Emor

With God’s help we are beginning the study of the weekly portion Emor. Our portion is devoted to the instructions that the Most High gives to Aharon and his sons, the kohanim, concerning holiness. About how they are to remain at the proper level of holiness, about the special requirements for a kohen, and also about who has the right to approach the altar. And it turns out that not every one of the sons of Aharon will have that right.

So, let us begin with verse 1 of chapter 21.

This is a literal translation. The Torah speaks here about the fact that a kohen, living among his people, must not engage in anything that is connected with the burial of a dead body and defile himself with the impurity of the dead. If some respected person among the people or some distant relative of his dies, the kohen does not have the right to take care of his funeral, to take part in his funeral and thereby become impure. Here the specification among their people means that a situation may arise when there is no one nearby, when the kohen is the only one who can arrange a person’s funeral. Such a situation is called met mitzva (a commanded dead person) – a dead person whom the commandment will take care of. And this commandment overpowers, outweighs all the other commandments to the kohanim about touching the dead. For the sake of caring for such a dead person a kohen, even if he is the kohen gadol (high priest), may defile himself, and he is obliged to bury such a body, to do everything so that this person is buried in the proper manner. But when there are others nearby, then the others must take care of it.

In verse 2 there is a proviso:

These are the categories of relatives whose funerals a kohen may take care of. We are speaking about an ordinary kohen, not about the high priest.

Close to him – that is, she is his sister both on his dad’s side and on his mom’s side, and she has not been married, is not divorced, not a widow, has not known a man. A kohen does not have the right to take care of anyone’s funeral except the burial of the close relatives listed above. In this case there is a relaxation for an ordinary kohen, but not for the high priest.

A kohen is associated with holiness and purity, and so that people do not see his defilement and his image is not dishonored in their eyes, special criteria are set for a kohen. He must keep his dignity in holiness, and he cannot defile himself with the dead.

That is, they shall not shave the head bald, shall not imitate the customs of the priests of the surrounding peoples: all the kohanim in the area (this was customary) were bald.

We read about the edge of the beard in verse 27 of chapter 19. There the verb used was lehashchit (to ruin): lo tashchit (you shall not ruin) the edges of the beard; here it says lo yegallechu – they shall not shave, they shall not make themselves a beautiful beard.

Besides that, it is forbidden to make scars, some kind of inscriptions on one’s body, some kind of incisions, marks and so on. There is also such an illness in people, when they scratch themselves in order to compensate for some kind of pain. And despite all the variety of reasons, this is forbidden to the kohanim. It is forbidden also because the tattooing of some names was associated with dedicating oneself to someone, to some gods or to some people, and the kohanim are already dedicated, dedicated to the Most High.

The kohen serves the Most High Himself, brings bread and sacrifices to the Most High, like a servant who enters the royal court, approaches the royal table and therefore must be impeccably pure and noble. So too the kohen must be pure at an especially high level of purity, must be holy.

Here the expression isha chalala means a woman who was born from a forbidden union of a kohen. When children (girls) are born from this union, they too are forbidden to the kohanim, the kohanim do not have the right to take them as wives. Because a kohen is holy, set apart for the LORD, and the level of holiness of the woman with whom he is to unite is higher than that of ordinary people.

Not only the sons of Aharon themselves, but also the people must take care that the kohanim are at the proper level of holiness. They stand, they stand for the people before the Most High, and since the goal of the Most High is to sanctify us, since the Most High wants to sanctify us, we must show care for the holiness of the kohanim. So that the people would not accuse the kohanim of some kind of fastidiousness, arrogance or snobbery, the people too were given a commandment through Moshe: to take care of the holiness of the kohanim. It is our foremost interest that they be pleasing to the Most High, that they appear before the Most High in a due and proper manner. This is what the Torah teaches here. But together with this elitism, a high responsibility also lies on the kohen.

What is meant is a betrothed daughter of a kohen who, while living in her father’s house, fell into harlotry while waiting for the wedding. Since she is not just a girl, she is the daughter of a kohen, people will click their tongues and say: “What kind of upbringing is that among the kohanim? Oh, these children of believing parents, there is always such a hassle with them!” The kohen will thus be disgraced, the kohanic reputation will be disgraced. For this, such a severe punishment as burning is imposed on her. A good admonition for the brothers and all believers who proclaim that they are kohanim – to remember what responsibility we place on ourselves and on our children when we bring up, raise our daughters.

Only the high priest, upon entering his office, his service, is anointed. Ordinary kohanim do not need anointing. Tearing the garments and disheveling the hair on the head – this is what is done as a sign of mourning.

Such is his level of holiness that his attachment to God is higher than the attachment to father and mother.

He shall not go out of the sanctuary – what is meant is not that he will not go out of there at all, but that he will not go out to accompany the dead. If a person decides that his mother and father are dearer to him, then by this he defiles the sanctuary. Such is the strict requirement that the Most High places on the high priest.

That is, this means that he does not have the right to take a proselyte woman either.

The LORD has a goal, a task, a plan of sanctifying the kohanim and through this – the sanctification of the people. And if the LORD wants to sanctify, then the kohen must not do something opposite.

This is a command for Moshe. We remember from the book of Daniel that an earthly king wanted to gather young men without blemish, so that they would serve in the royal palace. All the kings of the world strove to have beautiful, worthy, noble-looking servants around them. The only exception was perhaps the jester, but one could say that this is a special kind of curiosity and also a kind of beauty of its own. And in exactly the same way the King of kings, the LORD, demands that those who serve Him at the altar be not only pure inside, noble and righteous, but also unblemished outside.

