אַחֲרֵי מוֹת
Friday, 29 April 2022
Temple Beth Shalom; Santa Fe, NM
Leviticus 16.1 – 18.30
It was the conclusion of a Friday Night Service several weeks ago, as I went up to Cantor Lianna Mendelson to thank her for her particularly incisive and inclusive Sermon that evening.
Cantor Lianna asked me, “So, would you do the Sermon some Friday night?”
“Yes,” I said, “I would be honoured.”
Now, having been Ordained myself for some 50 years, I should know that responding “I would be honoured” is equivalent to a binding contract, especially between those who are Ordained.
Several weeks later, I received an email from Cantor Lianna, asking if I would do the Sermon “some Friday night in April, please choose one, but not April 15th!” I wrote back, “Well, I can’t do the Sermon on the 1st, the 8th, the 22nd – and of course not on the 15th, that’s Pesach, and for me it’s Good Friday which means a Three Day Service leading up to Easter! How about the 29th?”
She agreed.
And – then – and only then did I look up the Torah Portion for this weekend.
I sent another email. “Is it really Acharei Mot?” Her reply (contrary to the reading) was uncomplicated, “Yes.”
Now, I have to admit, this is a case of choosing the date before reading the text. I should know better! I’ve been Ordained longer! And, believe it or not I actually do mostly know where in the year we are Torah Portion-wise.
So, I agreed. Acharei Mot it is. And then I read these three chapters from וַיִּקְרָא (Vayikra) Leviticus.
There is a phrase in Latin: Quid Putabis? My Bishop used to have it printed boldly in front of a Gargoyle he had on his desk. It was, he told me, especially useful when various clergy who had gotten themselves into trouble (somewhat akin I might say to the Levitical Code pronounced in this week’s Torah Portion). To such clergy seated across his desk, he would simply point to the Gargoyle and say in Latin, “Quid Putabis?” Meaning, “What were you thinking?”
So I said to myself, “What was I thinking?” And the answer to that is: I was thinking of the honour bestowed upon me by Cantor Lianna, the trust, and the privilege of proclaiming to this congregation which both Bev and I love dearly, which has been to us through life and death the most enduring community of faith and compassion – proclaiming thereunto what I think is important to know about this Levitical reading, Acharei Mot.
I do read Hebrew, not well, and v-e-r-y slowly. I read French quickly. As guests at a recent Seder this year, some of us were given the “Four Questions” to be read in various languages: I was given the French.
It’s fascinating and very informative to read something you know very well in a different language. It brings depth to bear on what is written.
So, in French, Acharei Mot is après la mort. It sounds almost romantic when you hear it. But it is not après l’amour (after the “love”) but la mort two words: “the death”. So, it comes out the same in Hebrew, in French: “After the death –” And while it was for me very insightful to read these chapters in French, I ended up where I began. Quid Putabis? What was I thinking?
In my tradition, a Sermon is neither prepared, nor preached in solitude – but always in the company of others. That is, my words are my words, yes, but they are built, informed, enhance, molded by the understanding and insights of others around a text.
So I (to use a phrase I really dislike, but actually describes my actions here), I reached out to others, my cycling partner Fletcher, Rab. Marvin, some of you sitting here this evening, my wife, and so on. And all of you became involved in the preparation of this Sermon tonight!
Acharei Mot – After the death. Whose death? Nadab and Abihu, two of Aaron’s sons who brought unauthorized incense before the Holy One, against the Holy One’s command, with the result that they were consumed by fire from the Holy One.
Now right then and there one should flee from this Torah Portion. On “your side of the text” as Rab. Marvin always referred to me in the Church, on “our side of the text” it would have been prudent to do a Sermon on something else, maybe a lovely Psalm!
But, as a Lutheran Christian, I am bound to the weekly texts, to the readings, what we call the Pericopes – which is to say, I am not free to make things up as I go along – I am called as one who Proclaims to be a “servant of the story” to struggle with it, even if I do not like it, learn from it, translate it, and somehow do my level best to bring its ancient meaning to bear against (as we say on our side of the text in one of our lovely evening prayers) the “changes and chances of life.”
So – Acharei Mot. I begin to read the three chapters of Leviticus (16, 17, 18).
Opening with a description of Yom Kippur (yes indeed, we meet these words twice a year: once in the Fall and once around Passover). Yom Kippur, how do we observe this, what are the rules, what are the prohibitions: no eating, no drinking, no washing yourself, no anointing yourself with oil, perfume, cosmetics, no martial relations, and please do not wear leather.
And, in addition, you spend the whole day in synagogue, praying to the Eternal and asking the Eternal to forgive you your sins.
But, in the time of Leviticus if you are the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, even you cannot approach the Holy of Holies any time you wish – a warning too late for Nadab and Abihu. You have a different agenda: you partake in a highly dramatic day long ritual involving special clothing, immersing in a mikvah 5 times, and praying the sins of the people upon a male goat whom you send away into the wilderness, the “scapegoat” and then bringing a variety of sacrifices to the Eternal including clouds of incense.
