KedoshimVayikra (leviticus)

Holiness Laws
GOD spoke to Moses, saying,

“Generally, when you convey My teachings to the people, their attendance at these lessons is optional, and indeed, not all of them attend. The following passages of the Torah, however, are so fundamental that when you convey them, attendance will be obligatory. Therefore, at this lesson you must speak to the entire community of the Israelites. Begin this lesson by saying to them, ‘You must be holy, for I, GOD, your God, am holy, and holiness is achieved chiefly by distancing yourself from forbidden relations – such as were listed above – in addition to following the instructions that I am about to convey.

You have been taught that you must honor your parents, which means that you must feed, clothe, and escort them whenever necessary. In addition to honoring them, everyone must respect his mother and his father, which means that you must not sit in their seats, not speak when it is their turn to speak, and not contradict them explicitly. You are exempt from the duty to honor your parents whenever doing so would conflict with your obligation to obey Me. Thus, for example, if your parent tells you to desecrate the Sabbath, you must not obey him; you must instead observe My Sabbaths, for I, GOD, am God of both of you – and you both must obey My will.

You have been taught that you must not worship idols. In addition, you must not even turn your thoughts toward worshiping idols, contemplating how you might worship them – even though you know that they are worthless and their worship pointless – in order that you not eventually come to believe in them and thus make them into molten deities for yourselves. You may not make idols for others, even if you do not worship them; nor, as you have been taught, may you possess idols made by others. I am GOD, your God, who may be relied upon to reward you for fulfilling this commandment and to punish you for transgressing it.

that it be eaten on the day you slaughter it and, if any meat is left over, on the next day; and furthermore, that anything left over until the third day must not be eaten but be burned in fire. If, when you slaughter it, you articulate your intention to eat it beyond this time limit, the sacrifice becomes invalid and ineffectual.

Not only if the sacrifice is slaughtered with the intent that it be eaten on the third day, but also if it is slaughtered with the intent that it be eaten anywhere other than in the prescribed place for eating it, it is contemptible and it will not be accepted as valid.

Whoever eats the flesh of an animal that was slaughtered with the proper intention but has been left over beyond its prescribed time will bear his sin, because he has profaned what is holy to GOD. Specifically, that person will be cut off from his people, i.e., he will die prematurely and childless.

You must not glean the young grapes of your vineyard that grow on the part of the vine not sufficiently developed to have its grapes hanging from either a stem or ancillary shoots. Nor may you collect the fallen individual grapes of your vineyard. You must leave all of these required leavings for the poor and the convert, the latter because he has no land-inheritance to farm. I am GOD, your God, who may be relied upon to punish you – even with death – if you ignore these obligations. All these compulsory leavings are exempt from tithes.

Social Behavior
You must not steal money or property. If you do, you may be tempted to deny your sin; therefore be aware that you must not falsely deny someone’s claim that you received an article from him on deposit or as a loan, or that you received money from him in a business partnership or as a loan, or that you robbed him, or that you withheld his wages, or that you found something he lost. And if you do deny such a claim, you may then be tempted to bolster your claim by swearing to that effect; therefore, be further aware that you must not lie to one another by swearing falsely regarding having done any of these five things. (The corrective punishment for this misdeed was described previously.)

You have been taught that you must not swear in vain using My Name. In addition, you must not swear falsely by any other Name of Mine, or even by an appellation referring to Me (such as “the Merciful One,” etc.), thereby profaning the Name of your God. I am GOD, who may be relied upon to punish you if you transgress this prohibition.

You must not oppress your fellow, if he is your employee, by not paying him on time, even if he is wealthy. You must not rob. The hired day-worker’s wage, which is due him at sunset, may be paid to him any time during the night, but it must not remain with you through the entire night, i.e., until morning.

You must not curse any living person, even a deaf person who cannot hear you cursing him. You are, however, not liable to punishment for cursing someone after his death. Cursing a judge, leader, or parent is subject to additional prohibitions. You must not figuratively “place an obstacle before a blind person,” i.e., when you perceive that someone is not fully informed or aware of the issues surrounding a particular situation, you must not give him advice that is in your best interest rather than his, even if your advice is not to his detriment. Even though you may be able to deceive other people into believing that your advice was in his best interest, you cannot deceive Me; you must therefore fear your God. I am GOD, who may be relied upon to punish you if you transgress this prohibition.

