Leviticus: The Joyful Middle Book of the Torah

Hebrew scholar and Jewish academic Irene Lancaster reflects on Leviticus, holiness and loving your neighbour. 

If you’re thinking that of the Book of Leviticus, joy might not be the primary adjective that springs to mind! Laws, injunctions, severity, do’s and dont’s, all the pieces in incontrovertible fact that most ‘sensible’ people have discarded.

However, Rabbi Nathan Cardozo of Herzliah, Israel, has just written a recent book on Leviticus which manages to remain true to Levitical teachings, while also engaging modernity head on. Rabbi Cardozo is the founder and dean of the David Cardozo Academy and the Bet Midrash of Avraham Avinu in Jerusalem. A sought-after lecturer on the international stage for each Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, he’s the writer of 13 books and various articles in each English and Hebrew.

I first encountered Rabbi Cardozo over 40 years ago while studying at a non secular Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. He taught Jewish thought at this seminary and was also a graduate of the famous Gateshead Yeshiva.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks called him ‘one of the thoughtful voices in contemporary Judaism’ and in March former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth, cited him as the way in which forward for each religions when he gave his guest talk on the Annual Jonathan Sacks Memorial Lecture.

Another advantage is that Rabbi Cardozo is Dutch and subsequently offers special insights from Dutch culture to a lot of his interpretations. He wrote this book throughout the recent ongoing war faced by Israel from Iran and her proxies. In fact, the constructing where he lives, opened in 1979 by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, and named after her, has been hit by rockets. Much of the book was subsequently written from a bunker.

So all that is the context for the book, entitled simply The Book of Leviticus, published by Kasva Press. 

The Torah readings on May 10 are the joint ones of Aharei Mot and Kedoshim, which together cover Leviticus 16-20.

This article looks at two famous passages from Leviticus 19 through Rabbi Cardozo’s perspective. In the primary passage G-d instructs Moses: ‘Speak to your complete congregation of the youngsters of Israel and say to them: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your G-d am holy’’’ (Leviticus 19:2).

The query is subsequently: is holiness inherent or conditional? In other words, the query we Jewish people ask ourselves is: are we born right into a state of holiness, or is holiness achieved through spiritual practice and actions?

This query has been debated long and hard within the Jewish world, especially as diaspora Jews have been minorities amongst religions which themselves lay claim to holiness.

The biggest Jewish thinker of all, Maimonides (1135/8-1204), regarded right living as the important thing to holiness and didn’t consider that Jews should hide behind the claim of ‘holiness’. What is required is tough spiritual work and steadfast commitment. This approach is endorsed by former Dean of Students at Haifa University, Israel, Professor Menachem Kellner, a number one voice within the observant Jewish world. 

According to Rabbi Cardozo, for this reason, at any time when the 2 Torah portions are read together, as is the case this 12 months, the parallel Haftorah reading from the prophets is Amos 9 (7-15). Addressing the Jewish people, Amos asks: ‘Are you not like the youngsters of the Ethiopians to Me … Have I not brought Israel up from Land of Egypt and the Philistines from Caphtor, the Arameans from Kir (Amos 9:7)?’

In other words, the story of the Exodus from Egypt, which we just read at Pesach, is definitely not necessarily unique to the Jewish people. Amos reminds us that the Levitical injunction to be holy, as G-d is holy, doesn’t mean that we will rest on our laurels. For Amos continues (Amos 9:9-10): ‘For I’ll give the order and shake the House of Israel through all of the nations, as one shakes sand in a sieve and never a pebble falls to the bottom …’

According to Rabbi Cardozo, the establishment of the State of Israel might indeed signal the start of the Redemption, but we will’t take anything as a right, but should proceed working on ourselves.

The second passage is present in Leviticus 19:18 and might be probably the most famous injunction in your complete Torah, because it has been taken up by the Christian world and subsequently popularized. This injunction is: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself. I’m the Lord.’

Recently there was a public spat on this very subject between US Vice President JD Vance from a really poor, unprivileged background and wealthy, privileged Old Etonian podcaster, Rory Stewart. Rory opted for ‘universal love’ as being the answer to all of the world’s problems while Vance, who is definitely running the world on a practical, day-to-day level, strongly disagreed. 

Rabbi Akiva, for whom this injunction is ‘the best principle of the Torah’ states that if two persons are dehydrated within the desert with one flask between them, the owner of the flask should drink first and only then try to save lots of his colleague. Sharing equally simply leads to the death of each.

This practical advice is definitely adopted by the world’s airlines, for whom in an emergency you’ve got to save lots of yourself first, and that is your priority. For Rabbi Akiva, self-preservation is the primary law of nature: ‘Only through self-love can one love one other.’

If you wish to treat your neighbour with as much love as you’re feeling for yourself, Rabbi Akiva deemed it more fitting to place it in one other way: ‘What is hateful to you, refrain from doing to your fellow.’

The biggest Jewish thinkers are at all times practical and right down to earth, as a lot of them, like Rambam (Maimonides) also practised medicine. Therefore they don’t are likely to hold elitist views which may result in chaos or much worse.

To conclude this primary article on Rabbi Cardozo’s book, these two essential Levitical precepts to be holy as G-d is, and to like your neighbour as yourself as a type of imitatio Dei, have often been misconstrued. 

The majority Jewish view on holiness, especially as interpreted within the preeminent Jewish centres of Israel and the USA, is that holiness is just not intrinsic, but needs hard spiritual work. And as for loving your neighbour as yourself, this love grows outward from you to family, group, nation after which the broader world. 

So, Jews will not be ‘holier than thou’, nor do they love only their very own people. Jews are practical and follow what they learn about human nature. 

Rabbi Cardozo has given us much food for thought in his commentary on Parshat Kedoshim (Leviticus 19-20). I hope to follow up shortly on one other passage in Leviticus from Rabbi Cardozo’s splendid book.