Acharei Mot-Kedoshim: Not Like the Others
We must not copy other nations' ways. Our way is to elevate everything to a higher plane, whether it is morals, saving lives, or opportunity.

by Rabbi Dr Raymond Apple

Acharei Mot carries God’s warning that we should not copy the ways of two nations which our ancestors knew well – ancient Egypt and Canaan (Lev. 18:1-5). This is part of a general admonition against "chukkat hagoy", the ways of the heathens. The problem was both theology and ethics. In fact the two issues were intertwined. Because they had a false theology they had false ethics, and Israel had nothing to learn from them.

It is not just an ancient historical question, because many of the cultures whom we encountered, even in modern times, were also dangerous. Not only Jews suffered from such regimes and ideologies; their own people were often victimised. Experience proved that when Jews were not safe, nobody was safe. Sometimes Jews thought it was a counsel of prudence to make their peace with their neighbours, but it rarely worked. In Germany there were Jewish thinkers who adulate German civilisation, but it turned against them and unleashed a Holocaust that destroyed the dream of harmonious symbiosis.

What should a Jew do then when it is obvious that a nation failed to meet the standards that were second nature to Judaism? The answer is twofold – increased dedication to Judaism and its ideals, anunremitting determination to improve the ways of the host society. Leo Baeck said that the Jew is the eternal protestant who never accepts the present situation as the best of all worlds. One can and must be a loyal citizen of the country where one lives, but that must never be at the cost of surrendering or squashing the Jewish moral conscience with which one was born.

THE VALUE OF LIFE
The principle of “pikku’ach nefesh”, whereby all but three mitzvot are set aside when life or health are in danger, is deduced in the Talmud from the verse in this week's reading, “You shall keep My statutes and ordinances by which he who observes them shall live”. By saying, “He shall live by them”, the verse implies, “He shall not die because of them”.

Life overrides law with three exceptions, idolatry, murder and adultery, which must never be committed even if one’s life is at stake. The pre-eminent value of life was dramatically illustrated in mid-nineteenth century in the great kehillah of Vilna during a cholera epidemic. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter feared that fasting on Yom Kippur would gravely affect people’s health and weaken their resistance. He therefore told the community that, Yom Kippur or not, they had to eat and drink, and to show them how serious he was he went up onto the bimah during the service, made a b’rachah and publicly drank wine and ate cake.

The three cardinal sins, idolatry, murder and adultery, can never be condoned. Originally it was thought Shabbat is a law with the same absolute status: it was said that the observance of the Sabbath testifies to the Creation, and its desecration denies Creation and Creator.

This strict view was followed by the Maccabees who at first refused to break Shabbat in order to defend themselves against the enemy. Subsequently, however, they did permit themselves to fight “for our lives and our laws” on the basis that “pikku’ach nefesh docheh Shabbat” – “the preservation of life overrides the Sabbath”.

The Talmud is adamant that this is the intention of the Torah itself. One sage said, “The verse, ‘And you shall keep Shabbat because it is holy to *you*’ (Ex.31:14) indicates, ‘Shabbat is handed over *to you*; you are not handed over to Shabbat’”. Another rabbi quoted the verse, “And the Children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations” (Ex.31:16), which implies, “Desecrate for him (whose life is in danger) one Sabbath, so that he may live to observe many Sabbaths”.

Hence the rule is, “Even for a day-old infant, Shabbat may be desecrated; for a dead David, king of Israel, Shabbat may not be desecrated, because a dead person is free from keeping the mitzvot.” Whether Shabbat can be broken for a non-Jew was provocatively raised in Israel in about 1965 when an anticlericalist, Dr. Israel Shahak, alleged he saw an African collapse in the street and the nearest householder, an orthodox Jew, refused to break Shabbat by phoning for a doctor. It was found that the incident may never have happened, but Chief Rabbi Unterman wrote a responsum clarifying the halachic position and ruling that human beings have to protect other human beings, and a life in danger has to be saved.

CHAMETZ ALL YEAR ROUND
We don’t talk too much about chametz once Pesach is over. Maybe we should. There is a lesson for the whole year in the idea of chametz. Apart from one small segment of the year, the ingredients of chametz are no problem.

The problem is caused not by the make-up of the chametz but by the date. If it is Pesach, chametz is out: for the rest of the twelve months it is in and acceptable.

Let’s now apply this idea to this week’s second Torah reading, K’doshim, “holy people”. What makes us holy is not withdrawal from the world but elevating every ordinary event and experience. Water makes us holy when we need to be physically and spiritually clean. Fire makes us holy when we need to prepare food and kindle the Sabbath light. But like everything else, water can also be a curse; floods do untold damage to human life. Fire can be a danger when it spreads and destroys nature and human habitation and life. Like chametz, the question is the timing. If we carefully control water and fire, we can use them to make life magnificent. If they get out of control, they become our enemies. As someone has said, we can use a brick to build a place of worship – or to construct a gas chamber. The question is what we do when the moment of opportunity is upon us.

Rabbi Dr Raymond Apple AO RFD is Emeritus Rabbi of the Great Synagogue, Sydney. He is now retired and lives in Jerusalem, where he spends his time writing, delivering shiurim, and editing books for Targum Press. He also writes articles for various publications, including Hamodia.

Rabbi Apple's new book, a lavishly-illustrated history of the Great Synagogue, Sydney, is a lively story that links up with Jewish and Australian history. Don't miss out on your copy!