The Dilemma Of Being Human: Acharei Mot

The Dilemma Of Being Human

D’var Torah for Parashat Acharei-Mot

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

On years that don’t have the extra month of Adar (or an intervening holiday), this week’s Torah portion (Acharei-Mot) and next week’s (Kedoshim) are twinned, chanted on the same Shabbat. 

They belong together.  They complement one another.

Leviticus veered off its storyline somewhat in the two portions dealing with skin diseases and other bodily malfunctions.  Now it picks up where it left off—with the death of Nadav and Avihu, two of Aaron’s four sons.

The tragedy and loss of that disaster had left behind bitter and anguished questions, not only about what exactly the two young men had done wrong, but also about the swift ferocity of God’s response.  Before Noah’s flood, there came God’s command to build the ark and save at least some life; before the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham had plenty of time to raise several objections.  But in this case, the punishing flame was instantaneous.  Clearly something in the way the two men approached God (b’korvatam, “as they drew near”) was wrong.

Acharei-Mot, (“After the death,” Leviticus 16:1—18:30) gives instructions meant to protect us from similar retribution.  Here are commands that, if followed strictly, will act as a shield between us and God’s fierce vengeance.

It’s all in the manner in which we approach God, the Torah tells us.  It’s what we wear, what offering we bring, what we say; it’s about humility, even (or especially) if you are the high priest.  It’s about curbing our voracious appetites and striving for the highest standards in our relationships and ideals.

The problem is that the rules and regulations of Acharei-Mot are impossible to follow to perfection. 

A good chunk of the portion speaks of the process of atonement—the purification of our souls and bodies—that must precede our approach to God.   It’s a process we read about and try to follow at least once a year, on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.  Our 24-hour fast finds its roots in this portion.  So does the description of the High Priest’s sacrificial ritual on that holiest of days, described to the minutest detail in our Yom Kippur afternoon service.   We can only imagine the overwhelming emotions that people must have felt back in the days when the ritual was actually practiced, when the Temple was yet standing in Jerusalem.

We read; we imagine; in our thoughts we go back to those days.  But the reality today is different, more complex.  Things have obviously changed, and atonement with God is somehow more difficult today.  Maybe we have too many unanswered questions today.  As it is, we can only look at the perfect rules given us in Acharei-Mot and sigh.  

It isn’t only the priest who is given such difficult responsibilities and obligations as he approaches God.  It’s about us, too, the rest of the people.  The ones who wrestle not only with God and God’s demands, but also with our all-too-human appetites and desires.

Acharei-Mot forbids us from eating meat with any blood left it in. Theoretically, that’s not impossible.  The shochet—the kosher butcher—has those laws covered.  He knows how to slaughter the animal while inflicting the least amount of pain, then how to drain its blood.  But there’s always some left behind.  And if it isn’t the actual blood itself—even after we soak and salt the meat, there’s some residual left—then it’s the guilt over the taking of a life.  It may be only an animal, but its life and soul, like ours, also came from God.  How do we justify killing it just to satisfy our lust for meat?

It’s too easy to enjoy the meal without thinking.  The prepackaged plastic trays are too convenient to stop and reflect about the conditions in which the animal was raised or killed.

Life is complex.  Can’t we just enjoy something without feeling guilty about something we may not have done just so?

And then, on top of it all, for the remainder of the portion, we have the sexual taboos and mores.  Some of them are easy enough to follow.  Our culture and society do not accept certain relationships, and it’s easy to understand why.  Relations with close family members can lead to all sorts of genetic and psychological problems.

Certainly bestiality is beyond the scope of all but the most perverted among us.

But relationships between two men?  Why are those in the same category?  Why are those forbidden by the Torah?

Surely Acharei-Mot refers not to loving relationships—which occur in many other examples throughout the Bible and our Jewish history and literature—but to the rapacious kind, the greedy and predatory variety in which one person imposes his will upon another, violating the most intimate and loving relationship that can exist between two human beings.

Yet the strict laws stand in place, an impossible standard that some people try to enforce on others, often driving them into unhappy and unhealthy relationships instead.

Yes, we can say that so much time has passed since the Torah first expressed its views on life and the way it should go.  We’ve learned so much about the human condition since those days.

But the words remain intact, an unreachable code of holiness that nobody can live up to without guilt, justified or not, atoneable or not. 

That’s why Kedoshim comes in immediately after this portion.  Its rules of holiness are easier to live by, easier to understand, easier to measure oneself and one’s behavior against. 

Still, in its own way Acharei-Mot makes us think about the way things are, and about the way they should be.  It is somewhere in-between those two extremes that we find ourselves, forever struggling between our basic instincts of greed, pleasure and satisfaction and the higher goals of holiness that God (or we, in our most exalted moments) would like to see in us.

We are by definition neither vegetable nor mineral, but rather animal.  An animal takes what it can and wants in order to satisfy its needs, following genetically ingrained rules (somewhat modified, perhaps, by human training).  But within us human beings lies something else—a seed of holiness, a spiritual essence that directs our thoughts and purposes in a loftier direction.  Even if it is an impossible goal, we still strive to make it our guiding star, our moral compass.

That we don’t always succeed is part of the human condition.  But we may never stop trying, either.  That’s part of the dilemma of being human.

© 2014 by Boaz D. Heilman