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Parsha Themes Archive

HOLINESS REVISITED:

A few weeks ago, in discussing Parashat Shemini, we paid special attention to the term “kedusha,” usually translated “holiness.” We often leave “holiness” pretty much unexplained, mostly, perhaps, because it is difficult to define holiness in terms of anything else. We rely on an ‘intuitive’ or general sense of what kedusha means rather than trying to define it concretely. This view of kedusha understands the concept of holiness as a spiritual quality which inheres in various entities (times, places, objects); kedusha can be achieved by people, too, when they perform the mitzvot. In this sense, kedusha is not a means, it is an end.

But we took a different tack in our discussion several weeks ago, attempting to understand what “kedusha” might mean on a more concrete level. The perspective we developed saw kedusha not as an inhering spiritual quality, not as an end in itself, but as a strategy, a way of providing opportunities for important values to be concretized. Kedusha is not the ultimate goal, for all it means is “dedication”; when something becomes “kadosh,” that means that it is specially dedicated to a religiously important purpose. When the Torah commands us to make *ourselves* holy, for example, the Torah is not instructing us to seek some elusive, difficult-to-define spiritual quality, it is instructing us to be *dedicated*! “Kedoshim tihyu,” the words for which Parashat Kedoshim is named, does not mean “Be holy” so much as it means “Be dedicated.” Dedicated to what? The Torah immediately provides concrete details: the full range of mitzvot is what we are called to perform with complete dedication -- the ritual, the moral, the interpersonal, the cultic (sacrificial).

We also noted that almost every context where kedusha is mentioned in the Torah in connection with a mitzvah, is a context which involves restrictions and prohibitions. What is it about kedusha that brings in prohibitions? If we understand kedusha as that metaphysical ‘something,’ it may be hard to say; but if we understand kedusha as ‘dedication,’ I think it becomes clear: something which is ‘dedicated’ cannot be openly accessible to everyone and everything, equally usable for everyone’s purposes, because ‘dedication’ means that the thing in question is devoted to specific goals.

For example, the Torah describes a set of days in the calendar as “mikra’ei kodesh,” “Times in which holiness is proclaimed.” These are more familiar to us as Shabbat, Yom Kippur, Rosh Ha-Shana, Pesah, Shavuot, and Succot. These days are dedicated to particular themes; we are meant to spend these times thinking about important ideas. If we were to spend these days at work, we would never have that opportunity. This is why the Torah consistently connects the holiness of these days (“mikra’ei kodesh”) to the prohibition of doing creative work on these days (and eating, drinking, etc. on Yom Kippur). The Torah’s declaration that these days are holy, dedicated, implies that they are reserved for special activities, and that our normal (work) activities cannot continue. Kedusha, then, creates a space of time which we are commanded to fill with a particular content. On Shabbat, we are to contemplate the Creation and the Exodus; on Yom Kippur, we are to contemplate our sins and work toward teshuva; and so on:

Parashat Ahrei Mot and Parashat Kedoshim present a series of mitzvot which restrict the sexual relationships available to us. These prohibitive mitzvot are known loosely as the “arayot,” an untranslatable term which means roughly, “cardinal sexual crimes” (I say ‘loosely’ because not all of the crimes included here are necessarily classified as ‘arayot’ in the strict halakhic sense). The Torah and Hazal connect these mitzvot in particular with the idea of kedusha. According to the understanding developed above, kedusha creates protected space for important values. What values are being protected here?

This list really becomes meaningful when we compare it to the list of crimes included in, say, the Rambam’s discussion of various sexual mitzvot in Moreh ha-Nevukhim (Guide of the Perplexed), 3:49:

Clearly, the Rambam’s list is much more inclusive than the list in the arayot section in the Torah. The Rambam is being thorough, relating to all of the sexual crimes and positive mitzvot. Since it seems clear that the parashat ha-arayot is not all-inclusive of sexual crimes, what is it really about? What are its themes, which justify leaving out the rest of the sexual crimes?

