What We Take By Force

What We Take By Force

D’var Torah for Parashat Acharei Mot, Leviticus 16:1—18:30

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

With this week’s parasha, Acharei Mot (“After the Death”), the Torah returns to the difficult questions raised by God’s killing of Aaron’s two sons, Nadav and Avihu, when they offered “a strange fire” to God. While the Torah offers no direct explanation of what the “strange fire” was, several possibilities are raised both by the text and by rabbinic commentators. With this week’s portion, yet another possible cause is given for such terrible punishment.

The first part of the parasha is a description of the Yom Kippur ritual at the temple. After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the many sacrifices offered on that occasion have given way to the day-long fast and services we offer today. But despite the many differences between the ancient ritual and its modern counterpart, what remains in common is the rabbinic teaching that “For transgressions against God, the Day of Atonement atones; but for transgressions of one human being against another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until they have made peace with one another.”

If the gates of forgiveness are always open—as our High Holy Days prayerbook reminds us—then why did God take the life of Aaron’s two sons? Can there be sins, or transgressions, that are unforgivable, for which the Day of Atonement does not atone? If so, then they must be of the latter kind, “transgressions of one human being against another,” and they must be of such a horrendous kind that no amount of pardon seeking can achieve atonement.

That kind of sin is described—in all its lurid forms and variations—in chapter 18.

Sexual taboos are common throughout the world. Whatever the reason, they are seen as “abomination,” acts of the deepest depravity.

From the Torah’s perspective, what they have in common is that in each case, someone takes advantage of another being. The acts described in this chapter are not consensual; these are illustrations of the forceful violation of person and property in which the person who has been violated has no right or ability to oppose his or her oppressor.

The unforgivable sin is sexual abuse, which was the common ritual practice of religions such as the worship of Bacchus or the murderous Molech. (The homosexual acts decried in 18:22 must be seen as within the same category as the bloody rites described in 18:21).

The physical, emotional and psychological hurt caused by such violence is both extremely deep and long lasting. Today we understand that it is often (though not always) the cause of an ongoing chain of similar behavior, a psychological trigger over which a person has little or no control.

The abuse we hear about all too often today is nothing new. It is the sin which the Torah describes as “the practice of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelled… and like the practice of the land of Canaan… to which I am bringing you” (Lev. 18:3). It is the customs and behavior for which a people lose right to their land, the ultimate pollution and degradation of life and land for which there can be no forgiveness.

The Book of Leviticus thus continues drawing a boundary between what it calls holy and profane. The revolutionary lesson of this book is that holiness is not a condition that we achieve by offering prayer or even sacrifice, but rather by how we behave with one another. What we take by force can never be described as holy. It is, by definition, profane, evil, unforgivable.

©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman