Arguing that the Book of Leviticus (Vayikra), dealing mainly with the laws of sacrifices in the Tabernacle, is likely the Torah’s “most ambiguous book,” Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo has made it the subject of the third volume in his series of essays: Cardozo on the Parashah.
He points out that “contradictions and ambiguity” appear to have been built into the Book of Leviticus.” This ambiguity raises the question, “Should [the book] reflect the ultimate truth or a compromised subjective truth?”
Dividing Judaism into two archetypes – one symbolized by Aaron, the other by Moses – Cardozo notes:
“The first archetype [Aaron’s] holds that Judaism should be founded on certainty and fixed for all time,” he writes, whereas the other archetype, “of how Judaism is to unfold,” is symbolized by Moses.
Aaron, as the first high priest, “represents the ‘halachic establishment,’ the caretaker of the commandments.”
“No topic is so detailed and so specific as the sacrificial ceremony. Every ritual is broken down into minutiae,” he points out. “One small mistake in the sacrificial ritual, and the offering is rejected. There can be no spontaneity in the sacrificial service.”
It was spontaneity instead of rigidity that ended in a tragedy, such as “befell Nadav and Avihu, Aaron’s sons, when they brought ‘strange fire’ at the inauguration of the Tabernacle [that God had not commanded, and they died] (Leviticus 10:1-2).”
From the perspective of the Aaron archetype, “The Torah, its text, and its oral explanation is all there is, and all there needs to be. It is the final divine word that echoes down the ages. There is no room for spontaneity, for the creative hand of humanity; nor could it become ‘superior’ in the future.”
The emphasis, therefore, is on obedience to the Torah, he writes. “The Torah is impenetrable and final. Only in this form can the Torah survive through the centuries. And only thus can Judaism endure. Without this immutability, Judaism would ultimately break down. It is Judaism without risk.”
In Aaron’s world, he writes, “rules must be followed precisely.”
Cardozo also draws our attention to the fact that throughout most of Aaron’s life, he does not say anything of his own, “he mainly repeats what Moses tells him to say. There is no novelty; no innovations.”
Different views of Halacha and Judaism
WHILE AARON was the high priest, it was Moses who “spoke to God ‘face to face,’ not in a vision or dream but in broad daylight, as one would speak to his fellow,” Cardozo reminds us.
Thus, Moses conceived “a completely different view of the Halacha and Judaism.”
Cardozo says that because of his open encounters with God, Moses was able to rise above the strict letter of the law.
“His was a vision that could liberate the law from its textual bonds and let it soar into the heavens, beyond human history, and come down again in a new vessel.”
For Moses, the Torah was not a fixed law to be applied but rather a springboard for humans to develop the Torah’s concepts and laws far beyond the given text; even beyond the framework of the Oral Torah.
“Moses’ Torah is a living fountain through which the law could expand, flourish, and be regenerative.”
Cardozo quotes a midrash (Seder Eliyahu Zuta 2), likening the Torah to “wheat and flax,” explaining that “we are meant to take these raw materials and create food and beautiful garments, not leave them in their raw state.”
Thus, he writes: “We are expected to use the Torah text and its Oral Tradition to create new worlds.”
He gives the example of Moses: “After having spent 40 days on Mount Sinai, internalizing the Torah’s potential, Moses could see its infinite possibilities: The text and its oral manifestation were meant as a point of departure, not as a destination.”
THE BOOK of Leviticus, Cardozo writes, “needed to respond to the circumstances of the hour for a people newly freed from slavery, adrift in a vast desert. This limited the Torah of that time, such that it could not display its full glory but had to work with what was given.”
Therefore, it evinces “the ambiguity of a text that had to be given at a particular time in history, within a particular framework, and which had to accommodate itself accordingly.”
“At the same time,” he writes, “the law also needed the ability to evolve beyond this hour.
“The future would give rise to new circumstances that would require initiatives rooted in – but also going beyond – the text. The groundwork thus had to be laid for a ‘post-desert’ Torah.”
