If you’re interested in reading the text of this week’s parsha, the weekly Torah portion, you can go to chabad.org. If you are a Russian reader or pretty much any other language, I’m sure there is a translator program available.
This week’s portion is called Kedeshim (קְדשִׁ֣ים) which has the simple translation of you shall be holy. It’s about the sacred laws. It’s really about the ten commandments but it spells them out again and again. The thing of it is, it really is pretty simple. It means be respectful and mind your own business. I don’t know how to make it easier on you but I think that’s what it says.
As far as vegan editing goes, there is a little bit about making these blood sacrifices where we kill animals so that the priests have a steady flow of meat. I was thinking about this this morning. As a non-meat eater for either six or seven years now, maybe five or six, I think the number one thing that has happened to me is that when I stopped eating meat, I started minding my own business. I think I was always a reasonably respectful person. But I just stopped fixating on people. In fact, I stopped caring about other people quite a bit and couldn’t for the life of me understand why I was even paying attention to certain people. I guess if you are a meat eater, like all carnivores, meat equals food and therefore your eyes follow it. In the case of modern apartment living carnivores, it means you stare at people incessantly.
I think the idea of feeding meat to the priests simply make it that they will not stop looking at the people They are supposed to be taken care of. If you had vegan priests, you’d probably be wondering what they did for a living.
“Excuse me, are you listening to me?”
“No, I’m sorry. I understand you’re trying to feel better and asking me to absolve you of your sins and this is why you have just slaughtered an animal. I find you reprehensible and a criminal. Please go away. I don’t want to look at you at all.”
I understand that this is counterproductive for the entire idea of having priests and going to them to supplicate yourself so that you don’t feel so bad about the bad things you’ve done but to me it makes perfect sense. I talk a lot about God and all of the meat eaters around me seem to think I’m a priest and that I exist to take care of them. They fly into rages when I do not pay attention to them. I’m not a priest. I never said I was. I said I was religious in my own way and that I thoroughly believed in God. That has nothing to do with having to get sick from being around completely disgusting and reprehensible people. I’m sorry, I’m just a private citizen who doesn’t afflict himself with too many addictives. If you think that makes me holy, I think you are wholly mistaken.
There is a bit about idolatry but I think that has something to do with staring at likenesses of people. Erotic statues perhaps. Or just really sexy advertising designed to make you hungry. And this would be all of those beautiful young women who we just can’t keep our eyes off of who sell us all of the products we need to be happy. I have had the privilege of having relationships with several young model types. What else can I say? Once you get finished taking pictures and pleasing them, there ain’t a lot of conversation to look forward to. I don’t know what you expect other than a drag on your financial portfolio from one of these things but that’s what I got from it. Oh yeah, and maybe I got a few more clients who looked at my girlfriend and thought that their eyes should stay on me a little longer. And this is true even if they didn’t ever really get better English.
The reading is Leviticus 19 through 20:27 And right there in the beginning we have this.
3Every man shall fear his mother and his father, and you shall observe My Sabbaths. I am the Lord, your God.
In my mind, this does have everything to do with listening to your parents but I also think it has something to do with the nature of God. I am pantheistic. I believe God is nature and nature is God. But as a gardener, I do understand that there are plants that have both male and female parts to them but that there is no automatic germination or springing into life unless there is contact with an outside source. The pollinators, the bees and the wasps and the flies and the rather annoying mosquitoes all visit the flowers and move the pollen from where it grows to the pollen receptor. If this action doesn’t take place, the plant cannot grow.
To me this means there is a division between the sexes but that they exist as a whole. This is my opinion of what God is. It is both a male and a female entity. There is a division between the male half and the female half to be sure. Perhaps I believe that women either fall in love with the masculine idea of God, or specifically the feminine idea of it should that be their thinking, but that the men actually look for the merciful and benevolent side when they pray. I don’t know too many men who ask to be thunderstruck but I have met quite a few women who have openly asked for it. Some of them to the point of personal sickness.