What do the various mefarshim (commentators) suggest the Torah is trying to teach us? We might have expected that mefarshim would either remain silent on the issue or consider these crimes inherently immoral or inherently disgusting. Indeed, this is part of the thrust of the Ramban’s opinion:

“. . . The arayot are among the ‘hukkim,’ matters which are “decrees of the King.” “Decrees” are matters which occur to the King’s mind as the best way to guide His kingdom; He knows the need and the benefit in each commandment He commands, and He tells it only to the wise men among His advisors.”

On the other hand, as we will see, the Ramban does speculate to some degree about the rationale for the arayot. Other mefarshim go much further. The Sefer Ha-Hinukh cites both the Rambam and the Ramban:

“As to the reason that relatives are prohibited, the Rambam wrote that the point is that the Torah wants to distance us from the sexual act, other than what is necessary for procreation or as a mitzvah; it therefore prohibited the relatives, since one is likely to stumble through them because they are always available.

“The Ramban, however, said that this reason is very weak--would the Torah impose excision [”karet”] for these [relatives] because they are always available, and yet would allow a man to marry a hundred women, or a thousand! Instead, he [the Ramban] said, ‘According to logic, this is one of the secrets of Creation, something attached to the soul, and is included with the “sod ha-ibbur” [understood by commentators to mean that incest produces children whose souls are somehow defective].’

“I have also seen that the Rambam offers another reason, on the peshat level, in my opinion: he says that the Torah wants to prevent us from behaving presumptuously by having intimacy with a woman whom we are commanded to honor. He [the Rambam] makes strenuous efforts to explain most of the arayot on this basis, but repeating all of that would take too long.

In discussing the various arayot as they come up in the arayot section, the Sefer Ha-Hinukh adds whatever rationales he believes are specific to those prohibitions. Some examples:

“’Not to reveal the nakedness of one’s father’s wife’ . . . the roots of this mitzvah are what we have already written about the close relatives [in general]. We can also say that the reason is that this is disrespect toward one’s father.”

“’Not to sleep with twosisters’ . . . the roots of the area of arayot, we have already written above. But my heart also tells me that the Torah forbids marrying two sisters because the Master of Peace desires peace among all of His creations, and certainly among those creations that nature and logic decree there should be peace, not strife and competition all day.”

“’Not to sleep with other men’ . . . the roots of this mitzvah are that Hashem desires that the world be filled and settled, and therefore commanded that we not destroy our seed through sleeping with other men, for that is truly destruction of seed through something which has no procreative purpose at all and is not a mitzvah, besides the fact that this filth is disgusting in the eyes of anyone who has common sense . . . and based on this [the prohibition of sex for non-procreative/mitzvah purposes], the Sages said that it is forbidden to marry a woman to a minor, for it is like zenut [sex for the sake of pleasure alone]; and also that a man should not marry either a very old woman or a barren woman who cannot bear children.”

Despite the Ramban’s suggestion that the arayot are either “hukkim” or are based on a mystical idea, he does not hesitate to offer a rationale for the prohibition of the nida, the menstruating woman:

“’A woman in the nida state of impurity’: the Torah forbids the nida because of the reason I have already mentioned, that the Torah permits sexual intimacy only for the purpose of procreation . . . .”

Shadal (Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Lutzatto), in his Torah commentary, offers what is to some degree a synthesis of some of the approaches above:

“The purpose of the sexual prohibitions is not, as the Rambam thought (Moreh Ha-Nevukhim 3:49), to cut down on the amount of intercourse, for the Torah did not forbid having many wives (except for a king), and neither did it forbid very frequent intercourse with one woman. Instead, the reason for the prohibitions is for the good of society. With regard to married women, the reason [for the prohibition] is obvious: to prevent violence, strife, and murder, all of which would result from adultery. And even if there were a man who was willing to allow this and free his wife to be intimate with a rich man, it is forbidden because of the damage it would cause to the character of the nation as a whole. The prohibitions of intimacy with men [for other men] and animals is because they are unnatural acts; if they were permitted, people would not marry women to the same degree.

