Deuteronomy: Chapter 21

What do you bring in

When you go out

And what do you take out from within?

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The chapter is a mixed back of disparate laws. Its opening reiterates and intensifies the themes of the previous chapter, while its closing looks ahead, to a time after settling in the land, defining the relationship between parents and children in a society where inheritance is at stake.

The opening section reiterates the previous themes of “coming in” and “gone out,” yet complicates them. If in  the previous chapters, we established a sacred space “within” and then “went out” to war, here what is out is brought in, and what is in is taken out.

The opening returns us to the laws of murder, and the metaphysical responsibility for blood: “you must expunge clean blood from within you.” Yet the movement “out” has changed the responsibilities “within” (a key word in all these chapters). In chapter 19, we dealt with the laws concerning inadvertent manslaughter, and the need to provide refuge for the killer from vengeful relatives who seek to “redeem the blood”—a responsibility to those who fit “within” (k’r’v) the roads and center that define Israel. Here, the responsibility is instead to the anonymous corpse, to the outsider who has no relative to demand “redemption.” Literal closeness, physical proximity, creates a bond: “then your elders and judges shall come forth, and they shall measure the distance unto the cities which are round about him that is slain. And it shall be that the city which is next to he that is slain, the elders of that city shall take a heifer that has not drawn a yoke…”

The ritual of atonement enacted by the elders brings what is outside into the intimate sphere. The unbroken heifer is taken to a wild “river that is not worked,” and what is beyond human habitation comes to atone for human habitation. The ritual shares much in common with the enigmatic laws of the Red Heifer, which comes to purify after contact with death. Here, we restate the connection between inheritance and blood, but a level of primal rituals of contact with the earth.  The stranger is brought “within” the circle of responsibility, and the unmarked spaces beyond the roads are webbed in to the sacred.

After bringing the outside in, we once again move “out” to the laws of war (the two sections are connected by a word play on yi-matze—“find”-- and te-tze—“go out”). Yet if the previous section on war mandated complete destruction, so as to prevent “learning from their abomination,” here, there is a possibility of bringing a captured woman “into your home.” After following a ritual of mourning and symbolic severing “inside your home,” the outside can become intimate: “and afterwards she shall be your wife.”

Uniting these two sections is a focus on seeing and eyes: the elders must swear that “Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it,” so that they will do “the right in the eyes of God.” The unseeing eyes then open  to see “among the captives a woman of beautiful form” (21:7). 

At the closing of the chapter, the focus on seeing shifts to a focus on hearing, as the breakdown of relationship between parents and children is defined by "he does not listen to us" (21: 20); and the son's death penalty is supposed to make "all of Israel listen." Here, what is closest is expunged, as the parents "take out" (ho-tzi-u) their son to the court.
  
There is constant pulsation between bringing in and going out, between closing the senses, and opening them.]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 12

Whose eyes do you follow

now that you see?

What is chosen

consecrated 

named

never quite yours

bound to Here.

Let desire roam 

fleeting as water 

over the endless Theres

Only the consecrated is bound and gathered.

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In the previous chapter, the Promised Land was "the land that God watches from the beginning of the year until the year's close. Now the relationship between God and Land becomes more specific: there will be "a place that God chooses." The key word of the chapter is "place" (makom) and "there" (shama): "to there you will bring it" "you shall come there" you shall ascend there." 

As in the case of the covenant with Israel, the choice of a "there" redefines the relationship to the infinity of other "theres." Relationship is built of specificity and commitment. Even when speaking of the relationship to God Himself, it in not about qualitative difference, but rather about the exclusion of other options:"You shall destroy  their altars, and break their sacred stones, and burn their wooden images... you shall not so to God your Lord, but you shall seek the place that God your Lord chooses from all your tribes, to dwell his name, and you shall go there." 

As in the case covenant, one must "guard" against non-monogamy. The choice of a place must exclude other places from worship. No longer will it be permissible to worship "whereever is right in your eyes";  rather, Israel must to "what is good and right in the eyes of God."

