This week's parsha is Aharay Mot and Kedoshim, Leviticus chapters 16 to 20. During leap years, it is split into two parshas, but this year is not a leap year so the two parshas are read together. The Haftarah (reading from the prophets) is either Amos 9: 17-15 or Ezekiel 20: 2-20, or Ezekiel 22: 1-16, depending whether you are Ashkenazi or Sephardi (apparently the Sephardim have two traditions on where to read from Ezekiel).
This week's reading includes Leviticus 19, which, along with the Ten Commandments and the Shema (Deuteronomy 6: 4-9), comprise the most important teachings of Judaism in the Torah. Although Chapter 19 contains a mixture of ritual and ethical laws, the ethical laws alone proclaim a duty to our fellow human beings that should provide a guidance for all humanity, regardless of faith or lack thereof.
The most famous words in chapter 19 are from line 18: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus proclaimed as the fundamental Jewish teaching, which Christianity would follow, that the Shema and "Love your neighbor as yourself" were the two greatest teachings of the Torah - "all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Mark 12: 30-31 and Matthew 22: 37-40. And a few years earlier, Rabbi Hillel had agreed, teaching (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a):
That which is hateful to you do not unto your neighbor. That is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary thereof. Now go and learn it [the commentary].
So, to follow the teaching of Hillel, lets examine another verse from Leviticus 19, explore the commentary thereon, and then ask whether the self-proclaimed righteous Christians who dominate the governments of too many states, and who occasionally refer to their values as "Judeo Christian", are actually following Judeo-Christian values when they enact their war against the poor. From Leviticus 19:9-10:
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God.
After leaving the edges of your field unharvested, the remaining unharvested crops are referred to in the Bible and in the Talmud as פֵּאָה, transliterated as "pe-ah", which literally means "corner". Leaving the crops at the edges of your field unpicked meant that the unpicked crops would be along the roads in full view of passers-by.
Rabbi Simeon commented
(Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 23a-23b):
It was taught. Rabbi Simeon said: "On account of four considerations the Torah ordered peah to be left at the end of the field [instead of anywhere in the field that the owner chose]. As a precaution against robbing the poor, against wasting the time of the poor, against suspicion, and against transgressing the commandment "you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field."
As a precaution against robbing the poor: Lest the owner see a free hour [when no poor were in his field] and say to his poor relatives, "here [hidden is my field] is the peah."
Against wasting the time of the poor: That the poor should not have to sit around and watch the field until they can say, "now the owner will leave the peah."
Against suspicion: That passers-by will not see his field and curse, "Cursed is this man who has not left peah in his field."
And against transgressing the commandment to leave peah in his field: Are not all these on account of the commandment to leave peah? [The other three reasons are the reasons for the Torah's commandment to leave the crops at the edge of the field].
Said Rava: As a precaution against cheaters. [The owner may leave nothing and falsely claim he left the peah in the middle of the field.]
These days we are seeing Republican legislators and Republican governors, who loudly proclaim their Christianity on the shirt sleeves, enacting laws to
humiliate the poor,
to punish the poor for the crime of being poor. What would Rabbi Simeon say? What would Rava say?
Shabbat Shalom.