There is a dispute about the word charum. Some say that this is a person with a sunken nose. But the more likely translation is: with a cut-off or a missing organ.

The illness mentioned at the end of the verse is called hidden testicle – a known male illness, although not a very widespread one.

 21. Every man in whom there is a blemish, of the seed of Aharon the kohen, shall not approach to bring the burned sacrifices to the Most High, because there is a defect in him, the bread of the LORD he shall not approach to bring.

That is, he is barred only from the direct service before the Most High, but at the same time he is not restricted in the civil rights (so to speak) of a kohen.

We again see a repetition. The Most High says: “Since I sanctify you, it is necessary that outwardly too you look unblemished, just as inwardly.” Often we make demands of people and say: “It would be good if a person were inside the way he is outside.” Here the kohanim are told: “Maybe you are kind inside, but horrible in the face (like the characters of a well-known song), that won’t do.” Therefore the kohanim, the sons of Aharon, who serve at the altar, must be pure on the inside and perfect on the outside. If a kohen has some defect, he may inspect leprosy, he may eat of the holy, but he may not bring what is sacrificed onto the altar.

Moshe passed on the word of the LORD, as the LORD had commanded him.

With God’s help, you and I are continuing to study the weekly portion Emor, and we will read chapter 22, in which the Most High gives Aharon and his sons some safety regulations with regard to the holy things, the basics of choosing sacrifices, and much more. Let us begin with verse 1:

What is being spoken about here is this: a kohen takes part in a sacrifice and has the right to a part of the sacrifice. A part of the meat of the animal that an Israelite has dedicated to the Most High, the kohen has the right to eat, and even must eat. And thus he sits down at one table with the Most High, no more and no less, takes part in one feast with the Most High. Of course, this requires purity; a kohen must eat of this sacrifice only in purity. One can draw the attention of those people to this who, by the duty of their service, by the way their service is arranged in our time, live on people’s donations, are fed by what people bring, as if they eat from the altar. Pay attention: the Most High demands ritual purity in order to eat from this altar. Although we have slightly different criteria of purity, in any case special demands on oneself are needed when you touch food whose origin is a sacrifice of the people to the Most High and to which you are admitted, because you sit at the table of the Most High every time you eat.

What can be more terrible than such a punishment? The LORD will drive him away from His face. Where can one hide from the face of God? Think for yourselves. A very terrible punishment the Most High intends for a kohen who eats sacrificial meat in impurity.

That is, any kohen who has become defiled must wash his flesh with water during the day; the cleansing takes place with any washing. At the same time the kohen becomes pure not immediately after the washing, but when the sun sets. And with the sunset he will be able to eat of the holy, because it is his, the kohen’s, and he returns to his normal status. Just imagine what caution in everyday life is required of a kohen, what attentiveness to everything you touch. How often we would become impure in the situations in which a kohen finds himself, and what a reverent attitude in every second of life is required of a kohen so that he has the right to eat from the altar.

Why and how did this verse get here? After all, not only to the kohanim, to all Israel it is forbidden to eat carrion and what is torn. But with the kohanim there is a special situation. After all, as we said, they sit at the King’s table, they are the court retinue of the King of kings, this is not just for nothing. And how will it look from the people’s side if the royal folk, if those who are at the King’s table, start digging in the garbage in search of food? In exactly the same way, if a kohen who is admitted to the table of the LORD, who eats from the altar, begins to eat carrion or what is torn. And this will defame the Name of the LORD, therefore there is a separate prohibition for them as well.

The word shameru (keep, guard) and the word mishmarti (watch, guard, services) come from the same root, shin-mem-reish, as the verb lishmor (to preserve, to guard, to keep): guard My guard, if translated literally. That is: “Keep what I have given you to keep, keep what I have entrusted to you to keep. If you keep My service, then you will not bear sin for having dishonored it, and you will not die.”

The Most High sanctifies the kohanim with a special holiness; He called them as co-workers to Himself, so that they would serve the sanctification of the people. Therefore, when they act in the opposite direction, they, God forbid, bear sin and may die.

It was customary in those times (it is often so today as well) that a person who hires workers, besides the payment for the work, also promises to feed them. Of course, this was customary among the kohanim too. If a kohen let someone stay with him, no matter for what reasons, if a kohen hired someone for work around the house, he also fed these people. But he had to feed them from some of his own supplies, not from the holy, in no case.

That is, if a kohen buys himself a slave and if one of the slaves who belong to the kohen bears children, then these children too, the children of slaves, may eat of the holy. Yes, once again we have to remind you that the Torah was given in times when slavery was part of life, and the Torah speaks about laws, including those connected with slavery.

What is meant regarding the daughter of a kohen? In those distant times it was not customary for a woman to live alone. Therefore, if a woman turned out to be divorced or widowed, she returned to the family. This could be the house of her father, or of her older brothers, or the clan. If the father had died and there were no brothers, then she remained in the care of her father’s clan, that is, once again she ended up in a kohanic house and could eat of the holy, because by descent she is still the daughter of a kohen.