Here, however, a place is set aside for the non-specific, for the non-sacred. The relationship to place becomes two-tiered. While sacrifices can only be offered in the "place that is chosen," meat can be eaten anywhere. There is a space for unfettered human desire outside of relationship to God: "as your soul craves, you may slaughter and eat flesh in all your gates." The key is not to concentrate this desire: "the pure and impure may eat it together, only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water." 

Eating non-sacred meat is repeatedly compared to eating the flesh of wild animals--"like a gazelle and  a hind." Non-consecrated meat remains undomesticated; its "blood  which is its soul/life spirit" still roaming free "like water on the earth." In the many "theres", the "desire of your soul/ life-spirit" can roam, so long as it does not attempt absolute possession of another's "soul / life force". 

It is only absolute, "chosen" place,  where the blood "life-force" can be "offered" to God, and "purged" on the altar.

The sacred and non-scared delimit each other, in an anophara of "only" rak. The non-sacred must remain untrammeled and free; the sacred is bound and absolute. ]

Numbers: Chapter 29

An arc from many to one

countdown to closing

Back to the promise 
of the every day

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This chapter is a direct continuation of the last, completing the detailed list of the offerings for the "appointed seasons of Meeting." Here, we focus on the clustered  holidays of the "seventh month" (commonly known as the High Holy Days). Once again, there is a repeated refrain of the basic beat of the quotidian. Whatever the offering, it is always in "addition to the 'always' offering". 

The structure is highlighted here, with the opening festival on the new moon. A double beat of the ordinary underlying the start of the holiday season: "beside the offering of the new moon...and the always offering."

The structure then takes a sine-curve of growing intensity echoing the moon's wax and wane. At the full moon, we reach the apex of 13 offerings to  "celebrate the festival" of the first day of Succot. From there begins a slow waning to 12, 11, 10... until we reach the single offering of the "eighth day"--the final, extra festival that eases back into the day-to-day pattern of "your vows and free-will offerings."

The canon-like literary structure, with its repetitive pattern of naming the day, and then detailing its steadily declining offerings, echoes the pattern of the "times of Meeting": the careful confluence of repetition and change, the steady beat of "always" with the shifting melody line of appointed days.]

Numbers: Chapter 28

 

Each day in its day

Each month in its month 

The sanctity of always 

The circadian Sinai











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From the continuity of inheritance, we move to another kind of "eternity / always" (tamid). This chapter details the time-based offerings at the Tent of Meeting (mo'ed), the Meetings (mo'ed) in time. This chapter to some extent echoes the laws of the festivals in Leviticus 23 but with a beautiful difference: we begin not with the Sabbath or the festivals, but with the everyday: "day by day, for an always/ eternal offering; one lamb at the morning; and one lamb between the boundaries of the evening." From the daily we move to the monthly, sanctifying the new moon, "month by month," The offerings for the new month are brought "in addition" to the "always (tamid)" offering, and this becomes the refrain of the chapter: sanctified time is always an addition to the basic beat of the daily "meeting", the daily recreation of "what was offered out Mount Sinai." Revelation is in the everyday; teh festivals are the high notes that play above it.]

Leviticus: Chapter 22

The limits within

What cane be ingested

set forth

The hollows within

the hallowed bread

Give perfection

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This chapter continues seamlessly from the last, expanding on the special laws for the priests, The key words remain teh sme: "Hallowed" (kadosh), "Hollowed / desecrated" (halal); protect / guardianship (mishmeret; shamor); and, of course, teh leiwort of this entire book: closeness/ close/ offering (root k'r'b).

In a reflection of the previous laws defining the relationship to the Dwelling, this chapter moves from defining the limitations on the priest's contact with others, to his relationship with his own body and its excretions. As before, entering the space of Meeting demands a containment from the self. In counterpoint, as in the case of Israel, the relationship to the Dwelling is intimately related to questions of food: what can and should be ingested. 