You must commit no injustice in judgment. I consider any judge who perverts justice to be unjust, hateful, loathsome, condemned to destruction, and an abomination. Such a judge defiles the Holy Land, desecrates My Name, causes the Divine Presence to depart from the Jewish people, causes the people to die by the sword, and causes them to be exiled from their land. When serving as a judge in a case wherein a poor litigant is pitted against a wealthy one, you must not be partial to the poor litigant by ruling contrary to the law in order that the outcome of the case be in his favor, reasoning that the wealthy litigant in any case is required to support the poor. Conversely, you must not show misplaced respect to a great man by ruling in his favor contrary to the law in order not to shame him publicly, reasoning that doing so is a sin. Rather, you must judge your fellow with righteousness, irrespective of his financial or social status. But whenever possible, judge your fellow leniently.

You must not hate your brother Israelite in your heart. You must indeed rebuke your fellow when you see him committing some misdeed, but you must do so in such a way that you not commit the sin of embarrassing him in public on his account.

You must not take revenge on a fellow Israelite, i.e., retaliate a wrong he has done you. For example, you must not refuse to loan him something just because he refused to loan you something. Furthermore, you must not even bear a grudge against the members of your people, i.e., be resentful even if you do not retaliate. For example, if you loan something to someone who had refused to loan you something, you must not remind him of his past refusal. The principle underlying the just-mentioned commandments, as well as all others between you and your fellow Israelites, is that you must love your fellow Israelite as yourself, meaning that you must treat him with the same consideration with which you treat yourself. I am GOD, who may be relied upon to reward you for doing so. The only exception to this is someone who attempts to entice others into serving idols; such a person is the sole example of someone whom you are not allowed to love.

Mixing Species
You must observe My following rules: You must not crossbreed your livestock. You must not sow your field with a mixture of two or more species of grain or vegetables. You must not wear a garment or piece of felt made out of a mixture of wool and linen that has been pressed, woven, or twisted together. Separate pieces of raw wool and linen, however, may be worn at the same time, as may separate garments of wool and linen.

Violating a Betrothed Partial Bondwoman
As you have been taught, a Jewish bondman who is already married to a Jewish woman is allowed to also marry a non-Jewish bondwoman. You have also been taught that a non-Jewish bondwoman may gain her freedom before the end of her term of service either if someone pays for her release or if her Jewish master frees her himself, and that once she is freed she assumes the status of a full Israelite woman. Finally, you will soon be taught that adultery – even if committed with a woman who is merely betrothed – is a capital crime. Now, if a Jewish man conducts carnal relations with a woman, and this woman happens to be a non-Jewish bondwoman who has been designated by betrothal for her master’s Jewish bondman, and she has not yet been fully redeemed (since only part of the redemption money has been paid), nor has freedom been granted her by her master, there must be an investigation by the court to determine whether she is in fact fully free, for if she is, both she and her paramour are liable to the death penalty, like any Israelite who commits adultery. If it is determined that she is not fully free, then they must not be put to death, because she had not been completely freed, and therefore, her betrothal was not a full betrothal. Nonetheless, she is punishable by lashes,

and the paramour must bring his guilt-offering to GOD, i.e., into the Courtyard outside the entrance to the Tent of Meeting; specifically, he must bring a ram as a guilt-offering.

The priest must then effect atonement for him before GOD – by means of the guilt-offering ram – for the sin that he intentionally committed. If he committed this sin unintentionally (for example, if he was not aware that the woman was betrothed), he will be forgiven by this same means of atonement for the sin that he committed unintentionally.

In the fifth year, you may eat its fruit freely; from then on, its fruit is subject only to the other rules applicable to produce. Since I know that you may resent having to care for the tree for four years without being allowed to eat its fruit (either at all or freely), I therefore inform you that as a reward for observing these restrictions, the fruit of the subsequent years will be both exceptionally abundant and exceptionally satisfying. Furthermore, whereas you must usually fulfill My commandments without regard to any reward you might earn thereby, in this case you may fulfill these commandments expressly in order that the tree increase its produce for you in its subsequent fruit-bearing years. I am GOD, your God, who may be relied upon to fulfill My promise in this regard.

Prostitution
You must not defile your unmarried daughter by making her a prostitute or otherwise permitting her to engage in extramarital relations, lest I punish you by making the land “engage in prostitution,” i.e., yield the produce you sow in it elsewhere, and lest the land be filled with immorality.