If a person has already dedicated something as a sacrifice and somehow ate it by mistake, he must add a fifth part to it and return it to the kohen. What does a fifth part mean? Some say: a fifth part is 20%. Well, clearly, it is divided into five parts, one more part is added, and it comes to 120% together with the fifth part.

Others say: no, that is not so, it is divided into four parts, and to the four parts a fifth part is added. That is, there are four parts, each part is 25%, they add a fifth quarter, that is, 125%. There is a dispute about this, but in any case the person must return the fifth part as compensation. We have already discussed this (in chapter 5), why the fifth part is added and in which cases.

That is, if a kohen nevertheless decided to feed someone, then the punishment will be on him. Again, this is an important lesson for today’s ministers: how correctly we manage the money of the altar, how we spend it, whom we feed, whom we refuse food. So that we do not bear sin, so that we do not dishonor the Holy Name that has been entrusted to us to bear, which is even more important.

That is, bring, let us say it again, of your own will, when you want to bring: not with a stick at your back, not along with everyone, not when they tell you: “You haven’t come by with a burnt offering for a long time, maybe that’s why things aren’t going well in your life either.” No, when you yourself want to bring a sacrifice to God.

If you want to, then bring it with all your soul, and bring a little animal without any bodily defect, then it will be accepted. If you want to bring something worse, then you had better not do it, no one is forcing you. Either bring something good, or do not bring anything at all.

All livestock with the listed defects cannot be brought on the altar to the LORD.

The most probable meaning of what is said here: if you have a young bull or a little ram whose hoof has cracked and grown back together (not a very big bodily defect), you may give it to the Temple, but not as a sacrifice, rather as some kind of bread that will be in God’s house. With it, in fact, one will be able to feed both the hired worker and some outside people. You donated it for the technical expenses of the Temple, so to speak. But it must not be brought for the holy, for the sacrificial.

I have seen very many rabbis, teachers, who keep the expenses from donations separate. When they accept some money that seems doubtful to them, when it seems to them that a person came with some not-so-simple intent, then, on the one hand, one wants to take this money, on the other hand, one is afraid to use this money for something holy. And then they decide to buy cleaning products for the yeshiva with it or to use it for something everyday. This is the experience of Judaism.

There are various reasons, connected with the behavior of an animal or with the taste of an animal’s meat, for which an animal is made infertile. Its seminal ducts are cut, the testicles are cut off or somehow incised, battered (I will not go into the details of this procedure), and the Torah unambiguously forbids doing this. This applies to any mutilation of an animal for the sake of changing its behavior or for the sake of changing, for example, the taste of the meat. Some castrate roosters so that they become fatter, or fatten geese in a special, non-standard way so that their liver is enlarged.

If the pagan himself wants to bring a sacrifice to the LORD, then there is no prohibition at all against his bringing this sacrifice. But if he asks you on his own behalf to bring it, then do not take anything like that and do not bring anything from him as a sacrifice. However much a pagan might want to please the LORD, he cannot bring a little animal whose reproductive organs he has damaged or on which he has inflicted some other damage, even if among the pagans the meat of such an animal is considered especially tender and of especially high quality.

That is, you must not take her young one from the mom in the very first days and, out of joy, bring it as a sacrifice to the Most High. The mom must spend time with her young one, and the young one must spend time with its mom, at least seven days.

What is meant here, of course, is a cow or a sheep. Do not arrange a genocide of animals: it is not good for a mother and her young one, even among animals, to die on the same day.

The LORD says: “The exodus from Egypt is only the beginning of the process, the exodus from the earthly Egypt is the beginning of the path to holiness. Do not defile My Name, do not go against the wind.” The wind – the Holy Spirit – is what blows into our sails and moves us in the direction of holiness. Do not move against this wind, because the task of the Most High is to sanctify us. Moving from holiness in the opposite direction, we move against the Most High, and He is our LORD.

With God’s help we continue studying the weekly portion Emor, and today we will read chapter 23, in which the Most High gives instructions connected with the festivals, a kind of panoramic instruction. Only, in the Torah they are not called festivals. Let us begin reading with verse 1.

One must pay attention to the word mo'adei, by which the Most High calls His festivals. Its root, yud-ayin-dalet, is connected with the word va'ad (meeting, council) and with the word edut (testimony, a face-to-face meeting). What in the Russian language is customarily called festivals (from the word idleness),iIn Russian, the usual word for festival comes from the word for idleness. English words do not share this link, so the author’s explanation is translated literally. in the Torah means the appointed times of meeting with the Most High, it is the appointed place and time of meetings, when the whole people must appear in a certain state before the face of the Most High. So, the LORD says: “Here for you are My appointed times, in which you will gather in a holy assembly, that is, gather and meet with Me at these times.”

This is the difference between Shabbat and the other festivals, on which one may do what is necessary for the soul, prepare food (and there are other relaxations as well), but on Shabbat everything is completely different. The word Shabbat in its simplest understanding means a stop, the cessation of all work, but it also has another meaning. The verb lashevet means to sit, to settle somewhere, to be settled, and on Shabbat we come as guests to the Most High, this is what is special about Shabbat. We move, as it were, to our permanent abode, to where we will be settled. In this world we are gerim (wanderers and strangers); there, with the Most High, we are settled residents, and Shabbat is our relocation, an excursion to where, as we hope, our PR (permanent residence) awaits us. Here for six days we must build this world, on the seventh day we look into the world to come. It is not necessarily far from us geographically, it is far from us in the spiritual sense.

