There are several distinct covenants with God in the Tanakh, including with Noah and all humanity; with Abraham and his descendants; with the Jewish people through the giving of the Torah; with Aaron and his priestly descendants; and with David and his royal House.

And in our parashah, the (somewhat lesser-known!) covenant of salt:

וְכָל־קָרְבַּ֣ן מִנְחָתְךָ֮ בַּמֶּ֣לַח תִּמְלָח֒ וְלֹ֣א תַשְׁבִּ֗ית מֶ֚לַח בְּרִ֣ית אֱ-לֹהֶ֔יךָ מֵעַ֖ל מִנְחָתֶ֑ךָ עַ֥ל כָּל־קָרְבָּנְךָ֖ תַּקְרִ֥יב מֶֽלַח׃

You shall season your every offering of meal with salt; you shall not omit from your meal offering the salt of your covenant with God; with all your offerings you must offer salt. (Lev. 2:13)

The law here is clear: the grain offering and all other (i.e. animal) sacrifices have to be made with salt. The use of the word covenant (berit) is puzzling and an exploration of this phrase can teach us about the nature of covenants with God and beyond.

A similar phrase (berit melakh, rather than melakh berit) appears two other times in the Bible:

All the sacred gifts that the Israelites set aside for God I give to you, to your sons, and to the daughters that are with you, as a due for all time. It shall be an everlasting covenant of salt before God for you and for your offspring as well. (Num. 18:19)

Surely you know that the God of Israel gave David kingship over Israel forever—to him and his sons—by a covenant of salt. (2 Chron. 13:5)

Unlike in our parashah, in these contexts the subject matter isn’t about salt at all—so what is this “covenant of salt” in Numbers and Chronicles?

Ramban suggests on our verse in Leviticus that the phrase refers to the requirement for salt in sacrifices as a covenant itself, and that the other verses are compared to it to emphasize their long endurance:

“because there is a sacrificial covenant, the Torah also uses this covenant as a model for other covenants, as both the priestly covenant (Numbers 18:19) and the Davidic covenant (2 Chronicles 13:5) are called “covenant of salt” because they are upheld just as the sacrificial covenant of salt.” (Sefaria Community translation by Zev Prahl)

The notion of an enduring covenant—one that continues through the generations in particular—is important in both Numbers (where the verse specifically discusses Aaron’s descendants) and in Chronicles (where this is part of a demand by David’s great-grandson, Abijah, that a challenger submit to his authority). But it’s not immediately clear why this “covenant” of salt on sacrifices is so quintessentially enduring.

I suspect that as covenants broadly have a link to salt, the word “covenant” was added in Leviticus because the emphatic requirement regarding salt brought this link to the author’s mind. So, what is the connection between salt and covenants that endure? One quite intuitive suggestion is that it is due to salt’s preservative qualities. The Midrash on the passage from Numbers states:

“The covenant was made with Aaron with something that is not just healthy [i.e. resistant to decay], but maintains the health of other things.” (Sifrei Bemidbar, Korah, pis. 118, ed. Horovitz)

Similarly, on 2 Chron 13:5, the Metzudat David commentary of David Altschuler explains the phrase “covenant of salt”:

“The establishment of the enduring covenant [with David’s house] is like salt, in that it endures and does not rot.”

Salt is in fact mentioned in reference to covenants in several ancient Near Eastern sources beyond the Bible, and this may well be because “its preservative qualities made it the ideal symbol of the perdurability of a covenant.” (Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 191)

Salt also played a less figurative role in some ancient covenants as it was a key ingredient in meals that were eaten on the establishment of a pact:

What is fundamental is that “the communion partaking of salt is a sign of friendship and a symbol of communality.” [from Wilhelm Rudolph’s  Handbuch zum Alten Testament volume on Ezra and Nehemia] The same was true for the Greeks and Romans. . . .