In a return to the fateful "eighth day" which saw the death of the two sons of Aaron, once again there is an ominous parallel between the priests and the offerings they bring to the altar. If the previous chapter demanded physical perfection of the priests--any disfigurement makes them unfit for service--this chapter demands (in almost identical terms) physical perfection from animals. Any animal that is disfigured is disqualified from the altar. The "daughter of a kohen-man" who "desecrates" her father is "to be burned by fire"--a clear echo of the "fire that God burned," which destroyed the "two sons of Aaron." The priests who "come close" are intertwined with the animals they "bring close:" And closeness is dangerous.  ]  

Leviticus: Chapter 21

The limits of closeness

Where can you connect

When you can't go outside

The limits of perfection

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The laws limiting the kohanim (priests). Having defined the space "inside," the connection to the "outside
 of the Tend of Meeting becomes more circumscribed."Bringing close" the "offerings" (korban) means that the priests cannot be close (k'r'b) to as many people. They can only come into contact with the dead for blood relations who are "close" (karev, karov. These relationships are male-centric. Bonds to sisters exist only so long as no man has entered the equation, breaking the bonds of blood ). 

 The "filling" (milui) of the high-priest leaves no room for other connections. He cannot "go outside" (lo yetze) the Dwelling, not even to mourn his own family. The woman he marries must also have never come into contact with the outside: "A woman in her virginity must he take."

The priests themselves must  be perfect--any physical flaws limits their ability to go "inside"]

Leviticus: Chapter 17

For the blood
is the life force



The bond of consanguinity


















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This chapter finally delves into the central motif of this book: blood. Once again, we return to primordial roots, echoing the primal definition of the relationship to animal after the Deluge: "But flesh with the life... which is the blood, you shall not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man." As in Genesis, humanity and animal are tied together in bonds of blood. Man is given rights of eat, but not to the life force. 
Here, the limitations seems tighter. The opening verse seems to imply that any taking of animal life outside the context of the Dwelling borders on murder: "Any man of the house of Israel that kills an ox, or lamb or goat in the camp...and brings it not to the doorway of the Dwelling...blood shall be imputed to that man, he has shed blood". This supposition is contradicted by later references to hunting--the killing is allowed, but the blood must be treated with respect. 
Life force/soul (nefesh) becomes embodied in blood. The river that ties together all life force, it also allows for atonement].

Leviticus: Chapter 14

 Out                                       In

Dead                                   Live

Till the inner sanctum is destroyed

And you fly free over the field

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The healing of the metzorah (loosely translated as "leper"). At last, he breaks out of the endless cycles of sevens, as he too reaches "the eighth day."

The ritual embodies duality: the living flesh, and the dead tzarrat lesion, the two birds--one slated for death, the other, marked in blood, set free to fly "over the face of the field"; two sheep.

The greatest tension is between inner and out--an echo of the "days of filling" consecrating the Dwelling, which also revolved around "going outside" and remaining in the "doorway." The chapter opens with the metzorah being "brought/ coming in"  and the priest going out (ve-yatza). The metzorah must sit alone "outside" the camp; then can come "in." One bird of the offering is offered "within" the Dwelling, the other flies away outside. The spacial focus comes to the fore in the laws of house-tzarrat, in begins with parts of the inner dwellings  cleared away to "outside" the camp, and closes with the complete destruction of teh houses' wall. the tzaraat experience somehow revolves around a redefinition of inner space)