“The arayot which are “she’er basar” [close relatives] are forbidden in order to encourage the success of the household, the development of proper midot [character traits], and the success of the entire nation. For taking one’s mother, stepmother, father’s sister, or father’s brother’s wife are acts which are against the requirement to honor one’s father and mother, and neglecting honor of one’s father and mother destroys one’s midot and destroys the structure of the household . . . . The reason for the prohibition of marrying one’s sister seems to be for the good of the nation: if one’s sister were permitted, most men would marry their sisters, and each family would become like a nation unto itself, and the families would not intermarry and mix with each other. The nation would not be like one nation, but instead like many nations, distant from each other and not loving each other.

We have seen the following rationales among the mefarshim for the arayot as a group or for particular arayot; these are the values or structures being protected by the kedusha (--> restriction) of the arayot prohibitions:

One theme which can be drawn from several of these rationales is the protection of the family as a unit for reproduction and for healthy growth and support. In this sense, the arayot may be split into two categories:

Under the first category, we would include the following, for example:

Under the second category, we would include:

All of the crimes in the first category threaten either our own familial relationship with these people (sleeping with one’s mother, for example, threatens the requisite respect due her and also destroys the familial structural boundaries between son and mother), or threaten the relationship between two other people (marrying two sisters, for example, threatens the relationship between the sisters; sleeping with a married woman threatens the relationship between her and her husband). On the other hand, all of the crimes in the second category are cases in which the sexual act becomes an outlet for desires other than procreation.

[In a sense, when humans engage in the sexual act in an effort to be (pro)creative and thereby emulate Hashem’s creativity, they are achieving one of the fundamental goals of human life as a tzelem Elokim. This is made explicit by Hashem’s charge to humanity just after He created it, and again after He re-established it after the Flood: our power to make ourselves “images of God” is explicitly linked to “peru u-revu,” our power to emulate Hashem by creating. On the other hand, when humans engage in the sexual act with intentions other than procreation or the creation of a relationship with procreative ends, the act becomes animal-like, and deserves the comparison implicit in the Torah’s grouping sex with a nida along with bestiality. I do not mean, of course, to compare a nida to an animal, God forbid.]

Although I do not have time to offer details, there are some indications in the text of the parashat ha-arayot (in Perek 18) which support the idea that the family is what is being protected. The Torah distinguishes implicitly between “she’er” prohibitions and “ervat X” prohibitions. The former category includes the closest relatives: one’s children, siblings, and parents. Whenever the term is used here, it is always in the sense, “Do not share intimacy with X; she is the ‘she’er’ of your Y,” where X is the forbidden relative, and Y is a person whom you are required to respect. For example, the Torah tells us that one’s father’s sister is forbidden because “she is the ‘she’er’ of your father.” If one could approach one’s father’s sister in this manner, one’s respect for one’s father would be diminished.

The latter category, “ervat X,” includes relatives who are not one’s own close relatives, but who are instead people with sexual commitments to X, where X is a close relative of one’s own. For example, the Torah prohibits intimacy between a man and his stepmother, not because the man is closely related to his stepmother, but because “ervat avikha hi”--literally, “it is the nakedness of your father” that you are uncovering, in a sense, not only the nakedness of the stepmother. Intimacy with the stepmother jeopardizes not only the relationship between her and one’s father (as does any case of adultery), it also threatens the relationship between one and one’s father.

In terms of the category of crimes which are meant to prevent intimacy which is not aimed toward procreation, it is interesting to note that the Torah includes among the arayot a crime which seems completely out of place: the prohibition of Mol. Molekh was a form of idol worship which seems to have involved sacrificing children (although the issue is debated). In any event, in the context of specifically the arayot of nida, male homosexual sex, and bestiality, the Torah places the prohibition of sacrificing children, hinting, perhaps, that all of these crimes share one thing: they are all inimical to procreation, or, more pointedly, they are all paths which take the potential for propagation of children and direct it toward other purposes.

May our families be places of support for growth and development, and may our efforts toward creativity of all types be successful.

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