So Acharei Mot gives us the basis for the observance of Yom Kippur each year. While we no longer sacrifice goats and bulls, we do sacrifice the “things we have done, and the things we have left undone”1 and all of this before a God of mercy, compassion, acceptance, and ultimate love – we are forgiven, there is atonement.
So far, so good.
Chapter 17 – whether a child of Israel or a stranger residing in your midst, you don’t make burnt offerings on your own, you leave them at the door of the Tabernacle and offer them before God. AND, don’t consume blood (the “life” it is called in Vayikra). That will cause you to be כָּרֵת (kareth), cut off. Rather like the goat that is sent into the wilderness – you lose your family, your community – and they lose you. Other peoples, other traditions may do such weird things, but not you – you are called to a higher devotion: to the Eternal, and to one another, you are to be אחריות (achrayut) responsible. That’s the key, in fact that’s the key to this whole Torah Portion, maybe even to all of Leviticus, maybe even to the whole of Torah – to be responsible, not just think of being responsible, not just saying it, not just writing about it, but to do it, be responsible: love God, love others!
And that leads us to Chapter 18.
Now when I realized it was Leviticus 18, that was part of Acharei Mot, I began to tremble, tremble, tremble. Because 18 verse 22 is one of the 4 texts in the Torah to condemn homosexuality. Don’t worry, we Christians have 3 more on “our side of the text”! But all that is for another time.
Chapter 18: don’t be like the Egyptians from whose land you are now free; AND, don’t be like the Canaanites into whose land you will go. Especially don’t offer your children up to Molech a Canaanite deity.
But all this pales in the light of the endless verses which follow about being forbidden to “uncover the nakedness” of certain individuals.
The Bible is full of euphemisms: and “uncovering the nakedness” means “having sex with.” There is a list which has to do with who you can’t have sex. You can read it for yourselves.
But the verse claimed especially by biblical-literalist non-Jews (what one author described as “ground zero for homo-haters) is verse 22 – a man lying with a man as he lies with a woman is abomination.
Now, you know (or maybe do not, but now you do) I live in a church (the very liberal side of Lutherans) which condemns those who hold with this verse as a means of condemning same sex relationships. Formally, we ended this in 2009 in a church-side assembly in Minneapolis. Details are available from my wife, Beverly, who was one of the voting members present.
In fact, every year during the Pride Parade, our congregation would not only walk and take part in the Parade, but from a booth that we had set up at the end of the Parade we would hand out little cards which said on the outside, “What did Jesus really say about homosexuality?” And when one opened the card it was – blank! And on the back it said, “Yes, he said nothing about it. But he said a lot about love and compassion and tolerance and peace.” It was a very popular card.
Two women came up to me at the booth we had established at the end of the Parade. They saw the cards and said to me, “We are newlyweds!” I said, “Congratulations! Blessings!” Then the took one of the cards, opened it and said, “How many of these can we have?” I said, “how many do you need?” They said, “Well we come from two very homophobic families. We have a lot of relatives who are born-again fundamentalist Christians, so how about 80 cards?” We gave them 80 cards.
Somewhere (I like to dream) there are 80 people, maybe more now if those cards got around, who have their eyes and hearts opened because of those cards, that they really read Leviticus and everything else not from the standpoint of cold hardened hearts, but from a liberated life!
Since I am a follower of that Person of Love and Compassion and Tolerance and Peace, I have to say that what was useful and maybe necessary for a people over 2,000 years ago – is no longer.
Or, as a colleague of mine responded to a woman who confronted him and exclaimed, “The Bible says in Leviticus that you can’t lie with a man if you’re a man. What about that, Pastor‽”
His response, and mine was/is: “The Bible is wrong!”
Meaning that you cannot take a word or a phrase or a verse out of context and out of time and plunk it down into this time (or any time)without understanding it’s context. Period.
So, here’s what I think, what I hope.
Maybe, Acharei Mot will come to mean not only “after the death of Aaron’s sons” but after the death of biblical literalism
after the death of using sacred story to condemn others
after the death of homophobia
after the death of persecution and hate
And then we can dream of life, our life:as Jews, as Christians, as atheists, as agnostics, (or as Rab. Ben Morrow of blessed memory used to call himself ignostic [ignorant as to the full understanding of God]), or human beings blessed with the breath of life – to leave behind in whatever Mizraim (Egypt) we were in or are in, whatever cup of grief and bondage we had to drink – leave that behind there and drink deeply of the freedom we find in our story, and offer that liberating cup of love, hope, justice, freedom to others.
And let us say, Amen.
1These words a direct quote from the Lutheran liturgy of Evening Prayer.
Nota(ble) Be(n)e 