Leviticus: Chapter 10

Come bring
and be consumed
the eating fire


the thin line
alien and belong
inside and out
















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This chapter continues seamlessly from the last, sharing all its key words: "fire", "closeness/offering" (the root k'r'v), "face" (pnei), "holy" (kodesh). But what a transformation. The hidden menace in the complete integration of kohen and altar comes into the open. The same fire that "came forth" to "consume the ascension offering on the altar" now "comes forth" to "consume them," killing the two sons of Aaron. Another key word enters: "die" temutrun.  It is shocking--and yet feels inevitable. Moses "brought close" (hekriv) Aaron and his sons--the exact same language used for "bringing close" (hekriv) an offering (korban)--a pattern which is emphasized by Moses statement: "this is what God meant when he said I will be sanctified by those closest (bi-krovai) to Me." Aaron's remaining sons become notar, "left over"--the same language used to describe the leftovers of the meal offering.
The fact that the high priest is aligned with  "the entire congregation" in regards to the sin offering takes on a new overtone. The priests stand at the "doorway" because they are the buffer. "Do not die, and on all the congregation He will be wroth."  "Your brothers, the entire congregation of Israel" will "cry over the burning that God has burned." The two sons of Aaron become the embodiment of the sin offering of the nation. The priests are the altar, with all the danger that implies. The fire that was greeted with joy must now be mourned with the same intensity.
We return to the tension between closeness and distance that animated the entire creation of the Dwelling. Aaron's sons run to greet the divine fire with "alien fire," and are consumed by the very fire to which  they respond. Now comes a splitting. "you must differentiate (lehavdil)." The dead and the living; inside and outside; the doorway between.]

Leviticus: Chapter 9

On this day

Today

Come close

See and make seen

Fire flows forth

Burning blessing

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"And it was on the eighth day"... After all the laws and preparation, the seven liminal "days of filling" we finally arrive back on the day of consecration that closed the Book of Exodus. After standing "in the doorway" Aaron at last "goes out," (vayetze) connecting the inner world of the sanctuary and the outer world of the people in a "blessing" which causes "a fire to go forth (vayetze) from God.

They leitwords are "close, to approach" (karev, korban), to see (vayar, veyeru), and "face" (pani, lifnim). This is a day of intimacy, and of God making Himself visible. 

The priests continue to function as a living element of the Dwelling. They are the connecting pieces between the people and the altar, "coming close" (karev) to bring the offerings of closeness (korban).  ]

Leviticus: Chapter 7

Bound together

or cut off

Divine and human eating

That which you bring 

becomes yours

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This chapter expands and intensifies the themes of the previous chapter. The connection between kohen and offering becomes tighter. If in the previous chapter, the priests were given general rights to certain offerings, here an intense one on one relation is established between the offering and the priest that offers it: "The one who atones with it, to him it shall be" "The skin of the ascension offering shall go to the kohen who offered it, to him shall it be" "and the kohen who throws the blood of the sin offering it shall be".

Countering this intense bond between the priest and the offering is the threat of a broken bond to those who disrespect the offerings, to those who overstep the bounds of the holy: "and he shall be cut off (karet) from his people."

The sharing of the offering between the human and the divine is accompanied by limitations to protect the boundaries of the divine. The chapter closes with a reiteration of the prohibition of taking the blood or the fat--the two parts of the sacrifice consecrated for the altar. Those who do so shall be "cut off"]

Leviticus: Chapter 6

The eternal flame 

Burning through the night

The great consumer

And his watchman

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A reiteration of the laws of the offerings, but with a transformed ambiance. No longer is the focus the one sacrificer,  "a soul which shall bring." Now the focus is on the offering itself: "This is the law (Torah) of the Ascension Offering" "This is the law (Torah) of the Sin Offering."

We have returned to the primal call to sacrifice in Genesis: the Binding (akeda) of Isaac. "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and ascend him as an ascension offering". The root "to bind" (akod, mokda, tukad) is the key root, along with "fire" (esh) "law" (Torah) and "holy" (kadosh). We are in the world of the altar upon which "an eternal fire shall burn (tukad).. it shall not go out". The only human presence is that of the altar's watchmen, the priests, who must feed it every morning. The person who brings the offering has disappeared.]

Leviticus: Chapter 5

What is known,

What unknown

Hiding the revealedLosing the foundTaking what is not yours

The guilt of holding

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From "sin" het/hatat we move to "guilt" asham. The consequence of sin (ve-asham) here becomes an object that can actually be offered to God: "And he shall bring his guilt to God for his sin." 