There is one more difference between Shabbat and the festivals: Shabbat comes every seven days independently of us, we can do nothing about it, whether we want it or not, whether we are alive or, God forbid, not. Shabbat came regardless, comes and will come once every seven days. We have kept the count of Shabbat since the time recorded in the book of Bereshit. Very often people ask: haven’t we lost count, keeping Shabbat for so long? Maybe we are suddenly, God forbid, keeping Tuesday? No, we have not lost count. Nowhere has anyone suspected us of this, no one has suspected us of having lost Shabbat somewhere.

Unlike Shabbat, the time when the festivals come, strange as it may seem, really does depend on us. Today we have a calendar, we look and see: here is the 1st of the month, here is the 14th of the month, here is the 15th of the month. Originally, in the times of the Torah, there was no calendar, and the beginning of the months was determined by witnesses coming to the court and saying: “We have seen the newborn moon.” They were questioned in detail: what if they simply wanted their moment of glory, and had not seen any moon at all? And if they were convinced that they had seen the moon and that their testimony was consistent, then, as is proper, on the testimony of two or three people the court announced the beginning of the new month, and from that moment all the festivals were counted. So the Jewish calendar is based on testimonies, and the word mo'ed (festival) includes in itself the word witness, this is very important. I am often asked: “Alex, how do you celebrate rosh chodesh (the new month), when the calendar says that the moon’s date is such-and-such and so on?” We celebrate the new month not on the day when the moon was born, but when it was seen, people came to the court and reported it, that is when the new month was celebrated. We cannot predict the birth of the moon, and we were not commanded to engage in astronomy. Therefore the determination of the months is connected with us, depends on the people, on the observations of the people, while the determination of Shabbat is in no way connected with us, this is the difference. Strictly speaking, Shabbat cannot be called a mo'ed, and that is why the Torah took it out of the list. First it says in verse 2: “Here they are, the appointed times (festivals),” then comes verse 3 concerning Shabbat, and then, in verse 4, it says again: “Here they are, the appointed times.” On Shabbat stricter prohibitions apply than on the festivals regarding doing work, that is why Shabbat is spoken of in a separate verse.

So, here they are, the appointed times of the LORD, or (let us say it in Russian)iThe author contrasts the usual Russian word for festivals with “appointed times”, so his remark is translated literally. In Russian the phrase can also mean simply “to put it plainly”. the festivals of the LORD.

That is, the Pesach sacrifice must be brought when the day is declining toward evening, and it is no longer the fourteenth, but not yet the fifteenth, one could say, when lunch is long over, and dinner is about to begin.

That is, the day of the holy assembly will be the fifteenth. I repeat that according to the law (we will see this elsewhere, later) everything connected with the preparation of food, or much of what is connected with the preparation of food, is permitted to be done on the festivals. We are not dealing here with halacha (Jewish law), we are trying to read the pshat (simple meaning) of the Torah.

So, on the first day of these seven – a festival, in Hebrew yom tov (good day), when one should refrain from a certain kind of work, hold a holy assembly, that is, gather together for some joint service. The service is performed by the whole nation. Again, I often hear from people: “For me all seven days are Shabbat, and for me any day is Pesach, and Yom Kippur, and Sukkot, and the Day of the Paris Commune – all together, that is how the Spirit revealed it to me.” The LORD wants us to live in time. We do not have spring every day, we do not have fall or winter every day, and in exactly the same way we do not always have night, not always day, we live by a certain schedule: the LORD established for our souls, for our spiritual development, a certain cycle of the year, it is connected both with agriculture and with what happens in our souls. And the LORD established the first day of the seven days of Pesach as a time of assembly, when the whole people must gather – not each one whenever he wants, but as a whole nation, as part of one whole, to perform the service. And we all are also members of the body of Mashiach, we are in the body of Mashiach, and we cannot say: “And I, a kidney, am a kidney on my own, and I, the pancreas, am also on my own.” We must act in harmony, as a single organism. Therefore it is important that some festivals, some dates are fixed for us so that we act together, as a single people. Unity is what Yeshua prayed for many times.

Here a different reading is possible, because of which at one time in Judaism a dispute arose between the sect of the Sadducees and the sect of the Pharisees. The Sadducees held that Shabbat is Shabbat in the literal sense, which falls on one of the seven days of the festival, and that one must count from it. The Pharisees in turn held that it is precisely the first day of the festival itself that is called Shabbat, and therefore right in the evening, at the end of the first day, the first offering of the omer begins. Because of this dispute there is also a difference in the dates of Pentecost. But although the Sadducees held what they held, in the time of the Second Temple a great deal of political power was concentrated in the hands of the Pharisees, and the halacha operated the Pharisaic way: the Sadducees were forced to act the Pharisaic way. There is a story where a kohen did something in the manner of the Sadducees and the people pelted him with etrogim (yellow citrons); this was, naturally, on Sukkot. There is a dispute also regarding Yeshua. We can say that He commanded his disciples (we can say this for certain) to wait for Pentecost, the festival of Shavuot. It was the Pentecost at which everyone gathered in the Temple, that is, not some special Sadducean Pentecost, but the one of the whole people. On this basis we can, with some caution, draw the conclusion that the disciples did after all keep the festivals and lived by the calendar generally accepted in Israel.

