us in this as well as in so many other important Tora realms.
(1) VaYikra 10:10; 11:47; 20:24-26.
(2) If we were to follow RaShI's definition of Kedusha (holiness) on 19:2, i.e., "Be separate from sin", then every instance where a call to be holy or make something holy appears, would constitute yet another iteration of the Havdala theme-e.g., in 8:10-12, when Moshe sanctifies the Kohanim (priests) by pouring anointing oil upon them, he is separating them from everyone else. Other examples would then include: 8:15, 30; 10:3; 11:44-45; 16:19; 19:2; 20:7-8, 26; 21:6, 8, 15, 23; 22:2-3, 9, 16, 32; 25:10; 27:14-19, 22, 26. And when something is called holy, e.g., God (11:44), a sacrifice (2:3), a place (10:13), or a time period (23:2) [I have included only one example for each, but VaYikra contains numerous examples of things in these categories being referred to as holy], the means by which that entity attained its status of holiness was by means of a process of separation and distinction.
(3) Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, instead of Chol (profane/non-holy) was wont to say "that which is not yet holy." While such phraseology could point to his mystical bent, finding the spark of holiness in even that which appears, at least on the surface, to be the most removed from it, the turn of phrase is also consistent with R. Yehoshua ben Levi's comment in Pesachim 3a. The Amora (Rabbinic authority from the Talmudic period) explains the apparent circumlocution in Beraishit 7:2, where instead of describing ritually impure/non-Kosher animals as Tameh (the Hebrew word for this status) the Tora chooses the more loquacious "Asher Lo Tehora" (that are not ritually pure/Kosher). While ordinarily the Tora is assumed to use words most sparingly, and therefore each word and even letter is properly susceptible to intense scrutiny in order to determine its possible meanings, in this case the Tora departed from its normal pattern (except for this instance, the Tora does refer to animals as Tameh, e.g., in this week's Parsha, VaYikra 20:25), in order to teach the principle that one should strive to say things in dignified, proper ways, rather than using words that are crude and disagreeable. Could R. Kook have thought that Chol was on the same par as Tameh?
(4) Although 10:10, in which the need to make distinctions between the ritually pure and impure is addressed to Kohanim specifically, and therefore it might be contended that the need for Havdala might only apply to those who are engaged in the Temple Service, the repetition of this theme in 11:47 within the context of Kashrut, Halachot that are relevant to all Jews, demonstrates that Havdala is a process that everyone must adopt. Furthermore, this could be a ramification of the reference to the Jewish people en masse in Shemot 19:6 as "Mamlechet Kohanim" (a kingdom of priests), a figurative rather than literal usage of the term "Kohanim".
(5) Beraishit 17:9 ff.
(6) The only other ritual law explicitly recorded in Beraishit is in 32:33, the prohibition against consuming the Gid HaNasheh (sinew of the vein). However, the only ones who would probably be made aware of this restriction are those preparing meat for consumption, and significant numbers of Jews, let along non-Jews, would not regularly take note of anything distinctive about Jews and their lifestyle from such a practice.
(7) If one follows the tradition recorded in the Oral Tradition, e.g., cited by RaShI on 26:5, that maintains that Avraham as well as those following him, already observed all commandments, both Toraitic as well as Rabbinic, then the entire nexus of distinguishing Jewish behaviors would already be in play from the earliest years of the founders of the Jewish people. A reading of the Biblical text without such an assumption leads to an evolutionary approach to the gradual imposition over time of more and more reminders to the Jews with regard to whom they are.
(8) Another possible series of ritual practices that might be cited as distinctively Jewish is the preparations that Yaakov demanded his family to undergo prior to their return to Canaan (Beraishit 35:2-4) entailing divesting themselves of their idols and jewelry, as well as changing their clothing. Just as in the Midrash, Avraham is depicted as smashing other people's idols, the elimination of the personal idols of the Jews prior to taking up residence in the Holy Land may constitute a specific religious practice tied up not only to theology, but also their identities. However, we do not have other Biblical referents whereby we could insist that such actions constitute normative, typical behavior.
(9) 34:1 ff., particularly v. 14.
(10) RaShI on VaYikra 24:11 notes that the reason why the Tora specifies the name of the mother of the blasphemer is in order to give indirect praise to the Jewish people. This woman alone married an Egyptian-the Tora text notes that the blasphemer was the son of an Egyptian man-but no one else did so, an indication of the ethnic loyalty that the Jews possessed even under the duress of slavery.
(11) The assumption that the Jews had ceased practicing circumcision while in Egypt puts a new light on the emphasis upon the prohibition against a non-circumcised individual partaking in the Pesach sacrifice in Shemot 12:43-48. While some of these verses clearly are addressing the participation of non-Jews in the consumption of the sacrifice, even RaShI interprets the end of v. 48 as pertaining to Jews. While RaShI suggests a rather unique circumstance where an uncircumcised Jew might think that he is entitled to join in the sacrifice, the assumption that in Egypt, great masses of Jews had to first be circumcised in order that they may be redeemed makes the Exodus that much more dramatic to imagine. If the only Jewish firstborn to survive the 10th and final plague were residents of houses upon whose doorposts the blood of the Pesach sacrifice was smeared, (12:13) and it also stands to reason that the Jews who ultimately chose to follow Moshe and leave Israel, as opposed to those who opted to remain (see RaShI on 10:22; 13:18), also resided in those houses. Consequently the scrambling that took place to guarantee that people qualified to not only eat the sacrifice, but also to be redeemed must have been a profound moment in which to participate.