Take the blasphemer outside

And the entire community shall stone him. (Vayikra 24, 14)

The place of execution had to

be outside the Israelite camp (Sanhedrin 42b, "outside the three camps"), outside the city. If the law court itself

was outside the city, the place of execution had to be some distance away from

it, so that it should not appear as if the court considered its highest

attribute to be "the sword of justice." Altogether the essential

character of the criminal court was to direct its efforts to finding reasons

for freeing the accused rather than for pronouncing him guilty. The verdict of

"guilty" was already before the court in the warning of the accusing

witnesses and the real task before the court was to test and examine this

pronounced sentence, and to find out if there were not some mitigating reasons

for a "not guilty" verdict. Another reason, given there, for having

the place of execution at a distance from the court is so that some time must

elapse between the pronouncement and the carrying out of the sentence (the

sentence had to be carried out immediately after the verdict), in which time

some fresh reason for reconsidering the verdict might arrive. For while the

condemned man was being taken away a man stood at the door of the court with a

flag in hand, and a mounted messenger was posted just within sight; should one

of the judges find some fresh reason in favor of the criminal, the one waved

his flag and the other galloped off at full speed and held up the proceedings.

More, even if the condemned man himself, on the way to the execution, declared

he had something fresh for his defense, he was taken back even four or five

times provided that, in the opinion of the two judges who accompanied him for

this very eventuality, there was some foundation, however slight, for his

assertion.

(Rabbi

S.R. Hirsch on Vayikra 24:14)

The Kohanim, sons of Aaron

Pinchas Leiser

Dedicated

to my dear father-in-law

R.

Israel Hollander

Upon

his 90^th birthday

May

he enjoy many further pleasant and healthy years.

Since

the destruction of the Temple

and beginning with the period of the Sages, the priests – the Kohanim – have

undergone a change of status. Back in the days of the Temple they played a central role in

spiritual leadership and worship, but today they serve no significant function

in leading the people and they do not enjoy a monopoly in any other important

area of life.

It

is interesting to note that the central prohibitions mentioned in the beginning

of our parasha – the prohibition against becoming ritually impure from contact

with a corpse, the prohibition against marrying a divorcee – remain in force

today. The Kohanim also give the Priestly Blessing and play a crucial role in

the pidyon haben, the ceremonial redemption of a first-born son. It

is also customary to reserve the first aliyah of the Torah reading for Kohanim

out of consideration for darkhei shalom, "ways of peace."

Despite

all the above, when the Sages set about formulating the spiritual hierarchy

that has clear halakhic implications in situations where lives must be saved,

they said (Mishnah

Horayot 3:8): "[When

dealing with] a scholarly mamzer [man of illegitimate birth] and an

ignorant High Priest; a scholarly mamzer comes before an ignorant High

Priest." That is to say, those spiritual achievements which determine

one's rank for society depends on one's personal efforts and not on one's

family pedigree. The Talmud (Yoma 71b) relates an

incident in which a group of people left the High Priest in order to accompany

Shmaya and Avtalyon:

Our

Rabbis taught: It happened with a high priest that as he came forth from the

Sanctuary, all the people followed him, but when they saw Shemaya and Avtalyon,

they forsook him and went after Shmaya and Avtalyon. Eventually Shmaya and Avtalyon

visited him, to take their leave of the high priest. He said to them: May the

descendants of the heathen come in peace! [Shmaya and Avtalyon descended from

gentiles, according to tradition they descended from Sannacherib] – They

answered him: May the descendants of the heathen, who do the work of Aaron,

arrive in peace, but the descendant of Aaron, who does not do the work of Aaron,

he shall not come in peace! (based on Soncino translation)

This

story gives clear expression to the revolution that had taken place in the

Sages' notions of honor and social distinction. The sage, the Torah scholar,

took pride of place over the Kohen, and the Sages further established (Bava Batra 12a) that, "A sage takes precedence over a

prophet." The social hierarchy had changed.

The

deterioration of the priestly status can already be found in Scripture when

Eli's sons misused their position; similarly, the Kohanim were often puppets of

the kings in the days of the monarchy. The Hasmonean kingdom also degenerated,

a phenomenon that gives cause for concern not only about overly close links

between government and finance, but also between the spiritual leadership and

political power.

In

any event, as Jews who are loyal to halakhic tradition we continue to observe

the prohibitions mentioned in the parasha: we give a Kohen the first aliyah, we

reserve the Kohen his place in pidyon haben, and we pray that God should

"return the Kohanim to their worship."

I

believe that this question goes beyond the relevance of the Kohanim's status or

the relevance of a "born aristocracy" in a modern society which has

adopted – at least in principle – the notion that all human beings are born equal

and should be judged by their accomplishments. (Of course, it remains

undeniable in our own times that a person's place of birth and ancestry can

play an important role in determining his social status).