Two tenths of an efa – that is, by our measures, roughly two three-liter jars of solet flour, pure white flour of the highest quality; a quarter of a hin of wine – roughly 0.8–0.9 liters. The kohen takes from this flour mixed with oil a small lump, a handful, and burns it on the altar; the rest is the kohen’s share. The wine too is brought to the altar. People often ask about wine in the offering, in the meal of the LORD. We see that the part of the offering that begins from the first day after Shabbat is an offering of bread and wine together with a lamb.

We do not eat from the new grains until we have brought the first breads to the Most High.

Here the commandment is not to calculate in advance and say that it will be on such-and-such a date, but to count every day: today it is so many weeks and so many days of the omer. Every evening, during the evening prayer, people count in this way. Or if a person does not get to a synagogue where a minyan gathers (that is, the number of people needed for prayer), then the person counts at home, but every day we are obliged to keep this count. There are many spiritual practices connected with the correction of the soul, for forty-nine days are a remembrance that this is how long after the exodus from Egypt we walked to Mount Sinai, and this is a time of correction and purification. There are very many practices connected with the forty-nine steps of a person’s purification, and any practice in which a person works on his purification is, of course, commendable.

That is, we count seven full weeks, that is forty-nine days, but we must count up to the day following these seven weeks, that is, up to the fiftieth day. And on the fiftieth day we must bring a grain sacrifice to the Most High, a new sacrifice from the new breads.

Since we read the Torah trying not to run ahead, we will return to the description of these sacrifices when we examine the sacrifices in the book of Bemidbar, in chapter 28, and we will compare the lists and try to understand why exactly so many sacrifices and not some other number, what this is connected with and what it is for.

There is a cleansing sacrifice for the whole people, after which one may bring peace offerings. First get cleansed, then make peace.

As we remember, with the shelamim (peace) sacrifice the kohen performs certain dance movements when he elevates it to the LORD. The kohen’s share in everything that takes place: it is both his fee and his participation in the correction of the people, because here the salary is part of the work, and the work is part of the salary, everything is interconnected.

We need to stop once more and pay attention to the differences in the prohibitions. On Shabbat it is forbidden to do kol-melacha (any work). On festivals it is forbidden to do melechet avoda (work of labor), that is how it can be translated; some translate it as due work, there are different translations. To understand the difference in practice, I will repeat once more that on festivals it is permitted to do what is needed for sustenance, for example, to cook food.

Why does the Most High repeat this commandment here? We may say: “We already bring a sacrifice to the Most High anyway, and since we already bring Him a sacrifice anyway, then, well, the poor will just have to do without, we already have a crisis here because we have to bring a sheaf to the Most High.” The LORD says: “No, all the same, when you reap your harvest, leave some for the poor and do not gather the ears, do not be a penny-pincher, I am the LORD.” When we donate something to the life of the community, to some cause that we consider God’s, we cannot say: “Now I will not help the poor, I have already shared with the Most High, let Him do the distributing.” Our relationship with the Most High is one thing, the relationship with our neighbors is another, and the Most High says: “Do not shortchange your neighbor at My expense, I do not need this at all.”

 Very much has been said about this day. Very often the Jews are accused of calling this day Rosh haShana (head of the year), and people say: “Look, you were commanded that the first month would be for you the beginning of all months. Why have you distorted everything, turned it upside down?” Further on we will read that what is meant is the end of the year, the end of the agricultural year. Besides the year of the kings, there is also the agricultural year, there are different kinds of year, and therefore both Sukkot and Rosh haShana are the beginning and the end of the year.

What is the remembrance of the trumpet sound, what trumpet sound is meant? It is possible that this is the trumpet sound that sounded on Mount Sinai; such an understanding suggests itself. There is another interpretation that looks a bit deeper and says that the trumpet sound is the sound that was heard when the Most High breathed the soul into Adam. And this is the memory, one could say, of the first kiss, the first contact of man and God, by which God brought man to life. Not such a simple festival after all.

These are the few lines that the Torah says about the festival of the trumpet sound, although very much has been written about it. I likewise try to look at things panoramically and therefore do not go deeply into the various aspects of the festivals.

This tormenting of the souls is connected with abstaining from food, drink, intimate relations, pouring on of oil and comfortable footwear. These prohibitions are understood this way now as well.

Note that when we spoke about the other festivals, we read kol-melechet avoda (any work of labor), here – vechol-melacha (any work), as also with regard to Shabbat. On Yom Kippur a number of kinds of work are forbidden that are permitted on a festival, in particular, the preparation of food.

That is, we begin a little bit earlier, on the ninth. When a person took upon himself some personal fast, took on a fast and abstinence, he usually took the fast from morning until evening of that day, therefore the Torah stipulates here that it is not the way people were used to, but from evening to evening, that is, it is a fast a full twenty-four hours long, and not as usual.

That is, once again it is about the month of Tishrei; this is the same month in which the Day of the Sound of the Trumpet and the Day of Atonement are observed.

Here again we see the expression kol-melechet avoda, which is connected with the festival.

Atzeret – this is a stop; one can say that the eighth day of the festival of Sukkot is the final point in the whole cycle of the yearly festivals. Very much has also been said about this, but let us try not to go deep into each of the festivals separately, because that would be disregard toward the other festivals, they will be offended at us.

Again, just as we cannot take all the pills a year in advance at once, we cannot bring sacrifices in random order, as many, unfortunately, do and say: “But for me the whole year is Sukkot, for me the whole year is Pesach, or the whole year is Shabbat.” No, we cannot do it that way. Every day the service must be performed that corresponds to that day.