Binding mutual commitments result from the hospitality of table fellowship. … The “covenant of salt” transfers to the divine covenant the notion of hospitality associated with table fellowship, with its subsequent commitment to loyalty and solicitude; Israel is to keep its covenantal obligations, although God, too, is to provide for the election and rights of the covenantal partner  . . . . (Hermann Eising, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, s.v. salt)

Sitting down and eating a proper meal together (salt seems to make the meal “proper” in some of the ancient world) forms a bond. And it’s worth noting that the priestly families literally shared sacrificial meals with God! Biblical scholars often compare the covenant between God and Israel to political arrangements between leaders of greater and lesser powers. That kind of geopolitical framing can obscure the personal, even intimate nature of these covenants. (Indeed, political leaders today still have state banquets as acts of foreign relations.)

A kabbalistic connection between salt and covenant can also be found in Rabbenu Bahya (on Lev. 2:13), who conceptualizes salt as the product of sea water and the heat of the sun. Therefore,

“In the essence of salt is the power of water and the power of fire, which signify two of the [Divine] attributes on which the world is established: the attribute of Compassion (midat rahamim) and the attribute of Justice (midat hadin), and for this reason . . . it is called “the salt of your covenant with God” . . . . And just like [the Rabbis] said [in Midrash Bereshit Rabbah], God saw that it [humanity] could not endure with Justice [alone], so God combined it with the attribute of Compassion. Relatedly, salt preserves and destroys, it preserves meat for a long time and gives flavor to food, and it also destroys, as vegetation cannot grow in a place that is very salty.”

This commentary serves to highlight two important features of covenants: that they are very powerful forces, and that they must be held in balance to harness their forces for benefit and not for harm. The illustration given by Bahya is instructive: that God had to compromise on God’s initial plan to allow a place for humans in the world. The notion that both parties have to compromise in order to have a successful relationship is familiar from human relationships, but radical when ascribed to divine ones!

Covenant is a form of committed relationship—and the facets of the covenants revealed by the efforts of commentators traditional and modern to explain this curious reference in our parashah can be instructive to us as we think about the relationships in our own lives (including our relationships with God). How will we make them endure? Will they have impact beyond our own lifetimes? What intimate activities seal and reseal our commitments—especially during a time when physical proximity is limited? How can we keep them in balance and thereby harness their power instead of being consumed by it?

The Ben Ish Hai notes that there was a custom amongst the Jews of Baghdad to put salt on the dish that they used to gather pieces of bread whilst searching for hametz before Pesah. One of the reasons he suggests for this tradition is that it might be an omen for fulfilling this mitzvah for many years to come as the Torah refers to salt as an “eternal covenant.” (Halakhot, Year 1, Tzav, 6)

As we prepare for our upcoming sedarim, when we hope to sit down for a ceremonial meal together with some of those with whom we are in relationship, and as we continue to celebrate the ongoing relationship that God established with our ancestors, may we remember (perhaps as we taste the salt water) to reconsider, reseal, and strengthen all the covenants in our lives.

This commentary was originally published in 2020.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

The opening parashah of Leviticus comprises regulations for the performance of sacrifices. Of these, the most complicated are the hattat and the asham offerings, discussed in chapters 4 and 5. As James Watts observes in the best English-language commentary to appear since Milgrom’s,[1] these chapters have been “the subject of an especially contentious history of interpretation.” The reason is the ambiguity of the biblical text, with its conjoining of “sin” and “guilt,” and the absence of a clear distinction between actual (objective) guilt and (subjective) guilty feelings. One of Milgrom’s lasting contributions is his emphasis on the psychological aspect, the feelings of guilt that motivate sacrifice.

The term asham is typically translated as “guilt offering,” the cognate noun ashmah as “guilt,” and the cognate verb ashem as “to be guilty.” Commentators have long recognized the inadequacy of those renderings. Milgrom famously proposed “reparation offering” for asham. It has the advantage of diminishing the emphasis on sin and guilt, but Watts reasonably objects that the translation obscures the function of the offering. I prefer “liability offering,” the word “liability” variously connoting an actual obligation, a possible obligation, or a feeling of obligation depending on the circumstances.

In Mishnah Zevahim 5:5, included in the siddur among the preliminary readings for the morning service (Shaharit), the rabbis divide the asham into six categories, nicely summarized .[2] Five of them are related to specific offenses or ritual procedures. The exception is the asham taluy, which I translate as “contingent liability offering,” required when it is uncertain if a sin has been committed or not and whether there is actual guilt demanding expiation. Joseph Bekhor Shor remarks that people tend to be lenient with themselves when there is doubt, but that the Torah is strict.