Are

we to treat the preservation of the priesthood as a necessary remnant of

earlier days which reflects the universal presence of some kind of

"aristocracy" or another in every society? I don't think such

explanations relate with sufficient seriousness to the biblical verses and

rabbinic traditions which took pains – despite the radical revolution within

Judaism – to preserve something of the priestly status.

As I

mentioned above, this question is not restricted to the status of Kohanim; it

also touches upon everything we say in our prayers longing for the Temple service and the

sacrificial rite.

When

three times each day we say, "and return the service to the Devir

early restoration of the sacrificial rites as the were practiced in the First

and Second Temples?

Even

HaRav Kook, who appears to have taken care to study Seder Kedoshim together

with the Hafetz Hayyim in case the Temple were rebuilt, wrote in his commentary

on the Siddur that in the future all the sacrifices will be of vegetable

matter.

The

Gemara (Ta'anit

17a) mentions the view of

Rabbi, who prohibited the Kohanim of "our days" from ever drinking

wine, just in case the Temple

might be rebuilt and there will be an immediate need for fit Kohanim to perform

the services there.

Other

rabbis, such as R. Haim Hirschenson, thought that the renewal of sacrifices was

unimaginable, since that form of worship is not suited to our age.

In

his Guide for the Perplexed, RaMBaM views the worship of God through

sacrifices as a necessary but temporary developmental stage that took into

account the people's early spiritual condition in which they were unable to

think in terms of any other form of worship. He thought that prayer constituted

a more highly developed mode of serving God than that of sacrifice.

I

think that we should adopt the RaMBaM's attitude regarding the Messianic Age (Hilkhot Melakhim 12:2):

No

one is in a position to know the details of this and similar things until the

have come to pass. They are not explicitly stated by the prophets. Nor have the

rabbis any tradition with regard to these matters. They are guided solely by

what the Scriptural texts seem to imply. Hence there is a divergence of opinion

on the subject. (Yale

translation)

We

do not know how human society will develop. Any description we offer of the

future expresses our current experience of the world. As a result, we are

unable to have clear knowledge of the character of the worship of God in the

Messianic Age and what role the Kohanim will play in it.

Nevertheless:

I think that it was important to the Sages who shaped the halakhic tradition to

preserve some of the symbols which tie us to earlier generations. The Kohen,

who represents memory of those early days when he served a central role, is one

such symbol. By way of the Kohen, who represents the Temple, we connect to roots which can nourish

us with inspiration to undertake further spiritual development. I think that a

similar idea is expressed by the puzzling rule that Purim must be celebrated on

the 15^th of Adar in cities which were walled specifically "from

the days of Joshua ben Nun." That rule honors the Land of Israel,

which lay in ruins at the time of the rule's formulation.

The

halakhic culture shaped by the Sages requires us, on the one hand, to connect

with the memory of the past, but it also demands that we not become frozen in

that past; it also insists that we be aware that we don't really know what the

future will bring.

Pinchas

Leiser, editor of Shabbat Shalom, is a psychologist

Our Is A Torah Of Life

And the Lord said to

you] defile himself for a dead person among his people.

(Vayikra

21:1)

Antique

and modern heathenism like so very much to associate

religion and religious matters with death and thoughts of death. For them,

where Man ends is where the Kingdom

of God begins. For them

death and dying are the real manifestations of their godhead, who to them is a

god of death and not of life. A god who kills and does not animate, and sends

death and its forerunners, illness and wretchedness, so that men should fear

him, realize his power and their impotence. The places which they dedicate to

temples are therefore round about graves, the foremost place of their priest is

there with the dead…

Not

so is the Jewish priest because not so is the Jewish teaching of God, the

Jewish religion. The God, Whose Name assigns the Jewish priest to his office is

a God of life. His most sublime manifestation is the elevating power of Life,

freeing, animating, raising Man to free will and to

eternal life, not the crushing power of death. Not how one is to die, but how

one is to live, how, living, one has victoriously to conquer death, death in

life, how he will overcome thralldom, enslaved by one's physical urges, moral

weakness…

When

Death summons the people to come to busy themselves in acts of love with the

empty body of nefesh, a soul which God

has called home, the Kohanim have to remain away, and

by standing away to keep aloft the Standard of Life next to the corpse, and by

the thoughts of what life really is prevent the thoughts of death overpowering

the truths that the real Man himself is morally free and not subject to forces

which kill his power over his own moral free will… they shall strengthen

in their hearts the idea of Life, lest they be conquered by the idea of Death.