Again we see that Shabbat stands apart in this list. There are meetings to which we must come as a whole people. This is besides those meetings with the Most High that we can arrange voluntarily, if we want, in a personal capacity, as listed in verse 38, to give the LORD gifts, vows and voluntary donations.

Further on, the laws of the festival of Sukkot are repeated again.

The time has come to pay attention to this phrase: the festivals of the LORD. These are not Jewish festivals, not folk festivals, these are the festivals of the LORD, and if literally, these are meetings with the LORD. This is a day when the LORD has appointed a meeting with us and said: “On this day I come to visit you.” If we do not open to Him, He will stand at the door, turn around and go away (I say this, of course, as a parable). In the book of Shir haShirim there is a story about a girl who does not open to her beloved, because she has already gone to bed and did not want to walk barefoot, with feet anointed with oil, across the dusty floor, and then ran about like a drunk and mad woman and searched for her beloved. This story can also be applied to a missed festival of the LORD, to a missed meeting with the LORD.

So, there is a commandment to rejoice, just like that, whether you want to or not – rejoice for seven days, it does not matter what mood you are in. We must take four kinds of plants, which, among other things, symbolize four kinds of people in the community of the people of God. Very much has also been said about this; this is not just some little bouquet. And it is interesting that the Torah does not tell here what to do with all this: just take, but what to take it for is unclear. Apparently, this is a kind of confirmation that there exists an oral tradition in which there is an understanding of what to do with this whole set, which to an outsider may seem strange.

What does you shall sit mean? To sit does not mean to sit so as not to stand up or so as not to lie down; to sit means you will live there. Into the concept of living go eating, drinking, sleeping and studying Torah. All this during the festival of Sukkot has to be done in the booth.

And many say that here it is about the clouds of glory with which the LORD enveloped the people of Israel (as if with booths), when leading them out of Egypt.

You and I are finishing our study of the weekly portion Emor and will read chapter 24 from verse 1.

The word tzav in modern Hebrew means an order, an instruction, but here it is used as a verb in the form of the imperative (the imperative mood), that is, command the sons of Israel. It also has a shade of pushing: drive on, hurry, encourage the sons of Israel.

What does katit (beaten oil) mean? It is oil pressed out mechanically, that is, without heating and without the use of any chemical agents that speed up the pressing.

The menorah is one of the symbols of the Temple service and of the people of Israel; it is depicted on the coat of arms of Israel, and its image is on the cover of my Israeli passport. The Most High began the creation of the world with the utterance: “Light – be!” The LORD, Himself the source of light in and of Himself, gave us the grace to be light in this world. We are commanded to raise up the eternal lamp; we kindle light at the very threshold of the revelation of the Most High in this world, right next to the curtain behind which He reveals Himself. And the people of God is entrusted with carrying the light. One can draw a parallel with the light that existed before the creation of the luminaries, with that very first light. It is precisely its image that goes out from the lamp standing by the curtain. The Torah, the light of the Torah, goes forth from Zion. And the commandment to the kohen is in remembrance of this: the menorah must burn by the curtain from generation to generation.

One more commandment connected with the Temple service:

Each of these loaves of solet flour (pure flour of the highest quality) comes out weighing about 5 kilograms, and twelve such loaves must be baked. The Talmud tells that there was a family, the house (beit) of Garmo, bakers, who had a bakery in the southeastern part of the Temple Mount. And there they baked this special bread, sifting the flour through numerous sieves, by a very complicated recipe. After all, this bread had to lie for a whole week before the face of the Most High and not get moldy, not go stale. It is told (tractate Yoma, 21a) that the loaves baked by this family not only did not spoil, but stayed warm and gave off a fragrance. That is the kind of miracle it was. One also had to know how to bake this enormous challa all the way through; it is not so easy to bake a big challa, and on top of that as unleavened bread, so that it would not turn into sour bread in the course of baking. This bread had very many secrets.

The sages once tried to put pressure on this family and said: “Teach others too, share this wonderful recipe of how you bake this bread.” The family refused, and then for some time they were driven away from this service. They said: “Oh, is that so? Then we will call bakers from Alexandria, from Alexandria itself, and they will bake this bread for us.” But the bakers from Alexandria, however hard they tried, achieved nothing, the bread did not come out for them, and the Garmo family was brought back to the service. Later they explained that they had not wanted to share the secret of their craft, so that the recipe would not leak out into the world and people would not worship just any gods, just anywhere, with bread made by the old Jewish recipe. It is also told about this family that they themselves, these bakers, never ate white bread, so that they would not be suspected of baking from the flour they received for the holy loaves, but ate only very simple bread made from low-quality flour. The LORD said: “Do not shut the mouth of the threshing ox,” but this family took special obligations upon itself, made a point of not being accused of corruption, of theft of sacred property, and therefore they ate only simple bread.

That is, something symbolic is added to each stack, so that all the bread becomes a burned sacrifice to the LORD.

When it is repeated twice, beyom hashabbat beyom hashabbat, this means every Shabbat.

Why does this belong to the burned sacrifices? Because the part of the offering that has frankincense in it is burned as incense on the altar.

An interesting story begins with verse 10. Before this we read commandments, lists of laws, and over the last several chapters we almost never came across a mention of events. We received instructions – carried out instructions; we hardly touched on events in people’s lives. And here the Torah tells us about one event.