The Asham offerings comes for a variety of seemingly unrelated issues--withholding testimony, becoming unknowingly ritually unclean, breaking an oath; misuse of consecrated property; misuse of others' property . An underlying motif is the tension between the hidden/lost and the revealed/found: taking control of something that is not in your sphere]

Leviticus: Chapter 4

Between the inner and the outer

The All, and the individual


How do you atone

for a mis-take?

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Again, a change of ambiance. For the first time since the "call", we speak of sin, atonement, blame, rather than simply "coming close". Yet there is a consistent comparison to the zevakh shelamim, the "peace offering" that created a join "eating" for the human and divine. The space of atonement is also a shared space of "God's commands" and humanity's "doing--asa." This space is animated by a tension between the collective and the individual It begins with the high priest, humanity's representative within the Dwelling; then then moves to the collectiveklal/all/ congregation. Only then do we speak of individuals--the king (who is not seen as standing in for the people in the same way that the priest does) and any "nefesh / soul from the people of the land." 
Paradoxically, the offerings of the collectives (the kohen, the people) are brought into the intimate space of the sanctuary, while the private offerings remain outside, in the courtyard. Yet it is only the individual offerings that create "the pleasing scent" of the earlier, voluntary offerings]

Leviticus: Chapter 3

Separations

bread and spirit

human and divine 

the  broken parts




Do not touch 

the blood 

the glistening milk











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A return to the animal. Once again, a focus on choice (a repeated anaphoric conditional), and a return to the third person. Yet the greater intimacy of the grain offering "thou" has had an impact. No more is this offering completely for God. Now it is split between the human and the divine, some parts offered, some parts left for the offerer.
The split between God and man paradoxically  creates a harsher ambiance. The focus on the chapter is on splitting. We break up the simple unity of the ascension offering, carving the animal to its pieces. Each type of animal is craved differently. Each highlights a different aspect of the offering: cattle is a "pleasing smell"; sheep are "a bread/food offering"; goats bring together this duality--a "bread/food offering" that is also "a pleasing smell."   The offering itself becomes multifaceted. It can be both male or female. It is an offering/ korban for "coming close" (le-hakriv); it is a type of incense (le-haktir); it is a zevakh, a sacrifice,  cognate of "altar", mizbeach. 
In creating a shared "food" for the human and divine, the "peace offering" also introduces duality, and the need for limits. Certain things do not belong to the human realm, cannot be ingested. The primordial blood, and the glistening white fat ( helev, cognate and near synonym of halav, milk) are not to be touched. ]

Leviticus : Chapter 2

A greater intimacy

Raise the memory

The leftovers connect...



















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The move from animal to meal offering creates a change of ambiance. From primordial "adam,"  we now speak of a nefesh, a soul, a life force, and then shift into direct address: "if you bring." This greater intimacy is not only between the one who brings the offering, and God, but also with the priests. Suddenly they too become integral parts of this relationship, with the leftovers, the notar, going to them, as part of "the most holy offering" to God]

Leviticus: Chapter 1

When Man comes close,  

come with animal

Calling from the door

Come close to the door

Emanating outward,  

approaching inward 

Choose the path and come in desire

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Exodus closes with God's Presence descending on the Tent of Meeting. Now the Tend of Meeting is active, and God "calls" to Moses from within. This first communication shares some of the elements of the creation of the Dwelling: a focus on the liminal space of the "doorway"; an interaction of human choice and desire (ratzon) and God's definitive command. The key word is korban/karov "to come close". The repeated phrases are the anaphora "if from x is his offering"--highlighting the space for choice--and the closing refrain "for a pleasing fragrance to God"--highlighting the relationship.

But there is also a change of ambiance and tone. From speaking of "men" and "women" (ish, isha, nashim), we have moved to the primordial name of the species--Adam, human, earth creature: "if an adam should bring an offering." If in Exodus, the offerings were of creativity,  human-as-artist, here the offerings are of blood and guts, human as animal, The Dwelling, once activated, seems to call to the most primal elements of humanity. Echoing in the background is Abel's first offering of "firstborn sheep," which were accepted]