“Hey Moses, God here. What say you guys come over to the home you just built me and hang a bit?”
Leviticus picks up the story of Moses and the Israelites after the building of the Tabernacle. When Exodus ends, God has settled into the tent as a big puffy cloud. The Israelites wait for God to finish checking the place out and head back to heaven, so they can continue on the trek from Mt. Sinai, where they’ve been camped out for over a year now. After all, God promised them, through Moses, that one of his avatars would lead the way to the Promised Land, the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… i.e., Israel. And they’re anxious to move on and get back to the home of their ancestors. But God just wants to be a part of it all, and now that he’s got himself a pretty new tent with an altar for sacrifices and an ark for storing sacred writings, he doesn’t seem quite ready to pick up and head out. After all, those things were built for more than show. Perhaps some rules and rituals will bring it all together.
- God is apparently a bit peckish, demanding the Israelites bring cows, sheep, goats, turtledoves, and/or pigeons as burnt offerings to him. Aaron and the priests are given explicit instructions on how to slaughter, dismember, disembowel, and exsanguinate the animals. Lots of blood splashing about the altar, lots of gruesome tearing and ripping and chopping. Lots of slow smoking over wood fires… basically, God has anointed Aaron as his official pitmaster.
- Flour or grain offerings are also wanted, preferably in the form of griddle cakes, mixing the flour or grain with oil. A portion of the offering is burned on the altar for God, after mixing with frankincense (presumably to cover over the burning smell of the flour). The rest of the offering is eaten by the priests. With salt. No flour or grain offerings can be eaten without salt. It’s literally ordered by God to salt your food. Tell that to your cardiologist!
- Addendum: Robert Alter, in his book The Hebrew Bible, seems troubled by the exclusion of leavening and honey from burnt offerings of grains/cakes. I’m only speculating, but we’ve seen in other writings that the sages realized that leavening was a living organism. It may simply be that they didn’t want to burn a living being alive, sentient or not. As to the honey, the idea is for a “pleasing aroma” for God. Have you ever smelled burning honey? Especially date honey?
- When a cow, sheep, or goat is brought for sacrifice to the Tabernacle, it is slaughtered at the entrance. The priests drain its blood, which is then cast about the Altar. They remove all the fat around the entrails, organs, and loins, and burn it on the Altar. And this is where the whole method of kosher ritual slaughtering comes from. Since all the blood and fat were required to be offered to God, the people, the Jews, are forbidden from eating either blood or fat. It’s why kosher meat is so often dry and flavorless.
- In the event of unwitting violation of any of the Commandments, an offering is made in atonement – the blood of the animal is splashed on the altar and poured at its base, the fat is burned on that altar, and everything else is taken outside the camp and burned. If the offender is a priest or community leader, the offering must be a bull. If the offender is a tribal chieftain, it must be a male goat. If anyone else, it must be either a female goat or sheep. Noting, this is when the violation is “unwitting”.
- If a person commits an offense against another person, and doesn’t realize it until afterwards, he is required to confess, pay restitution, and bring an offering to the Tabernacle, where, yes, the blood is splashed about, and the fat is burned. Sensing a theme here.
- The sacrificial fire of the altar is never allowed to burn out, it is tended by the priests, kept going, and each morning a priest is assigned to remove the ashes from the previous day’s sacrifices, and take them out of camp and bury them in a sacred spot. While the priests are entitled to eat the portion of a sacrifice that isn’t burned, that does not hold true if the offering is made by, or on behalf of, a priest himself, in which case 100% of the offering is burned.
- A rehash of all of the above. Selecting of sacrificial animal, dashing of blood around the altar, burning of fat, priests eating the remaining parts of the offer. Reminder that others can’t eat fat or blood, the start of the kosher meat rules. One addition, if there are leftovers of the sacrificial meal, the priests can eat those the next day, though leftovers can’t be eaten the third day, they must be burned. Every Jewish mother on the planet is guilty of violating that precept. Leftovers are re-served until finished!
- God tells Moses to gather the priests and community leaders together, and institute the new sacrificial system. Moses washes the priests, anoints them with oil, and demonstrates the process of slaughter, blood splashing, and fat burning with a calf. He has them repeat the steps with a ram, and then marks them with blood on their right ear, thumb, and big toe. The symbolism is to remind them of the sacredness of listening, action, and walking a righteous path through life. Then they boil the remaining meat and eat it.
- Having gotten Aaron and the priests sorted, Moses turns to the people and has them bring three offerings; of sin, of burning, and of well-being. They bring a goat, an ox, and a ram. Slaughter, blood splashing, fat burning, priests eating. Everyone got the system now?