That is the kind of story it is. And very many questions arise when reading this story. Why is this story given precisely here? Why is it written that this man went out, where did he go out from? Why did he fight with an Israelite? Why did he curse the name of God? And all these questions require an answer. Different answers are given to them.

Some say that vayetze (and he went out) means he spiritually went out, separated himself from the people of Israel. He heard that the kohanim would receive bread of a week's freshness. And in Egypt the priests receive hot bread, piping hot. And he despised the LORD, saying: “If that is how it is with him and the kohanim, then such a God, whose kohanim are fed like this, is not worthy of respect.” Because of this a fight broke out, and as a result – they brought this man to Moshe.

Others say that he physically went out, he was physically driven out beyond the camp. They told him: “Here with us, excuse-me-please, land is inherited through the father. Who is your father? Nobody knows who. That is why there is no place for you here.” And he tried to fight for a place under the sun, and a fight broke out, and it came to the point that he cursed the Most High.

Still others say, vayetze – this is, as they say in Russian, it so came out. In the course of some events his Egyptian nature came out, came out into the open. He did not master himself, he did not hold back. This often happens with us too: when someone steps on our sore toe, then the son of the Egyptian comes out of us. Even with those who seemingly have long since stopped being pagans. One way or another, the sinful nature of man showed itself.

Why does the Torah bring this story precisely here? One can understand it chronologically: here a man talked about the bread, and therefore he was mentioned here. One can say that, since earlier the discussion was about the respect that is required of the kohanim, about honoring the Name, the Torah brought this case as an example of how one deals with a person who defames the name of the LORD. One can understand in this key both the word vayetze, itself and why the Torah brings this passage here. Of course, there is a mass of stories connected with the origin of this Egyptian-Jew.

Many midrashim say that this is the son of that very Egyptian whom Moshe killed at the very beginning of the book of Shemot. And the matter was this: this Egyptian was eyeing the wife of a Jew. One night he forced this Jew to work, and he himself, in his guise, came to his wife, Shelomit bat Divri, and this became known to her Israelite husband. And so they were sorting it out, and it was precisely during this showdown that Moshe came upon them. One of the teachers, rabbis, Yitzchak Karo, says: “We, the Jews, have an old, but not very good habit: when we fight or quarrel, to bring up old things.” There is a boundary where an argument turns into a quarrel. When a husband and wife say: “This is a tasty borscht, this is not a tasty borscht” – that is an argument. When arguments of the type “in your family they never knew how to cook borscht” or “you don't understand anything at all” come into play, it turns into a quarrel.

So then, let us return to the quarrel between the son of the Israelite woman and the Israelite; one of them said, turning the argument into a quarrel: “And you, you are an Egyptian by origin anyway, what are you butting in for? Not only are you an Egyptian, you are also the son of an Egyptian with a tarnished reputation, and, on top of that, our teacher Moshe killed your dad not with a stab of a dagger and not with a right hook, but with the name of the Most High.” And so, in a state of shock (so much information had tumbled down on the man at once), as the midrash says, having sensed that his father was killed by the name of the Most High, he cursed the name of the Most High. Such a commentary also exists. And, as I usually say, I will repeat it here too: these commentaries say more about the commentators themselves than about the heroes of the Torah. But we can draw a very important lesson from this story. When resentment is born in us and the Egyptian bursts out, who is not ready to listen, who goes out from God's people, then it can come to the point that the Name of the Most High will be cursed.

Well, and one cannot fail to say a few words about the mom. Many commentators, relying on the midrashim we mentioned, try to show Shelomit Bat Divri in a bad light. The name Divri is connected with talking, that is, she was a sort of chatterbox, and through her chatter she struck up an acquaintance with an Egyptian and bore this son by him out of wedlock. Others say that there was a fact of rape. One way or another, the woman's name is also commented on, which also says something about those who try to understand this story.

So, a half-Jew, half-Egyptian, this man is angry about something, and he curses the name of the Most High, and he is brought to Moshe.

That is, Moshe ordered the man to be placed under guard, and the commentators again ask the question: “And why did Moshe not judge this man himself?” Well, generally speaking, it is clear: a man curses the name of the LORD, one can shoot him after a short trial or stone him. And the commentators say: “If one takes into account that this was some relative of that very Egyptian, Moshe did not want it to look like personal revenge.” He had a kind of judicial recusal. In this there is a parallel with what we said about the family of the Garmo bakers, which kept its reputation, did not use its position for its own purposes, so that there would not even be any appearance that they were using it. Moshe too does not want to show that he abuses his position, therefore he puts him under guard. So say the commentators, this is one of the possible interpretations. And here too there is a lesson for us about the attitude toward the purity of one's reputation as a servant of God, how much we must try to guard it. Perhaps we will not always succeed, but we must try.

Those who listen lay their hands on his head in order to return the guilt for their hearing to him and to demonstrate disagreement and protest against his curses addressed to the Most High. And after this the whole community may stone him.

One can also understand it simply, that here it is about a person who pronounces the name of the LORD not in purity and not in due awe.

Of course, what is meant here is not that if a man killed his neighbor's cow, they also kill his cow. No, here, as in all the following verses, what is meant is monetary compensation.