Respect for the Wise and Elderly
You must rise before a wise, elderly person, and, in addition, you must respect a person who is wise and elderly by not sitting in his place or explicitly contradicting him. Do not pretend not to notice him and thus avoid troubling yourself to stand up in his presence. Even though you may be able to deceive other people in this regard, you cannot deceive Me; you must therefore fear your God. I am GOD, who may be relied upon to punish you if you ignore this instruction. However, you are not required to show honor to an elderly person who has not acquired wisdom.

“After having conveyed the prohibitions just mentioned, you must now tell the Israelites what the punishments are for transgressing them: ‘You have been taught that you must not serve the cult of Molech. Any individual Israelite or any convert who dwells among the nation of Israel who hands over any of his offspring to Molech – whether first- or further-generation offspring, and whether legitimate or not – must be put to death by the court by stoning. As has been mentioned, and as will be described fully later, if the court’s agents do not succeed in killing him, the people of the land must pelt him with stones until he dies. I refer to the people here as “the people of the land” firstly because I created the earth for the sake of the Jewish people, and secondly because in the merit of following My laws – particularly those by which they rid the land of idolatry – they will possess the land.

I will, as I said, set My attention upon that man, and upon his family as well, since his family, by harboring him rather than handing him over to the court, is implicated in his sin. Nonetheless, I will only cut him off, whereas his family I will only punish with suffering. You have been taught that it is a capital offense for someone to worship an idol in one of the four ways in which you are to worship Me – i.e., by sacrificing to it, offering up incense to it, pouring a libation to it, or prostrating himself before it – even if this is not the way in which that particular idol is usually worshiped. To these four I now add a fifth way, the rite particular to Molech-worship: passing a child through twin fires. Thus, I will cut off from amid their people all who stray after the Molech-worshiper by themselves straying after the cult of Molech, even if they perform its rites as a means of worshiping other deities who are not normally worshiped this way. The punishment of excision applies only if they were not properly warned and witnessed; if they were, they are liable to death by stoning.

You must similarly sanctify yourselves and be holy by refraining from engaging in all other forms of idolatry, for I am GOD, your God, who may be relied upon to punish you for transgressing these prohibitions.

Similarly, in the case of a woman who approaches any animal in order to fornicate with it, you must kill both the woman and the animal. They must be put to death by stoning. The spilling of their blood is their own fault (the animal’s only figuratively, due to Divine providence); none of those who execute them will be held culpable for their death.

Spiritual Defilement
As mentioned above, you must be proficient and practiced in the laws of ritual slaughter and the signs of fatal defects for which you must inspect permitted animals after slaughtering them, in order to know which animals convey ritual defilement if touched. This proficiency is necessary also because consuming improperly slaughtered animals renders you spiritually defiled. You must therefore be able to easily distinguish between proper ritual slaughter, which leaves the animal a spiritually undefiled animal, which does not defile you spiritually when you eat it, and improper ritual slaughter, which leaves the animal a spiritually defiled animal, which does defile you spiritually if you eat it. Similarly, you must be proficient in differentiating between ritual slaughter that renders a fowl defiled and ritual slaughter that renders a fowl undefiled. For example, if the trachea was cut only halfway, the slaughter is invalid and eating the flesh of an animal’s carcass will render you spiritually defiled, whereas if its trachea was cut even slightly more than halfway, the slaughter is valid and eating the meat of the dead animal does not render you spiritually defiled. The difference between these two cases is very slight, so you must learn how to distinguish between them. Thus, you will not make yourselves disgusting by consuming any spiritually defiled mammal or fowl, besides by consuming any creature that crawls on the earth that I have distinguished from other such creatures by prohibiting it to you, since consuming it renders you spiritually defiled.

Punishment for Divining
You were taught that a diviner who conjures the spirit of a dead person, causing it to speak via his armpit, or who speaks from his mouth by placing the bone of an animal called a yadu’a in it will be punished by excision if he was not properly warned and witnessed. If, however, it is clear to the court (because the offenders were properly warned and witnessed) that a man or a woman is a diviner who conjures the spirit of a dead person, causing it to speak via his armpit, or is a diviner who speaks from his or her mouth by placing the bone of an animal called a yadu’a in it, the offenders must be put to death by the court by stoning, and if the agents of the court do not succeed in killing them, the people must pelt them with stones until they die. The spilling of their blood is their own fault; none of those who execute them will be held culpable for their death. If they commit this sin inadvertently, they must bring a regular sin-offering, as do all those who inadvertently commit a sin punishable by excision if committed intentionally without proper warning or witnesses.’”