This week we not only have the art of Phillip Ratner on Emor but the commentary of Yeshayahu Leibowitz from his book “Accepting the Yoke of Heaven” It is an amazing collection of insights on the Torah portion of the week. This one in particular struck me as quite profound. His book can be purchased at Urim Publications
Ratner Emor
“Leviticus has been known in our tradition, since time immemorial, as Torah Kohanim, the “Laws of the Priests.” …” A great part of it , deals with the service in the sanctuary and in the Temple which came thereafter- “and indeed, the key word to all matters of holiness in Torah Kohanim is the term, ” To their God”-“They will be holy to their God,” and not “they will be holy to you.” The Jewish people do not have to treat the priests’ status as something which is holy.”
Netziv of Volozim explains ” They will not imply holiness to the people by their clothes”-this means that they should not appear to the people as holy because of their special priestly clothes. The priestly clothes are meant for serving in the Temple. Outside the Temple, the priests are like any other people, and they should dress as any other person, and should look like any other person. If they attempt to look holy and special and separate from the people even outside and beyond their work in the Temple, “that is not honoring the name of God, but is arrogance and conceit.”
“This must be said against the spiritual plague, the plague against faith, religion and morals, that has infected, and still infects, certain people as holy in themselves, and not in terms of the function they fill in teaching Torah, and in observing the Torah, and in preserving the Torah. And let it be said: it is nothing but a form of idolatry that has penetrated into Judaism, and is a sign of the withering of faith in God.
“Jewish faith does not recognize the concept of holiness except in the context of worshipping God, and does not recognize holiness as an essential part of a person- and one should also add that the same applies to anything which exists in nature or in human reality, in a land or in a building.”
“He who distinguishes between holy and secular” is one of the main elements of religious awareness. One is forbidden to raise the secular to the level of the holy, and the secular includes all of man’s actions and all of human existence-except for those functions that are intended as an expression of the worship of God.”
