Divine Punishments - Bechukotai - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Bechukotai, the 10th and final reading of the book of Leviticus, that focuses on the rewards and punishments associated with following or disobeying God's commandments.

I've been a bit sick this week so I'm afraid that Mythic Torah is shorter than usual. Hope to be back to normal by next week, when we begin Bamidbar, the book of Numbers.

Prometheus Bound

When the Greek gods decide to punish someone, they go about it with a certain zeal and creativity.

Think of Sisyphus, forever condemned to pushing the same rock up the same hill, as every time it reaches the top it falls all the way to the bottom.

Or Tantalus, eternally suffering with unquenchable thirst and insatiable hunger, with both food and drink just out of reach.

Or the Titan Prometheus, bound to a rock where an eagle eats his liver every day, only for it to grow back every night.

The Norse Gods too could be extremely creative in their punishments.

Like Loki, punished for his many crimes by being bound beneath the earth while a venomous serpent drips poison in his eyes, with his wife catching most of the poison in a bowl until the bowl is full and she has to turn aside to empty it out, leaving Loki to writhe in pain.

God, by contrast, seems to lack a certain amount of imagination.

Mountains and the Sublime - Behar - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Behar, the 9th reading of the book of Leviticus, that includes instructions for buying and selling land, as well as the rules for the Shemitah and Jubilee years.

I've always liked high places.

As a child, spending a lot of time at West London Synagogue, where my mother was the rabbi for many years, I would search out windows with broad ledges to sit on, so I could look down at the world from several storeys up. It was a man-made structure, but I loved feeling like I could see everything, and especially that I could see others without being seen myself.

I love the mountains of Switzerland - both standing at the top and feeling like I can touch the heavens, and standing at the bottom, feeling dwarfed by the mighty peaks all around me. When surrounded by such awesome heights it puts your life and your own problems into perspective, as you realise just how small and short your life is. A mountain feels to me like a place to touch eternity.

 This week's torah reading of Behar opens with setting the scene for the instructions that follow:

1] The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying:

א. וַיְדַבֵּר יְהֹוָה אֶל משֶׁה בְּהַר סִינַי לֵאמֹר:

While we think of the Mount Sinai experience being based in Parashat Yitro (that includes the 10 commandments) and Ki Tissa (that includes the Golden Calf), but in fact not only does the whole section of the tabernacle at the end of the Book of Exodus take place at Sinai, so too does the entire book of Leviticus. It's only after Leviticus that the Israelites are finally ready to move away from Sinai and begin their journey to the Promised Land.

But what is the significance of the mountain itself? What is so special about mountains?

Disability and the Celts - Emor - Mythic Torah

Nuada Silver-Hand

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Emor, the 8th reading of the book of Leviticus, that includes further instructions for the Priests as well as the major festivals of the Jewish year.

As a religious Jew, and particularly as a future rabbi, I come to the Torah looking for wisdom and guidance. I expect the Torah to speak to me with a voice of holiness and divinity, a voice that calls me to be better than I am.

But there are sections of the Bible, and the Torah in particular, where this set of assumptions is hard to maintain, where it is very difficult for me to see the perfect voice of holiness that I look for.

Emor contains one of those sections.

After beginning with instructions about the Priests avoiding dead bodies, God gives Moses instructions about priests with physical disabilities:

Wicked Witchcraft - Kedoshim - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Kedoshim, the 7th reading of the book of Leviticus, that demands that the Israelites be holy, for God too is holy.

 

Those fingers in my hair
That sly come-hither stare
That strips my conscience bare
It's witchcraft
And I've got no defense for it
The heat is too intense for it
What good would common sense for it do?
'cause it's witchcraft, wicked witchcraft
And although I know it's strictly taboo
When you arouse the need in me
My heart says "Yes, indeed" in me
"Proceed with what you're leadin' me to"
It's such an ancient pitch
But one I wouldn't switch
'cause there's no nicer witch than you
-Frank Sinatra, Witchcraft

Sinatra's 1957 hit 'Witchcraft' encapsulates both the attraction and the revulsion that human culture has felt towards witches over the millennia - the magic strops away his conscience, removing any free will to resist the witch's seduction, yet at the same time his heart says "yes indeed", and he states that there is no "nicer witch".

This week's parasha of Kedoshim calls on the people of Israel to be holy, for God is holy, and contains ethical imperatives and sexual prohibitions. But spread throughout the parasha are 3 verses about magic: Lev 19:31, Lev 20:6, and 20:27 all contain prohibitions against what we might call witchcraft, or more accurately spiritualism or consulting with the spirits of the dead:

When to Break Boundaries - Acharei Mot - Mythic Torah

Welcome back to Mythic Torah, my regular article investigating monsters, heroes and gods in the weekly Torah reading. This week's reading is Acharei Mot, the 6th reading of the book of Leviticus, that deals with the ritual of the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, as well as laws of forbidden sexual relationships.

The Death of Nadav and Avihu

When I started this Mythic Torah project back in January, I knew that some weeks would be easier to deal with than others. I knew that Genesis would be plain-sailing, and could finish off my year of Mythic Torah with a bang. Exodus felt pretty comfortable, and I was pretty sure I had a lot to say about most of Numbers and quite a few parashiot of Deuteronomy.

It was Leviticus that really scared me.

How was I going to find something mythological to write about every week when the theme, over and over again, is sacrifices, purity and the priesthood?

While I've managed to find something to say so far, there was always a beacon of hope, one story that I knew I'd be able to write about - the death of Nadav and Avihu, two of Aaron's sons.

But when Shemini rolled around 3 weeks ago, that relates how they died, I found I had another idea altogether, and so held off the discussion of their deaths until this week's parasha of Acharei Mot, which literally means after the death and tells about the first Yom Kippur ritual designed to cleanse the sanctuary.

What I find fascinating is that this week's parasha seems to disagree with Shemini about the cause of their death.

In Lev 10, we read that Nadav and Avihu came into the Tabernacle to offer 'strange fire', fire that was unauthorised somehow (though exactly what the problem was is a little unclear). In this week's reading of Acharei Mot we get a rather different take (Lev 16):