 The classic case is Leviticus 5:17–19, which begins:

:וְאִם־נֶ֙פֶשׁ֙ כִּ֣י תֶֽחֱטָ֔א וְעָֽשְׂתָ֗ה אַחַת֙ מִכָּל־מִצְוֹ֣ת ה’ אֲשֶׁ֖ר לֹ֣א תֵעָשֶׂ֑ינָה וְלֹֽא־יָדַ֥ע וְאָשֵׁ֖ם וְנָשָׂ֥א עֲוֹנֽוֹ

If anyone sins unknowingly by violating a divine commandment, they are liable and bear the weight of their transgression.

The weight is the psychological and possibly cultic burden of not knowing whether a sin has been committed or not (see Ibn Ezra ad loc.: “the majority opinion is that he does not know if he did it or not”). The prescribed offering in verse 18 relieves the burden, and the Torah summarizes the case emphatically in verse 19, אָשָׁ֖ם ה֑וּא אָשֹׁ֥ם אָשַׁ֖ם לַֽה’, “It is a liability offering: they hold themselves liable to YHWH.” Samuel David Luzzatto (Shadal; 1860–1865) translates the asham here as a “sacrifice of repentance, for the offeror is in doubt and does not know whether he sinned or not.”[3] Liability ensues even if the wrong committed was accidental or inadvertent, even if there is merely suspicion of wrongdoing.

The Bible’s descriptions of liability raise important issues about the community’s leaders and the people who follow them.  The first occurrence of ashmah in the parashah is in Leviticus 4:3:

אִ֣ם הַכֹּהֵ֧ן הַמָּשִׁ֛יחַ יֶחֱטָ֖א לְאַשְׁמַ֣ת הָעָ֑ם וְהִקְרִ֡יב עַ֣ל חַטָּאתוֹ֩ אֲשֶׁ֨ר חָטָ֜א פַּ֣ר בֶּן־בָּקָ֥ר תָּמִ֛ים לַהֹ’ לְחַטָּֽאת׃

If the anointed priest should sin, holding the people liable, he must offer for his sin that he sinned an unblemished bull to YHWH as compensation.

Why should the people incur liability because of the priest’s sin? Rashi, adducing a midrashic interpretation, says that it is because the people depend on the priest for prayer and expiation, and if he has become corrupted by sin, he is unfit to perform his essential service. Bekhor Shor states more simply, שוה אשמתו לאשמת כל העם, “[the priest’s] liability is equivalent to the liability of the entire people.

The implication of Bekhor Shor’s interpretation—that the leader’s sin contaminates the people he is supposed to serve—finds fuller expression in Shadal’s commentary. He acknowledges Rashi’s comment, but goes on to state, “the nation bears the guilt of its leaders and is punished because of them . . . . In truth, a leader’s corruption causes many disasters for his people, but the ancients believed that the nation was punished directly for the sin of the leader.” Most salient is Shadal’s replacement of the biblical “priest” (kohen) with the generic “leader” (manhig), asserting the continuing relevance of the biblical stricture for post-Temple times and non-cultic contexts. It does not require a leap of the imagination to recognize the many ways that people suffer for the transgressions of their leaders.

Equally striking is the complementary law that begins in 4:13:

וְאִ֨ם כׇּל־עֲדַ֤ת יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ יִשְׁגּ֔וּ וְנֶעְלַ֣ם דָּבָ֔ר מֵעֵינֵ֖י הַקָּהָ֑ל. . . וְאָשֵֽׁמוּ

And if the entire community of Israel should err and the matter is concealed from the collective . . . they are liable.

The rabbis in the midrash (Sifra; also Rashi) recoil from the implication of the opening, interpreting the “entire community” to refer to a rabbinical court that commits an error in judgement. But Shadal rejects that interpretation, rightly in my view, stating that “the entire community” is to be taken literally. “According to the plain meaning,” he writes, “it would make no difference if the error resulted from a court order or an instruction of the high priest or the king, or if it occurred without any instructor.” The following verses (14–21) describe the expiatory offering that is required for the community to attain forgiveness.

