Monday, February 17, 2014

Holiness Code

The fourteen-chapter segment Shemot 20:15-34:26 is a separate Torah module. It could be excluded from the Torah. The same is true for the "holiness code," Vayikra 17-26. They cannot both be excluded, because Jewish law needs one of them. It was long uncertain which would be accepted. In the end, both modules were accepted.

Note that the first verse of Tetzavei (Shemot 27:20) as well as Shemot 32:13,

זכר לאברהם ליצחק ולישראל עבדיך

are inside the module, which thus encodes for Ez Meshuleshet and Zechut Avot. In order to "facilitate" the exclusion of the module, the verse Shemot 27:20 is basically repeated in Vayikra 24:2 and the verse

וזכרתי את בריתי יעקוב ואף את בריתי יצחק ואף את בריתי אברהם אזכר והארץ אזכר

appears in Vayikra 26:42. Ergo: Ez Meshuleshet and Zechut Avot are also in the holiness code! Jewish law is the outside of something astonishingly deep.

The latter version of Zechut Avot has the inverse order of the Avot, the order of Ya'akov meriting independence, Yitzchak meriting Oz, and Avraham meriting Ayil Meshulash.