Protection

Defining boundaries is the great work of the creation. Maintaining and honoring those boundaries is the great challenge of Leviticus. The first days of the Genesis 1 creation story depict God creating the boundaries between heaven and Earth, the waters aove and the waters below, land and sea. In Leviticus we are given explicit instructions on how to keep separate the holy and the profane, the clean and unclean, the pure and impure.

Some of the more mystifying strictures in Leviticus 19 – the heart of what has come to be known as the Holiness code -- have to do with the prohibition on creating garments from mixed fabrics, interbreeding livestock and planting diverse seeds in a single field. The best explanation I have read for these prohibitions is that this mixing would weaken the boundaries God set in place at creation, and thus weaken God’s intentions for the universe. 

The sexual prohibitions in Leviticus 18 and 20, which surround the code’s central chapter, appear to be put in place to distinguish the Hebrews from the Canaanites, whose land they are to take over, as well as the Egyptians, from whose land they have fled. Child sacrifice, sodomy and bestiality are dealt with in one compact passage of chapter 18, after which God tells Moses that the land itself was defiled by the practitioners of these deeds: “And the land was defiled, and I made a reckoning with it for its iniquity, and the land spewed out its inhabitants.” Israelites as a whole will not be “spewed out” for these offenses, God says, but the perpetrators will be “cut off from the midst of his people.” 

 In chapter 20, he makes makes it even more explicit. After pronouncing death sentences for a host of sexual transgressions, he orders Moses to tell the Israelites: “And you shall not go by the statuses of the nation which I am about to send away before you, for all these things they have done, and I loathed them. And I said to you, it is you who will take hold of their soil, and as for Me, I shall give it to you to take hold of it, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God Who set you apart from all the peoples.” 

Boundaries. I’m telling you. 

 It makes sense that the Torah, a work whose overarching purpose is to define a nation, would be preoccupied with boundaries and with specifying what is allowed and what is forbidden within those boundaries. Many of the rules of Leviticus focus on things that may be considered to pierce, or to blur, those boundaries. Included are things that violate the boundary between the creator and the creation: God and the people. 

The anthropologist Mary Douglas is one of many who have commented on the “squeamishness” of the priestly author of Leviticus when it comes to blood and other bodily fluids. Blood, identified with the life force, is intended to stay on the inside, and when it is released, as in ritual slaughter of animals, it must be reserved for dedication to God, most often sprinkled around the sacrificial altar. It is strictly forbidden to consume blood. Menstrual discharge and sexual emissions also release inner fluids to the outside and are considered to make the emitter unclean, unready for admittance into the presence of God. Childbirth, with its emission of not only the baby but voluminous contents of the pregnant body, renders a woman unclean for a long period of time – thirty-three days for a boy and double that for a girl. It requires an offense offering before the woman is seen as fit to re-enter the community. It may seem strange that the very act for which God intended humanity is one that renders the chief actor unclean, but holiness operates in strange ways, at least in Leviticus. 

Leviticus also evidences an obsession with the skin, and in particular diseases of the skin. Although classic translations of the Bible typically refer to these as leprosy, modern translators more often say that the skin diseases that render men and women impure and subject to isolation are not leprosy, which was not known in the Middle East until centuries later, during the Hellenistic period (according to a note in Robert Alter’s Hebrew Bible translation). The skin being the primary boundary that keeps us separate and intact, It makes sense that skin conditions would be treated as uniquely important. Consider also that along with skin diseases, Leviticus discusses mildew in clothing and mold in the walls of houses, and it becomes clear that the overriding concern is with these protective coverings that preserve our bodily integrity. 

The integrity of the skin is the subject of other restrictions, such as chapter 19’s ban on tattoos as well as laceration of the skin to mourn the dead. 

The pivotal Leviticus 19 begins a directive from God to Moses that is repeated throughout the chapters of Leviticus that have come to be known as the Holiness Code: “Speak to all the community of Israelites, and you shall say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” 

The distinctive feature of the Holiness Code is that its pronouncements are meant to be delivered to all Israelites, not just to the priestly caste – the Levites, particularly Aaron and his descendants – or to Moses as their prophet. Just as Moses was selected from among all of humanity to be the bearer of the Law, and as the Levites were selected from all of the Israelites to serve as priestly intermediaries between the Israelites and God, so the people of Israel were selected from amongst all of humanity to be holy, close to God. A series of boundaries is drawn, concentric circles, each of which contains fewer members as we move toward the singular figure of Moses. 

Successive boundaries separate the spaces of the Tabernacle

The boundary encircling Israelites is one of holiness. And that is a distinction fraught with risk. Holiness requires adherence to a broad set of behavioral rules, and transgressions against them – piercing of the boundary defining holiness – elicits consequences that may range from the need for washing to banishment (either temporary or permanent, depending on the transgression) to death. The boundary of holiness must be protected, as are the successive boundaries of the Tabernacle and of the body. Holiness allows the people to come near to God – but not too near. The separation of God from humanity is strictly enforced. 

Repeatedly, examples are made of people who transgressed the boundaries, whether the sons of Aaron who were incinerated for an unspecified transgression of the Tabernacle’s rules, or Miriam who was stricken with a skin condition after questioning God’s decision to distinguish Moses from all others, or a man who touched the Ark in an effort to steady it during transport. 

The boundaries protect both God and the people. The importance of separation – protection of people from God and God from people – is given additional weight in Chapter 4 of numbers, with its detailed instructions on how the Ark of the Covenant and other contents of the innermost sanctum of the Tabernacle – the Holy of Holies – must be wrapped in cloths for transport as the Israelites move through the wilderness. 

The boundaries set out in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy provide the definition of the Jewish people, and may be one of the reasons this population has survived millenia of oppression, ill treatment and hatred. By remaining separate and distinct, their identity is protected and preserved.