Just as the corrupt leaders who lead the people astray are culpable, so are the people who follow those leaders or act corruptly on their own. There are no Temple sacrifices to provide rectification anymore. But individuals and communities remain liable for the wrongs that they permit and commit, and as the Torah teaches, they must exercise their obligation to right them.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

[1] James W. Watts, Leviticus 1-10 (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), pp. 303-316.  Also idem, .

[2] .

[3] Quoting the excellent translation by Daniel A. Klein, Samuel David Luzzatto’s Interpretation of the Book of Vayikra (N.Y.: Kodesh Press, 2021), p. 62.

To those of us who want more from Leviticus than a high-cholesterol cookbook, we can study the details of psoriasis, houses afflicted with molds, men and women with bodily emissions from venereal disease, and many other rules and regulations of—to use the technical term—things that are “icky.” I often muse over teaching our bar and bat mitzvah kids these messy details. (One wonders what our coming-of-age ceremonies might look like if Conservative synagogues still sacrificed animals.) Thinking practically, we could use the texts about disease to teach our kids about sexual ethics, and other parts of Leviticus could open the door for a talk about ostracizing members of the community, since those afflicted with the Levitically enjoined diseases were segregated from the rest of the Israelite encampment. Another sermonette that suggests itself: the priests are warned not to serve in the sanctuary when under the influence of wine or beer, a good lesson on the dangers of alcoholism. All this would be a good way of turning a Torah reading from the gritty details of ancient medicine to a higher and more modern moral plane.

The Rabbis of the 3rd through 5th centuries ignored the icky in favor of the uplifting reading, allegorizing Leviticus rather than preaching it head-on. It is a good way for us to approach the next few months of Torah reading, challenging ourselves to find apposite lessons for our lives from the arcane texts in Leviticus. My own attempt follows, and I will begin with the very first word in the book: va-yikra. The Hebrew name for the book is precisely this word, which means, “God called.” When the Rabbis characterize the book by its opening word, it is no longer a book about the priesthood or the icky. Instead it becomes a book about “calling.”

What does it mean to have a calling? The very concept sounds gentile. Isn’t a calling something that Christians have before they become clergy? But we Jews are also called. In fact, the midrashic collection Leviticus Rabbah wonders what’s so special about God calling Moses. After all, God called Adam, God called Noah, God called Abraham. Indeed, God called Moses in the book of Exodus, back at the burning bush. So why do we now have the language of calling as an introduction to all of the Levitical rules?

Here we need to look at the word va-yikra itself—specifically, at how the word is written in a Torah scroll:

ויקר^א

If the word is written correctly, the four letters to the right are much bigger than the one letter to the left. That tiny letter is alef. Odd, isn’t it, to have a tiny letter tacked on to a word like that? And alef is a big deal, after all. It is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the first letter of the Ten Commandments. You would expect it should be a big deal.

This brings me back to the concept of a calling. What does it mean to be called to something? Are you called to your profession? Are you called to your family? Are you called to service to your community? Are you, perhaps, called to do great things? To be famous? What can we learn from one word in the Torah that is written in an unusual way?

I suggest that to be called requires a certain amount of diminishment. In order to be called, we need to make ourselves a bit smaller. I pointed out above that alef is the first letter of the Ten Commandments. The first word, the one alef heads, is the word anokhi,“I.” The first commandment, as enumerated by Jewish tradition, begins, “I am the Lord thy God.” The pronoun I begins with alef. And in order to be called to serve God, we need to learn to diminish the alef, make our own “I” smaller so that we can commune with the “I” of God. When God calls us, we must make ourselves humble before the Creator of all things.

When Moses was called to deliver the laws of Leviticus, it required diminishment on his part. He, Moses, who spoke with God face-to-face, would not be the high priest who carried out these laws. Instead, his brother Aaron was given that privilege. The opening word of Leviticus signals to Moses that to truly be God’s messenger, to heed God’s call, he needs to shrink a bit, to lean out. In , we learn, “That man Moses was very humble.” He learned the lesson of his calling: how to be a little alef.