The quote also mentions taking a day off. To me, I think this means taking a day off from listening to my neighbors. When I first started doing Shabbos with seriousness, it had to do with the fact that it was a loophole because I was Jewish. If I agreed that I was Jewish, I didn’t have to write the Upcoming Election Books 7 days a week. My brain was exploding and I was getting sick from overwork. You can’t work 7 days a week without going completely crazy. I started taking days off and found that it was the very best thing I had going in the entire week. When you do something that feels really good, I don’t know too many people who would say no to it. I know people find lots of things addicting but I’m not really sure Shabbos is a bad addiction. In fact, I think it’s the healthiest addiction in the world and everybody should absolutely throw themselves into it like drug fiends. Please God, just get me to Friday already. I have so had enough of this.
But then there are a few other points that I simply can’t allow to go by without mentioning.
11You shall not steal. You shall not deny falsely. You shall not lie, one man to his fellow.
12You shall not swear falsely by My Name, thereby profaning the Name of your God. I am the Lord.
13You shall not oppress your fellow. You shall not rob. The hired worker’s wage shall not remain with you overnight until morning.
14You shall not curse a deaf person. You shall not place a stumbling block before a blind person, and you shall fear your God. I am the Lord.
15You shall commit no injustice in judgment; you shall not favor a poor person or respect a great man; you shall judge your fellow with righteousness.
16You shall not go around as a gossipmonger amidst your people. You shall not stand by [the shedding of] your fellow’s blood. I am the Lord.
17You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your fellow, but you shall not bear a sin on his account.
18You shall neither take revenge from nor bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
And then this:
33When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not taunt him.
34The stranger who sojourns with you shall be as a native from among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your God.
35You shall not commit a perversion of justice with measures, weights, or liquid measures.
36You shall have true scales, true weights, a true ephah, and a true hin. I am the Lord, your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
37You shall observe all My statutes and all My ordinances, and fulfill them. I am the Lord.
For anyone actually familiar with my story, this seems to be the lot of it. If coming to the territory of Belarus 23 years ago was a trip to heaven, having the Russians come has turned everything into hell. It is hope against hope to mention that the president of Russia decided to put a hit on the president of Ukraine. What an interesting thought. How is it that the world does not recognize this as an anti-Semitic war? How is it that the world cannot recognize that this is literally hating the Torah? I understand that people think this way but I don’t understand why people fight for an unfair playing field and to be used and abused. I don’t understand really what pleasure anyone takes. Part of my daily routine is kicking the living shit out of my neighbors these days. I don’t get anything from it but more COVID. I am not a meat eater. I don’t look for something to suck as a way of life. I just don’t get it. I just see that abuse works and that giving them pain is the only thing I can do to get through to them. It’s like training a cat. Give it food and kick its ass and it’ll show up when you have a problem with mice. Pure worthlessness.
Anyway, if this is words to the wise, I am glad. My advice to you is to take this advice. I think if there is any weekly Torah portion that I personally feel connected to, it would be this one because it just makes sense. Just mind your own business and take care of yourself. Be good to nature and nature will be good to you. And for God’s sake, quit eating meat already. For the love of God, would you please stop eating meat. If it does nothing else, it might curtail your personal hysteria. I don’t know why you think hysteria is so wonderful to have. In my history, making hysterical decisions has never done anyone any good.
And one more thought from Kedoshim in a Nutshell: The Parshah of Kedoshim begins with the statement: “You shall be holy, for I, the L‑rd your G‑d, am holy.” This is followed by dozens of mitzvot (divine commandments) through which the Jew sanctifies him- or herself and relates to the holiness of G‑d. These include: the prohibition against idolatry, the mitzvah of charity, the principle of equality before the law, Shabbat, sexual morality, honesty in business, honor and awe of one’s parents, and the sacredness of life.
Also in Kedoshim is the dictum which the great sage Rabbi Akiva called a cardinal principle of Torah, and of which Hillel said, “This is the entire Torah, the rest is commentary”—“Love your fellow as yourself.”
For the Utopian! This is Hillel ben Lev reporting
Photo: “La Vigne Rouge” by Vincent Van Gough 1888