- Aaron’s two sons Nadab and Abihu, not quite getting the whole new system, bring an incense offering into the Tabernacle and burn it on the altar, presumably a vestige of past worship practices. God, incensed himself, kills them in a flash of rage. On instruction from God, Moses tells Aaron he’s not to mourn his sons, and their bodies are to be placed in the public square for the community to learn obedience from. Aaron is also told to eat his daily sacrificial portion, since he’s not allowed to fast in mourning. Aaron’s nephews, cousins of the two dead sons, quietly burn the offering so that Aaron doesn’t have to eat it. He then pleads with Moses that after all, he’s a father who just lost his sons, and it’s unreasonable to expect him to not mourn. Moses agrees. This is so… not anything that I remember learning as a child. I mean, I knew there were the whole vengeful God bits, but this is just downright petty.
- God starts in on the kosher laws. The Israelites may eat of any land animal that has true, cloven hooves and chews its cud. Four mammals are singled out as unacceptable – camels, hyraxes, hares, and pigs. These are noted as “impure”. From the water, anything with fins and scales. Anything else from the water is an “abomination”. From the air, a list of birds (and bats) that are abominations, but no definition of which are acceptable, other than by not being on the list, one presumes. Locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers are fine to eat, but no other insects, particularly multi-legged ones. No animals that walk on paws. No lizards nor snakes. Touching or eating any of those prohibited makes one impure. Until sunset. Yup, impure you may be, but you get a reset.
- You know, given the intense Jewish focus on procreation, the whole be fruitful and multiply thing, you wouldn’t think that God would make childbirth an example of spiritual impurity. But, after giving birth, a woman is considered impure for thirty-three days. On the eighth day, if she had a son, he is to be circumcised. On the thirty-third day, she makes a “sin offering” of a lamb and a dove at the Temple in order to be purified. A “sin”. Really?! If she’s poor, two doves. Or pigeons. Sacrificing pigeons is okay in my book too. Somehow or other, this morning, I completely missed that if she has a daughter, the time the mother is considered impure is doubled, to sixty six days. Makes the misogyny worse. But still might need to sacrifice extra pigeons. Everybody sacrifice pigeons!
- Skin scales, rashes, eruptions, and discolorations are to be reported to the Temple priests. They will examine these, and depending on their coloration and severity, will decide if the person is pure or impure, and/or needs to be isolate for a week, or long-term. The same is to be done with clothing or fabrics that suddenly show signs of some sort of “infection” – molds and mildews. Although the Tanakh and Talmud talk about “leprosy”, it was a catch-all term for multiple types of infections affecting the skin or clothing.
- Week to week, the priest re-examines the person, clothing, or home for evidence that the infection is still present or is cleared up. If cleared up there’s a whole ritual involved that involves shaving heads, intense washing, or tearing out stones and re-plastering. Then, of course, sacrificial rituals involving lambs (yummy!), pigeons (yay!), and the smearing of blood on the right ear, thumb, and big toe. If, the infection hasn’t cleared, there’s more isolation, or in the case of clothing and homes, burning and/or dismantling.
- If a man has an STD, he is considered impure for a week. Anyone who touches him, his clothing, or his furniture, is impure until nightfall. At the end of the week, the man is considered pure. After sacrificing two pigeons of course! When a woman has her period, she is considered impure for a week. Anyone who touches her, her clothing, or her furniture, is impure until nightfall. At the end of the week, the woman is considered pure. After sacrificing two pigeons of course! If a man has an orgasm during intercourse, masturbation, or spontaneously, he is considered impure until nightfall. Then he takes a bath, washes any clothes that were stained by semen, and is considered pure. I think bathing and washing the clothes earlier would be a good idea.
- Aaron, or the High Priests who follow him, once a year on the 10th day of the 7th month are to enter the Tabernacle with a bull, a ram, and two goats. He is to sacrifice the bull and sprinkle its blood around the altar with his fingers. The ram is a burnt offering. He burns incense in front of the curtain leading to the Ark, obscuring it so that he can enter the room housing the Ark without being overwhelmed by the presence of God and dying. Then, he sacrifices one of the goats. The other is endowed by him with the sins of the community. A designated guide takes the “scapegoat” to the wilderness and lets it go, taking the people’s sins with it. Then Aaron and the guide, strip, bathe, re-dress, and Aaron blesses the people for the next year. The day is spent in self-denial and not working. Welcome to Yom Kippur.