A version of this commentary appeared in 2014.

One of the first things to note is that the lavish nature of the Mishkan is not the only image the Torah knows of Israelite worship sites. The Mishkan’s Ark of the Covenant was richly overlaid with gold, with a solid gold covering that featured golden cherubim. Yet Deuteronomy, in its account of Moses replacing the shattered first Tablets, has God say simply and tersely, “make an ark of wood.” Though Deuteronomy does refer repeatedly to an exclusive place of worship that God will choose, no richly finished and furnished Temple is described. Moreover, the account of the Mishkan at the end of Exodus made much of the fact that it would be sanctified by the “Kavod”—God’s palpable Presence. But Deuteronomy pointedly calls the chosen site of worship “the place where God’s Name will dwell.” The late biblical scholar Tikva Frymer-Kensky dubbed this the “relay station”; i.e., God’s Name is invoked there, and the offerings and prayers are conveyed from there to the God of Heaven.

We previously encountered this preference for the simple in the earlier chapters of Exodus.  Consider what was said there about a proper altar:

Make for Me an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your sacrifices of wellbeing. . . . And if you make for Me an altar of stones, do not build it of hewn stones, for by wielding your tool upon them you have profaned them.

Exod. 20:21–22

In this alternate vision, the altar is not to be created by skilled artisans and overlaid with polished bronze. Rather, it is to be simple earth. And if you are in a rocky place? Well then, a stone altar is OK, provided it is not worked with a tool. Otherwise, the tool will render it profane. Note well: the finishing tool is a desacralizer.

Solomon’s opulent Temple in a later time stands quite clearly in contrast to such ideal visions. But even that Temple, with its finished magnificence and rich trappings, still paid homage to the ancient concern about the intrusion of technology by insisting that if the stones were to be dressed, that had to be done out of sight and out of earshot of the place of worship itself: when the House was built, only finished stones cut at the quarry were used, so that no hammer or ax or any iron tool was heard in the House while it was being built (1 Kings 6:7).

Thus there is an old tradition of simplicity that opposes the grandiosity of the Mishkan, but what was the idea behind it? Consider a terse comment by Abraham ibn Ezra: there should be only complete stones, just as they were created (Short Commentary on Exodus 20:22). That phrase—“just as they were created”—is an essential gloss. It is as if attempting to worship God by means of something created by our wisdom is somehow to miss the entire point. The more ancient commentary on Exodus known as the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai nicely captures what this is all about:

“Do not build it of hewn stones.” . . . from where are they to be brought? From virginal land: one digs until a place is reached in which it is clear that there has been neither work nor building there, and the stones in that place are then removed.

In 2003, I met a fascinating archaeologist named Uzi Avner, who had studied desert culture extensively. One of the things he repeatedly encountered was that ancient worship sites in the wilderness almost always featured uncut, rough, natural matzevot (pillars) to represent the divine:

Crude stone, shaped by nature, or God, not by man, is sacred and appropriate for cult purposes. . . . [this opposition to human technology in worship] was shared by the prehistoric desert religions, by the Israelites, the Nabataeans, and Islam, all with desert roots.

“Sacred Stones in the Desert,” Biblical Archeology Review, 2001

The view that the elaborate Mishkan was not the ideal had additional roots in rabbinic literature.  Abraham Joshua Heschel noted Rabbi Yishmael’s disagreement with the view that the Mishkan was part of God’s plan from the start:

Rabbi Ishmael . . . understood that the command to build the Tabernacle . . . was not given until after the Israelites created the golden calf. What forced Rabbi Ishmael to postdate the building of the Tabernacle? It must be a reflection of the conviction that this command did not enter the divine mind until Israel sinned . . . when it was clear that they were prone to idolatry, the command was given to build a Tabernacle and to bring sacrificial animals to the officiating priests.

(Heavenly Torah, 76)

In this view, the Mishkan, and a fortiori the more fixed and formalized Temple, is not about bringing us close but, on the contrary, is institutionalized distance. Keeping the people, who were prone to idolatrous attachment to their own artifices, safely away from the seat of worship, lest they mistake what they have erected and created for the essence of religion.