(Rabbi S. R. Hirsch on Vayikra

21:5. Halevi translation)

Readers respond

Writing in his article, "What Kind of Religious

Innovation is Desirable?" (Parashat Shemini issue of Shabbat Shalom),

Aviad Stolman makes a connection between the sin of Nadav and Avihu and what he

calls "religious innovation" in order to try to draw a line between

desirable and undesirable religious innovations.

The interpretation which links the deed of Nadav and

Avihu (it should be said that it is not clear their deed was actually a sin!)

with halakhic changes or innovations is well-known and even accepted. However,

I think it is far-fetched to make a connection between an event which is

recorded as having occurred thousands of years ago in the Tabernacle and

today's cultural-religious climate.

Were they really engaged in "religious

innovation"? Is an action that does not conform to a command a matter of

innovation or is it an illegal action? Does Scripture suggest (as would be

implied by the comparison) that people should pay for such

"innovation" with their lives? Is this a justification of the severe

punishment? (In any case Divine anger is difficult to explain, all the more so

if we project the biblical story on our own times).

Later he writes that their sin was not innovation, but

rather that they allowed "themselves to be dragged into religious

enthusiasm by emotionalism and psychological tendencies." Is the religious

message implied by the story that coldness and rationalism are the qualities

required of a religious person? (And the author gathers together RaMBaM, HaRav

Soloveitchik, and Yeshayahu Leibowitz in support of this view).

One must ask whether innovation must necessarily be unthinking and hasty

or can it be thought-out and level-headed. If the problem was that they did not

first consult with someone in authority (in the story, these would be Moses and

Aaron), one must ask whether authoritative institutions even exist today to

decide the ways of Torah or whether free people today choose their own

religious path in accordance with their own understanding of its values and

tradition.

Shall we teach our children that Providence

metes out immediate punishment to those who break the law, or should we leave

aside such quick and baseless comparisons and concentrate on the plain meaning

of Scripture in its own context?

The passage itself points to at least one possible context. The story

may be compared to the story of Korah and his congregation and the 250 people

who offered incense and were burnt by divine fire (Bamidbar 16:35). This would imply that Nadav and Avihu

wanted to replace Moses and Aaron's place and actively take over the priesthood

– an interpretation that jibes with a midrash cited in the article.

Of course, I do not claim that to be the correct or unique explanation,

but I do think it is worthwhile to be careful with explanations and

interpretations that are overly linked with current issues. Besides the

difficulties involved in such explanations, they tend to cheapen the scriptural

message and drag the debate into the realm of the current short-term.

Meir Zalevsky, Jerusalem

Aviad Stolman, author of the article,

replies:

Meir Zelevsky claims that, "we should be careful with explanations

and interpretations that are overly linked with current issues… they tend to

cheapen the scriptural message and drag the debate into the realm of the

current short-term." The body of drashot which I have delivered and

written shows that I clearly reject Zelevsky's approach. It is not at all

"far-fetched to make a connection between an event which is

recorded as having occurred thousands of years ago in the Tabernacle and

today's cultural-religious climate." Quite to the contrary; I believe that

it is the darshan's job to forge links between Scripture and current events. In

his lecture on aggadah which he delivered in 5694, H. N. Bialik that there was a time when the Maskilim

those darshanim who failed to take account of the plain meaning of Scripture,

who "inject alien intentions into it, while the rationalist Maskilim

and the dry Mitnagdim always clung to the plain meaning, that is to say,

they tried to know the verses in terms of their old meaning." To this

Bialik responded: "It was not – God forbid – out of disrespect that they

did not take account of the old meaning. Rather, they grew out from it an

additional new meaning, they raised up the old meaning to a higher sphere,

because the truth is that the eternal visions include within them – beyond

plain meaning and drash – also remez [allusion] and sod [mystery]…

they expounded upon Scripture, all in accordance with the spirit of the time,

in accordance with the spirit of the place, and in accordance with the spirit

of nature. If so, I say, there is nothing wrong in that they sometimes remove

verses from their plain meaning or force them to say what they wish. What is a

verse? It is an accepted idea that changed into a rule for life and we rely on

it even when we want to take a new leap into another field. Then we must rely

approach I see myself as a minor continuation of my venerable grandfather,

Rabbi Yitzhak Stolman, z"l, who would expound upon the drashot of the

Sages, drawing from them new and stimulating insights for his generation. My

teacher and rabbi, R. Hayyim Sabato made an important point when he said that

his famous grandfather was unusual in that he knew how to discriminate between

academic interpretation and a drasha delivered in the synagogue: "A drasha

was not like a lecture, and not like a story, and not like a conversation, and

not like a speech – it was a drasha."

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