- Stop worshiping goat demons and drinking the blood of sacrifices. Any ox, goat, or sheep that is killed, its blood and fat must be offered at the Temple in sacrifice, and any remaining blood is to be poured on the ground and covered with earth. That is all.
- Don’t be like the Egyptians or Canaanites. That’s to say, apparently, no incest, no adultery, no homosexuality, no bestiality, no sex with both a woman and her daughter. We’ve all seen/heard this list. A couple of notes. First, all of these are prohibitions for men. The only one of these that women are specifically prohibited from is bestiality. Second, all of the various incestuous relationships are specified, with one exception; sleeping with one’s own daughter, which is not covered in the extensive list. Third, in re homosexuality…. The ancient Hebrew word used in this listing is a specific one that refers to an actual or simulated act of procreation – i.e., vaginal, anal or intercrural (between the legs) penetration. No other sexual acts are mentioned for any of these prohibitions.
- Summing this up would be hard, since it’s basically a bullet-point listing of dos and don’ts with no organization. Examples include no making, talking to, or worshipping idols, spirits, or ghosts; leaving a portion of fields unpicked for the poor to eat; no tattoos; no stealing; no cheating; no falsifying weights or measures; no insulting deaf people (Talmudic rabbis, take note, please); no creating obstacles for the blind; no grudges or revenge; no hybrid breeding of livestock, or plants. It’s a grab bag of seemingly random rules.
- Parents who practice child sacrifice to Moloch (a bull god) are to be put to death, and their relatives excommunicated and exiled. Remember all those sexual prohibitions in chapter 18? All of them are punishable by death. Not just homosexuality, all of them. That means incest, adultery, bestiality, and more. Same punishment. Death. Oh, plus, a couple who engages in sex while the woman is menstruating are to be excommunicated and exiled. Remarkable how selective some people get in talking about abominations.
- Temple priests have to be pure. They can’t: touch a dead body except immediate family; shave their heads or sideburns; scarify themselves; marry a harlot, widow, divorcee, or any non-virgin. If their daughter is a harlot, she’s to be burned to death. Physically they must be unblemished – not blind, lame, or with limbs of unequal length, no misshapen bones, hunchbacks, dwarves, growths in the eye, boils, scurvy, or non-functioning testicles. That’s just the first page of the application.
- Priests need to make sure that any sacrificial donations are up to snuff, unblemished and all that. If the priest is in a state of impurity they shouldn’t handle the sacrifice. And, they shouldn’t take more than their allotted portion of the sacrifice. ’nuff said.
- God has set aside specific festivals that must be observed – Passover, Yom Kippur, and Sukkoth – along with some specific practices for each. A preamble, which many biblical historians apparently assert was added later, adds in the weekly Shabbat celebration. Of particular note, only one of these has a punishment for not keeping it – Yom Kippur. Working on Yom Kippur is grounds for excommunication and exile.
- Each Sabbath, the priests are to place offerings of olive oil, twelve freshly baked loaves of bread, and incense in front of the altar. God likes the aromas, you know? Later, they get to eat the bread. God isn’t having it when someone uses his name as a curse, and demands that the community as a whole throw stones at him until he’s dead. Lex talonis is introduced; an eye for an eye – anyone who murders, maims, or injures another person is to receive the same in punishment. Apparently using God’s name as a curse is equivalent to murder.
- On returning to Israel, for those in agriculture, every seven years, fields are to be left untouched. Your family, your servants, slaves, and livestock can eat whatever grows naturally, but no work is to be done. This cycle is repeated seven times, forty-nine years. Then, the fiftieth year, the Jubilee year, all remaining debts are to be forgiven, slaves and indentured servants released, and, if you purchased the land during those fifty years, the original seller is given the right to buy it back at an agreed on price. Timing is everything!
- So God, what do we get in return for following all these rules? Glad you asked! I’ll give you great weather, abundant crops, make you fertile and strong, destroy your enemies, make you favored among all. In short, the chosen people of God. But if you don’t follow the rules, I’ll make things hard on you. Like really hard, to the point of breaking your body and spirit. And if that doesn’t work, trust me, I’ll destroy you. You’ll be the lowest of the low. Despised, destitute, distraught, hey, I may even throw in some cannibalism.
- A somewhat confusing ending to this book, which also seems far shorter than I’d remembered or imagined. A person can pledge money, livestock, or land as a votive offering, a ritual dedication to God while in adverse circumstances, with the intent to redeem it later. But not just any amount, there are actually set amounts based on whether you’re male or female, and your age bracket. The amounts can be altered by priestly assessment if you can’t afford them. There are penalties for changing your mind, and there’s interest to pay on redemption.