This, he states, is “the magic of Leviticus.”
“By deliberately making the Torah ambiguous, leaving loopholes and contradictions, and by changing its linguistic style, the Torah could become a constant source for argument among human beings, involving them in its study. Human beings become co-creators in the Torah,” Cardozo explains.
“While the text has been frozen since Sinai, the interpretation and the meaning of the text are flexible enough to bring forth new riches according to the new insights of Moses and the later sages.”
THERE IS another strange aspect to Leviticus. “With its exhaustive detailing of the rites of the Tabernacle, it seems to present a very different form of Judaism to most of the preceding books of the Torah,” he writes.
“What changed?” Cardozo asks.
His answer: “Some commentators believe that it was the sin of the Golden Calf that caused this split.” For Cardozo, “Had it not been for this disastrous backsliding into idol worship, the Book of Leviticus might never have been written.”
Instead of “an ideal monotheism, where God’s place was everywhere,” he says, “a concession had to be made to the Israelites’ need for tangible symbols.”
And so, he suggests, “the Tabernacle, with its golden menorah, table laid with bread, and Holy of Holies became a symbolic stand-in for the transcendent God of pure monotheism.”
Therefore, he concludes, “The type of worship that Leviticus details is clearly an indication that the Israelites were not ready for a God who was entirely spiritual.”
Even after the splitting of the Red Sea and the miraculous giving of the Torah at Sinai, the Israelites, Cardozo says, “had not liberated themselves from elements of idol worship.”
While they had physically “left Egypt,” he explains, “Egypt had not entirely left them.”
Therefore, he writes, Leviticus is “a book of concessions, full of tensions and contradictions” and represents “a sort of divine compromise, a Judaism far removed from the ideal.” For Cardozo, “It is as if God wanted to leave the reader in suspense.”
At times, Cardozo clarifies, Leviticus appears “to speak about the highest forms of monotheism,” referring to “pre-Golden Calf conditions,” and at others, about “compromised monotheism” or “post-Golden Calf circumstances.” It oscillates between demanding “complete holiness” and discussing “down-to-earth conditions that are far from ideal.”
He is fascinated by the “tension” in Leviticus, seeing it as reflecting “a higher Torah and a lower Torah; sometimes Moses’ Torah, sometimes Aaron’s Torah.”
CARDOZO CONCLUDES the introduction to his book by asserting that “The tensions found in the Book of Leviticus are still with us today.
“There is an ‘Aaron’ perspective to the Torah, and there is a ‘Moses’ perspective to the Torah. There is a historical perspective to the Torah as time-bound, and there is an a-historical perspective to the Torah that transcends time and space.”
Aaron’s perspective is “a tangible Judaism, a Judaism in which people can feel at home, which is comfortable and familiar.”
The Moses perspective, however, “represents a riskier approach” and can be “uncomfortable and scary.”
Moses “does not see any limits to the text of the Torah and its commandments.” He has “spoken face to face with God,” so for him, “the sky is the limit.”
However, Cardozo posits: “Neither approach is sufficient in itself.” While Aaron’s approach “ultimately leads to stagnation,” he writes, Moses’ approach “can be too airy and transcendental.”
He iconically describes Aaron as “too regressive” and Moses as “too progressive.”
In Cardozo on the Parashah: The Book of Leviticus, the writer examines how all these tensions play out between what ought to be and what is; between the ideal Judaism and the compromised Judaism; between pure monotheism and a monotheism reliant on symbols.
And, of course, what he calls “the greatest tension of all,” between “the static ‘forever Torah’ of the Temple priesthood, and the dynamic, evolving Torah of the sages.”
Cardozo concludes that the Torah “continues to flourish to this day” due to the “contradictions of the Book of Leviticus,” which allowed for “halachic loopholes” that have enabled [the Torah] to become the “portable homeland of later generations of the Jewish people.”
Rabbi Cardozo is the author of many books, such as the bestselling Jewish Law as Rebellion. Find his weekly essays at cardozoacademy.org.
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