Just try to recreate exactly the same fracture, if one is going to break bones at all. Proof that it is about compensation can be the fact that throughout the whole East – both in the laws of Hammurabi and in other law codes that were in force before the laws of Hammurabi – it was always written that a man who knocks out another's tooth will himself lose a tooth. But in practice it came down to the person receiving monetary compensation. If someone, God forbid, inflicts some bodily injury on a person, and the person loses an arm, a leg, an eye, an ear, then what use is it to him, what compensation is it to him that the neighbor who caused him such damage also loses an ear or an eye? After all, this will not give him the possibility to earn more, to somehow cope with the injury and so on. Therefore the laws are formulated in such a strict way (the Romans called this rule talion (talio) – retribution according to the measure of the crime). But nevertheless we nowhere encounter, in any historical sources, that the laws were applied in exactly this form. And there is no reason not to trust the sages, who say that here it is about monetary compensations corresponding to the damage inflicted, all the more since that was how it was throughout the whole Middle East.

One must make a reservation about the Sadducees (tzdukim), who understood these ordinances literally. At the same time there is no testimony of the Sadducees themselves about this, nor any historical testimony that this rule was in any way applied by them in practice.

This is a summing up, this is not a separate law. We often see that at the end of some topic the Torah sums it up, and our verse is an example of this.

Verse 22 is also very important.

Some try to say (having the habit of reading individual verses, not reading the context of the chapter, the context of the book) that here it is written that you must have one law for everyone. So what was given to the kohanim, and what was given to women, and what was given to men – everything is the same for everyone, one law. But in fact what is spoken of here is judgment. You must have the same judgment for everyone. This is far from the most obvious fact. Among many peoples it is customary that if I caused injury to some foreigner, then this is not counted as a sin so strictly. But if a foreigner caused injury to me, then ten times more is demanded of him. Here the Most High says: “In judgment, judge without regard to origin, whether it is a matter of a stranger, of a permanent resident, of a rich person, of a poor person. You must have one judgment for all, without distinction by origin.” Therefore, if a stranger, as a result of a Jew’s crime, received an injury and lost a hand, compensation must be paid to him exactly the same as if it were a Jew. There must be no distinction whatsoever. That is what this verse speaks about.

Chapter 21 tells how the high priest must choose a wife for himself, and four categories of women are named whom the high priest is forbidden to marry. From verse 13 we read:

13. He shall take a woman only in her virginity.

14. A widow, and a divorced woman, and a dishonored one, a harlot – these he shall not take, but a virgin from his own people he shall take as a wife.

15. And he shall not dishonor his seed among his people, for I am the LORD, who sanctifies him.

The LORD sanctifies the fruits, the seed of the kohen, his children. Therefore the kohen must be reverently careful about whom he takes to himself as a partner, with whom he unites, with whom he becomes one flesh. This is, of course, very important, but the question arises: what does this have to do with us? What can we take from here for ourselves?

About us the Most High said (Shemot 19:6) that all of us are a kingdom of kohanim, we are a country of people who are called to serve the Most High. In the second book of Shmuel (8:18) it is said about the sons of David that they are kohanim, that they serve at the royal court. Thus anyone who serves the King of kings, the Most High, is to some degree a kohen. And by how we relate to our service, to carrying out the tasks that the Most High sets before us, one can determine, figuratively speaking, what kind of woman we live with.

A widow is a woman whose husband has died. If we draw a parallel with our service, then we can carry out some actions, do something for the Most High while being, in essence, dead, without putting our soul into it. If our soul, our head is somewhere else at the time, then the performance of the service will be purely automatic, completely soulless. And the Torah says: may you not have such a wife.

We can also drive service away from ourselves (as the saying goes: work, work, go off to Fedot), simply chase service away from ourselves, like a wife we have grown sick of. And the Torah says: may you have no union with a divorced woman.

We can perform service like a union with a dishonored woman and feel inside: “My God, what a disgrace, how shameful, it is shameful to lead this homeless bum, to wash this homeless bum!” or: “How ashamed I am to preach on the street!” That is, to serve with a feeling of shame, with the feeling that, God forbid, someone will see that I am doing this – how ashamed I will be! Paul in his time urged in the Epistle to the Romans: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Mashiach,” because there were those who were ashamed of it.

And one more variant: we can do our work as if regarding it as a harlot, thinking: “What can we get for this? Can we get some benefit out of this?” or calculating: “If I say it this way, maybe they will pay me more? If I do it this way, maybe I will get some greater benefit? Maybe they will give me more donations, or I will get greater respect, grab something else greater for myself?” And this is what the Torah warns against and says: may you not have such a wife either. Whom then may one marry? In other words, how then should one relate to one’s service? The Torah says: “But only a maiden from his own people he shall take.” Every day, when setting about the service of the Most High, one must remember that every service is like a maiden, like a bride. The Russian word nevesta (bride) means not known, not experienced (ne vesta). As if we are meeting her for the first time, as with a first love: with the joy of the first meeting, with the joy of the first touch of the fingertips. It is precisely on such a level of love, of inspiration that we are called to perform our service (this, of course, does not always work out), to fulfill the calling of the Most High. Then our fruits will be sanctified by the Most High, as it is said: “I am the LORD, who sanctifies him.” Then our children too, seeing such a reverent attitude to the service of the Most High, will be sanctified.

To continue: Jewish holidays, the garments of the priests, stenogram of the portion Kedoshim and weekly Torah portions.