Torah Bites for Your Table: Parshat Emor

Shavua Tov Friends

My apologies for the late post. Somehow the Dvar Torah got left in my draft folder and did not make it online. This is a copy of an essay I wrote about this week's Torah portion for the weekly newsletter at the Jewish Theological Seminary...
I am oftentimes troubled when we talk about social justice with the assumption that acts of justice only exist in the temporal realm, yet do not enter into the spiritual realm. However, in this week’s parasha of Emor, we encounter a justice-oriented mitzvah that our rabbis see as bound up in the spiritual fabric of our lives, and develop a connect for how acts of justice are ones which the Talmud says are “where heaven and earth touch” (BT Bava Batra 74a).

In chapter 23 of Leviticus, the mitzvah of pe’ah, leaving the corners of one’s filed untouched to be given to the poor, is found amidst a series of commandments about the festivals between Passover and what we now know as Rosh HaShanah. Regarding the mitzvah, the text states the following:

“And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not altogether remove the corners of your field…you shall leave them to the poor and to the stranger” (Leviticus 23:22).

In one of her gilyonot on the parasha, Nehama Leibowitz asks why the above verse occurs in the context of the mitzvot pertaining to festivals, a seeming dichotomy between commandments between humanity and God and commandments between humanity and one another (New Studies in Vayikra, 444). On this question, three perspectives emerge that each attempt to teach us something essential about the way in which acts of justice are connection to a larger spiritual mission for the Jewish people.

First, in a commentary that was most likely based on his sermons to the elite of the Polish Jewry, the Keli Yakar asserts that even though one needs to provide some of their harvest for the counting of the omer, one must still observe the mitzvah of pe’ah during that time period. When explaining his rationale, the Keli Yakar writes the following:

“The connection of this verse with the omer is expressed in the homiletical comment that God surrounded Israel with mitzvot (precepts) in all their activities…We might have supposed that the fulfillment of the omer precept exempts us from other precepts, hence the Torah states: “You shall not altogether remove…You shall leave them to the poor and to the stranger,” i.e., this mitzvah does not absolve us from leket, shikhehah, (forgotten sheaves) and pe’ah” (Keili Yakar on Leviticus 23:22).

In explaining the rationale of this commentary, Leibowitz writes that this commentary “reflects the important fact that the ritual commandments (e..g. the occasional sacrificial requirements) are easier to fulfill than those affecting one’s fellow man” (New Studies in Vayikra, 446-447). In other words, the mitzvot that require us to act justly, to give up something of our ourselves, can be far more difficult than a ritually-orientated mitzvah, and thus the Torah wants to remind us that not only are acts of justice equally obligatory, the performance of them may even reflect a higher degree of effort and intention.

Second, the Sefer Ha-Hinukh explains the rationale for the mitzvot of pe’ah and leket by asserting that each mitzvah is aimed at attaining a type of spiritual cleansing of the Jewish people. The text states:

“God wished for His chosen people to be virtuous and generous. As I have stated before, good deeds influence the soul and render it fit for God’s blessings. Leaving part of the produce of one’s land to the needy no doubt affords its owner satisfaction and bestows bliss upon his soul, God having provided him with plenty, and gratified his spirit. But those who take everything home, and disregard the needy who saw the rising crops and hungered for it, thus reveal their grudging heart…” (Sefer Ha-Hinukh, Mitzvat Asse 213).

In this text, the performance of the mitzvah of pe’ah is not simply a matter of fulfilling a particular obligation, but it is an act in a process of spiritual cleansing through an act of justice. In thinking about the mitzvah’s original context in this week’s parasha, the mitzvah of pe’ah is meant to provide a spiritual framework for our Jewish year in the same manner as our Jewish festivals.

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, Rashi brings us a fascinating Midrash about what this mitzvah intends to teach. He writes,

“R. Avdimi b. R. Yossef said: Why is this precept placed among the Festivals, with Passover and Shavuot on this side and Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur on the other? To teach us that he who leaves leket, shikhehah and pe’ah to the poor according to the law, is considered as though he built up the Beit Ha-Mikdash and offered up sacrifices in it” (Rashi on Leviticus 23:22).

In commenting on Rashi’s teaching, the Be’er Yitzhak writes that, “The Torah put the obligation of gifts to the poor among sacrifice precepts in order to underline that these offerings do not present gifts to God…the laws of gifts to the poor appear amidst the Festival offerings, reminding us that these offerings are not presents. Heaven is the source of all riches…” (Be’er Yitzchak on Leviticus 23:22). The final perspective on our original mitzvah reminds us that mitzvot concerning societal justice exist not simply for the purpose of giving something to those who have less than us, but to recognize that all our possessions are, in reality, woven into the spiritual fabric of God’s creation. As such, we perform this mitzvah primarily because everything on this earth belongs to God, and a world of justice is one in which each of has the humility to give some of God’s possession to those who lack it.

In the contemporary dialogue in the Jewish community that increasingly places emphasis on issues of social justice, it is easy to rationalize these mitzvot in the context of our communal, philosophical, ethical or universalistic concerns. While I would not doubt any one of these individual rationales, it is essential that any community of Torah remember that these mitzvot are not simply bound up in extra-legal concerns, but rather are woven into the very fabric of God’s spiritual mission for the Jewish people. In short, justice is about who we are, and what our halakhah is meant to represent. May it happen soon, and speedily, in our days. Shabbat Shalom.