“Leviticus. Progressive. Who knew?”
Certainly not me. Even though Torah study is still a
relatively new experience for me, I always
find it hard to wade through the pages of Leviticus (a.k.a. Vayikra, the Hebrew
transliteration for the opening words "He called”, otherwise known as
Torat Kohanim or “priestly instructions”).
Found stuffed between its opening and
concluding words is an infamous list of “do’s” and “don’t”s for both the members
of The Tribe of Levi (read: priests) and everyone else (read: everyone else).
Notorious highlighted rules include admonishments against “working on the
Sabbath, handling the dead skin of various animals, (clearly not foreseeing the
concept of footballs), having sex with a man “as one does with a woman” (bad
news for bottoms but thumbs-up for tops?), and making idols or “metal gods”
(19:4) (perhaps foreseeing the hair bands of the ‘80’s?), practicing divination
or seeking omens (19:26), trimming your beard (19:27), getting tattoos (19:28),
and cursing your father or mother (punishable by death) (20:9), blasphemy (also
punishable by stoning to death) (24:14).” (Wait - doesn't Deuteronomy’s “an eye for an
eye” call for measured legal remedies? The Torah’s struggle goes on.)
As far as the Five Books of Moses go, the Book of the
Levites remains my instant nomination for The Torah Portion Most Likely to Be
Quoted by Reporters and Politicians on Fox News.
So when I awoke a recent Saturday morning and opened my
Torah to see which parsha we would be studying – a ritual I do every Shabbat
morning – I got about three passages before issuing a pained groan. Leviticus.
Oh. Joy. The narrative build-up of Genesis and the CGI-laden drama of
Exodus seems to set the reader up for some serious anti-climactic
disappointment with Leviticus, IMO. Seriously, after plaguing Pharoah and the
exodus from Egypt, then the theophany of Sinai and grappling with the meaning
of The Golden Calf Incident, and finally the building of the tabernacle with
dolphin skins (dolphin skins, I tell you!), how am I supposed to get excited
about being reminded to burn the fat of a slaughtered bull and knowing which
side of the altar to put the remains of the bird I just pulled apart? (“And
there was much rejoicing.”)
Yet that morning’s Torah Study
challenged my disdain. A discussion around first few verses of Leviticus led to
a listing of similarities (and by extension, differences) between the
recently-read Sinai Moment and the listed Leviticus Sacrifices. As the comparisons
were getting popcorned about the room – the Torah studiers I spend my Saturday morning
make up a pretty fearless bunch - it struck me that these sacrifices served not
only as an acknowledgement of sin to God but as a reparative mechanism to the
nascent Israel society. Pretty radical, because in many ways this people were
the living breathing definition of a mechanical society, and mechanical
societies do not embrace making such amends.
So what was going on here?
Some quick back-story before moving forward. Brought to you
by Emile Durkheim.
Durkeim, that perennial favorite of Sociology Theory courses
worldwide, theorized there are two types of societies (or solidarities):
mechanical and organic. The former is delineated by tightly regulated homogeneity.
In this particular society there is a strong similarity between individuals; many
of its citizens are working at the same or similar jobs, entertaining the same
beliefs, enforcing the same values. The collective consciousness is reinforced
to the point of fundamentalism. Tradition rules in mechanical solidarities. Needlessly
to say, these cultures tend to be very religious.
On the other side of the spectrum is organic solidarity,
which is defined by a diverse labor division which acknowledges that only
through a variety of people adding their own specialized skills to the greater
whole does the greater whole even exist. Interdependence is celebrated and
advocated. The collective consciousness is less cohesive and therefore
encompasses a wider range of values. Organic solidarities occur in more
modern/industrialized spaces. Here secularism is the prevailing governance.
As you might imagine, law and
punishment serve different purposes for each of these solidarities. In the
mechanical, rules are authoritative, the punishments repressively severe. Those
who break the law are made examples of in order to maintain the tight
cohesiveness of the society and protect tradition. For organic solidarities
restitution is what maintains order. Because tradition is not at the core of
the society, it need not be guarded by severity. Laws are made to bring all
parties involved in the infraction (and society as a whole) back to the point
right before the infraction. If your child throws a rock throw my window, the
law obliges you to pay for the damage and replace the window as it was to the
moment before the rock met the glass (as opposed to mechanical solidarity’s
punishments, which might include taking your child hand’s off by the wrist.)
We cannot be all that surprised then when, after just being
handed the Ten Commandments from God at Sinai (and then being chastised and
having 3000 of your kinsmen slain for the transgression of The Golden Calf)
Jacob’s descendants turn to fundamentalism to keep God’s words and maintain
order. They are out in the literal and metaphoric wilderness and have been
witness to marvels beyond their comprehension without a Google Search engine in
sight for another couple of millennium. What else to fall back on than their
own traditions and themselves (especially as God has just entered into a
covenant with them based upon promises made to their ancestors). So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised laws
are put into place to stone the laborer who works on the Sabbath or the child
who disrespects their parents.
Then Leviticus offers us something else: a process of reparation
through purgation/sin /trespass offerings. A particularly novel and bold
approach for עם ישראל.
Would not the model of repression simply been easier as a social control
mechanism? What was their intent? Was it to separate themselves from
neighboring nations who may have been given to more severe forms of penal law? Or
to signal that the recent covenant actually signaled the opportunity for a new
societal order? Or maybe it was to construct a way to process sin that wouldn't trigger another round of wholesale murder among the ranks (which was probably
seen as a tad off-putting.)
Another plus, as The Torah: A Women’s Commentary notes:
the Leviticus sacrifices offered a not only the categorization of types of
infraction and the mindset behind it (intentional versus unconscious) but the
rank of the person actually breaking the law (priest, tribal leader, laity).
What’s so fascinating about looking at Leviticus through a
sociological lens is that it offers a window on the formation of a new nation as
it grapples with the struggle of keeping holy precepts while at the same time
distinguishing itself from neighboring fundamentalist communities. How often do
we get to see mechanical and organic values being weighed and measured in the
same social space?
Leviticus, the sociological page-turner. Who knew?
