Week 6 Leviticus 19
By the time I get to this point in Leviticus I’ve read a whole bunch of legal-religious data. Specific details about animal or vegetable offerings & methods to process offerings & ordination rules & kosher or non-kosher foods & infectious diseases & sexual red-lines not to cross. Like that.
There’s enough of these rules that don’t have any contemporary practical or experiential or personal value that I’m formulating an (unwritten) guideline that none of them are of any relevance. Then I get to chapter nineteen and see things like this:
don’t slander people…
don’t endanger your neighbour’s life…
don’t hate your brother in your heart…
don’t seek revenge
love your neighbour as yourself.
Hmmmm….these sound like pretty believable and decent comments (I could likely even get away with saying them out loud to someone here in town…depending on the person).
I figure one of the crosses a reader has to carry is to be making discriminating choices all along the way about what I value and what I don’t. (What I don’t think I get to say is: “None of it’s of any use”.)
And come to think of it I figure I might be crazy to dump any of it. Just because I’ll never ever have any personal use for post-menstruation separation-purification rules I’m reluctant to say that regulation is worthless. I’m a bible-reader…trying to frame up the basic structure of the bible’s early times…and I need all the materials I can get my hands on.
Note: paraphrased from Leviticus 19:16-18