Emor: Unity and equality between Jews and non-Jews in front of the law

By Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman on May 12, 2006 - י"ד אייר תשס"ו

EmorParashat Emor deals with the issues of the sacrifice and with the rites of the Tabernacle, which are relevant to the future Temple as well. During the NIWANO prize award ceremony, which took place this week in Japan, both ambassador Eli Cohen, who greeted us, and our chairperson, Rabbi Ma’ayan Turner cited the sentence “My house will be called a prayer house for all people”. The vision of the prophets is, that at the end of the days, as the one G-d is present in the entire universe and unifies the entire universe (One name to G-d is the place of the world), all people will unify and pray together at the mountain of G-d. I don’t think it desirable that at the end of days we’ll lose the diversity and uniqueness of people. As we repeatedly said here in Japan: “As a fable on six people with their eyes covered. Each one of them is given to feel another part of an elephant and each one of them understands the essence of the elephant differently from his friends. Only when their eye-covers are removed they see that each one of them had true understanding, but each and every truth is only part of a comprehensive super-truth.”

In our parasha there are features that divide between Jews and non-Jews, for example eating rituals (Leviticus 22: 10-17). On the other hand the Parasha assumes that non-Jews also take part in the rites: ”The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, and to all the Israelite people, and say to them: When any man of the house of Israel or of the strangers in Israel presents a burnt offering as his offering for any of the votive or any of the freewill offerings that they offer to the Lord, it must be, to be acceptable in your favour, be a male without blemish, from cattle or sheep or goats” (Leviticus 22: 17-19)(some understand that this refers only to ger tzedek, one who has converted to Judaism, but this is not what the text of the Torah says). In the course of the Parasha we also see that for good or for worse, there should be unity and equality between Jews and non-Jews in front of the law. “You shall have one standard for stranger and citizen alike: for I the Lord am your G-d” (Leviticus 24: 22) (the context in the Parasha is the execution of the son of an Egyptian who makes a crime).

From Japan, where we have been chosen to receive the Peace Prize by an inter-faith jury of religious leaders fro around the world, it’s clear that on one hand that there is a blessing in all the uniqueness and differences between the religions, and on the other hand we see that all that unites us is powerful and deep. The president of the Niwano Peace Fund, Nichiko Niwano, told us “It is clear that it’s more difficult for you there, where the reality is so complex and yours is a daily struggle, then for us, here, where we live in peace since World War II”. Indeed, our challenge is to keep the vision of the prophets and of the Torah, one of promoting the mutual and the things unifying us beyond the blessed differences. But this is easier to grasp from afar.

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