Portal:Judaism/Weekly Torah portion/Acharei-Kedoshim

Acharei-Kedoshim Levticus 16:1–20:27 The Weekly Torah portion in synagogues on Shabbat, Saturday, — “Love your fellow as yourself: I am the Lord." (Leviticus 19:18.)

The text tells the ritual of Yom Kippur. After the death of Aaron’s sons, God told Moses to tell Aaron not to come at will into the Most Holy Place, lest he die, for God appeared in the cloud there. Aaron was to enter only after bathing in water, dressing in his sacral linen tunic, breeches, sash, and turban, and bringing a bull for a sin offering, two rams for burnt offerings, and two he-goats for sin offerings. Aaron was to take the two goats to the entrance of the Tabernacle and place lots upon them, one marked for the Lord and the other for Azazel. Aaron was to offer the goat designated for the Lord as a sin offering, and to send off to the wilderness the goat designated for Azazel. Aaron was then to offer the bull of sin offering. Aaron was then to take a pan of glowing coals from the altar and two handfuls of incense and put the incense on the fire before the Most Holy Place, so that the cloud from the incense would screen the Ark of the Covenant. He was to sprinkle some of the bull’s blood and then some of the goat’s blood over and in front of the Ark, to purge the Shrine of the uncleanness and transgression of the Israelites. He was then to apply some of the bull’s blood and goat’s blood to the altar, to cleanse and consecrate it. Aaron was then to lay his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it the Israelites’ sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and then through a designated man send it off to the wilderness to carry their sins to an inaccessible region. Then Aaron was to go into the Tabernacle, take off his linen vestments, bathe in water, put on his vestments, and then offer the burnt offerings. The one who set the Azazel-goat free was to wash his clothes and bathe in water. The bull and goat of sin offering were to be taken outside the camp and burned, and he who burned them was to wash his clothes and bathe in water. The text then commands this law for all time: On the tenth day of the seventh month, Jews and aliens who reside with them were to practice self-denial and do no work. On that day, the High Priest was to put on the linen vestments, purge the Tabernacle, and make atonement for the Israelites once a year.

The text next begins what scholars call the Holiness Code. God prohibited Israelites from slaughtering oxen, sheep, or goats without bringing them to the Tabernacle as an offering, on pain of exile. God prohibited consuming blood. If one hunted an animal for food, he was to pour out its blood and cover it with earth. Anyone who ate what had died or had been torn by beasts was to wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until evening.

God prohibited any Israelite from uncovering the nakedness of his father, mother, father’s wife, sister, grandchild, half-sister, aunt, daughter-in-law, or sister-in-law. A man could not marry a woman and her daughter, a woman and her granddaughter, or a woman and her sister during the other’s lifetime. A man could not cohabit with a woman during her period or with his neighbor’s wife. Israelites were not to allow their children to be offered up to Molech. A man could not lie with a man as with a woman. God prohibited bestiality. God explained that the Canaanites defiled themselves by adopting these practices, and any who did any of these things would be cut off from their people.

God told Moses to tell the Israelites to be holy, for God is holy. God instructed the Israelites: To revere their mothers and fathers; to keep the Sabbath; not to turn to idols; to eat the sacrifice of well-being in the first two days; not to reap all the way to the edges of a field, but to leave some for the poor and the stranger; not to steal, deceive, swear falsely, or defraud; to pay laborers their wages promptly; not to insult the deaf or impede the blind; to judge fairly; not to deal basely with their countrymen, profit by their blood, or hate them in their hearts; to reprove kinsmen but incur no guilt because of them; not to take vengeance or bear a grudge; to love others as oneself; to observe God’s laws; not to interbreed different species or sow fields with two kinds of seed; not to wear cloth from a mixture of two kinds of material; a man who has carnal relations with a slave woman designated for another man must offer a ram of guilt offering; to regard the fruit of a newly-planted tree as forbidden for three years, set aside for God in the fourth year, and available to use in the fifth year; not to eat anything with its blood; not to practice divination or soothsaying; not to round off the side-growth on their heads or destroy the side-growth of their beards; not to make gashes in their flesh for the dead; not to degrade their daughters or make them harlots; to venerate God’s sanctuary; not to turn to ghosts or inquire of spirits; to rise before the aged and show deference to the old; not to wrong strangers who reside in the land, but to love them as oneself; and not to falsify weights or measures. God then told Moses to instruct the Israelites of the following penalties for transgressions. The following were to be put to death: one who gave a child to Molech; one who insulted his father or mother; a man who committed adultery with a married woman, and the married woman with whom he committed it; a man who lay with his father’s wife, and his father wife with whom he lay; a man who lay with his daughter-in-law, and his daughter-in-law with whom he lay; a man who lay with a male as one lies with a woman, and the male with whom he lay; a man who married a woman and her mother, and the woman and mother whom he married; a man who had carnal relations with a beast, and the beast with whom he had relations; a woman who approached any beast to mate with it, and the beast that she approached; and one who had a ghost or a familiar spirit. The following were to be cut off from their people: one who turned to ghosts or familiar spirits; a man who married his sister, and the sister whom he married; and a man who lay with a woman in her infirmity, and the woman with whom he lay. The following were to die childless: a man who uncovered the nakedness of his aunt, and the aunt whose nakedness he uncovered; and a man who married his brother’s wife, and the brother’s wife whom he married. God then enjoined the Israelites faithfully to observe all God’s laws, lest the Promised Land spew them out. For it was because the land’s former inhabitants did all these things that God dispossessed them. God designated the Israelites as holy to God, for God is holy, and God had set the Israelites apart from other peoples to be God’s.

Hebrew and English text

Hear the parshah chanted

Commentary from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University (Conservative)

Commentary from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (Conservative)

Commentary by the Union for Reform Judaism (Reform)

Commentaries from Project Genesis (Orthodox)

Commentaries from Chabad.org (Orthodox)

Commentaries from Aish HaTorah (Orthodox)

Commentaries from the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (Reconstructionist)

Commentaries from My Jewish Learning (trans-denominational)