Day 7: Leviticus 20:8-27 (Study Notes)
Double Parsha: Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
Day 7: Leviticus 20:8-20:27
(Leviticus 20:8-9)
This final section begins with another prohibition against insulting your father and mother. Just as a parent should not insult the child by offering him her to Molech, so the child should not likewise insult the partner. Just as the parent is put to death for harming the child, so a child will be put to death for insulting a parent.
Insulting one’s father or mother causes blood guilt since the father and mother are one’s elders. Thus, as elders, we are to respect them. They also are the ones who gave us life. So, insulting them shows disrespect for your own life. It also disrespects Hashem who used your parents to bring you to life. Again, if you have parents who are far from Hashem there is a way to respect them without following their ways, as we saw earlier with Abraham. We know such laws hold here because of the command that follows, which speaks of adultery.
HaKadosh Baruch Hu always uses physical adultery as a metaphor for spiritual adultery—both are forbidden.
(Leviticus 20:10)
HaKadosh Baruch Hu declares adultery committed by a man with another man’s wife deserves death For both the man and woman involved.
(Leviticus 20:11-21)
Reiterates the various adulterous and incestuous relations that are forbidden. Sleeping with one’s mother, daughter, stepmother, stepdaughter, marrying a woman and her daughter at the same time, homosexual relationships, having carnal relations with animals, marrying one’s sister, marrying a half sister, uncovering a woman during her time of monthly infirmity—all uncover nakedness, and all are forbidden. The punishments range from excommunication to death.
(Leviticus 20:22-26)
Thus, especially when Jews enter the promised Holy Land, we must keep His commands If not, Hashem promises again that He will make the land spew His people out, as it did the idolatrous lands that defiled the land previously. But, to those kedoshim who keep Torah, who faithful to Hashem, who honor the forefathers by keeping the laws which have been passed down from generation to generation, Hashem again promises He will establish His Jews in the promised land of Canaan eternally. The land land will flow with milk and honey. The deserts will bloom and the barren land will burst with abundant life.
Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu has set His people apart, so we are to set apart our lives to distinguish sacred from secular. Hashem gives the specific example of separating clean from unclean meat so that we do not defile nor draw abomination upon ourselves.
(Leviticus 20:26)
Instead, “you shall be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy, and I have set you apart from other people, you (the Jews) are Mine.”
(Leviticus 20:27)
As such, Hashemite closes this parsha again warning that anyone who has or seeks a ghost or familiar spirit will be put to death. This continuous reiteration of the same law proves how important it is to Hashem that His holy, chosen Jewish people chose to seek Hashem alone.
We do not need ghosts. We do not need spirits. We do not need other gods. We only need Hashem.
Am Yisrael Chai!
Kimberly Davis