Remarkably, Leonard Cohen seemed to have intuited this very idea in his song “Lover Come Back To Me.” Here are the relevant stanzas:

I asked my father, I said, “Father change my name.”
The one I’m using now it’s covered up
with fear and filth and cowardice and shame.
“Let me start again,” I cried, “please let me start again,
I want a face that’s fair this time,
I want a spirit that is calm.”
“I never never turned aside,” He said, “I never walked away.
It was you who built the temple,
it was you who covered up My face.”

Building Temples runs the risk of obscuring God’s face. We may of necessity build institutions that are essential to provide a locus for our religious needs. But we should never lose sight of the fact that they will always have the potential of distancing us, rather than drawing us close, if we cannot retain the simplicity that undergirds the life of the spirit.

This is not an argument against technology and human artifice per se. But when you think about it, religious reforms usually bring with them returns to greater simplicity. It is not only true of the Shakers, who sang of the “gift to be simple, the gift to be free.” We ourselves have a clear strain within our tradition of a preference for the simple as a precondition for true worship. Or at least we can say this: we have long recognized that an imbalance toward what human technology creates, even when yielding blessing—and certainly an idolization of what human ingenuity has produced—will ultimately distance us from God.

There may not only be environmental wisdom in greater simplicity. There may also be great spiritual depth, and opportunity for encountering God, in some human and humane simplicity as well.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

“Look, if every man strives after the Law,” says the man. “How does it happen that in all these years nobody but myself has demanded entry?” The gatekeeper recognizes that the man has already reached his end and, so as to reach him through his failing hearing, he shouts to him: “Nobody else could obtain permission here. This entrance was destined only for you. And now I am going to shut it.”

What this tale signifies is anyone’s guess—not surprising, given that the author is Kafka. Is Kafka describing a world of absurdity, in which one is simultaneously granted a portal and barred from entry? Alternatively, had the man simply strolled up to the gate without asking permission to enter would the gatekeeper have stepped aside? 

What we can say is this: entrances are complex; they can be simultaneously open and inaccessible. And there are portals that we are meant to enter, and yet we fail to do so, through a combination of factors within and beyond our control.

An oft-mentioned locale in Leviticus is the petah ohel mo’ed (Lev. 3:2 and elsewhere), the entrance to the Tent of Meeting (as it is generally translated) or Mishkan, the dwelling place of divine glory. It is both an entryway and a checkpoint. As a point of contact between human and the divine, it is the site of much of the sacrificial service that is to be done “before the Lord” (Exod. 29:11 and elsewhere). Yet the entrance also demarcates the restricted realm of the holy. Few are allowed beyond this point, and only to perform specific sacred tasks. 

At the outset of Leviticus, as Moses stands before the entrance, God calls to him “from within the ohel mo’ed” (Lev. 1:1) in order to give him instruction. Rabbinic commentators understand the significance of this phrase as follows: When the Divine Presence descends upon the sanctuary and God’s glory fills it, Moses cannot enter the tent (Exod. 40:34–35). He yearns to go within but he must await God’s permission to enter. God’s call to Moses at the beginning of Leviticus is an invitation to pass through the portal so that God can instruct him. 

A very different narrative is that of Jacob at Bet El. Jacob encamps there for the night on his way to Haran. In his dream he both sees a ladder connecting heaven and earth and hears God speak to him. When he awakes, he proclaims, “Indeed, God is in this place and I did not know . . . this [place] is nothing other than God’s house and here is the gateway to heaven” (Gen. 28:16–17). Upon arrival at Bet El Jacob had not seen the heavenly portal that was before him; he drifted off into slumber totally unaware of its presence. It is God who must show him the true nature of the ground upon which he lies.  

These three stories lead me back to one of the most poignant passages in the Yom Kippur liturgy, found in the Ne’ilah service:

“Open (petah) the gates for us, in this moment of the closing of the gates, for the day has waned.”

This petition is a bit curious: Why ask for the gates to be opened precisely at the moment that they are to be closed? Perhaps we should understand the Hebrew petah not as “open” but “keep open.” We know that the gates must now close but we ask for a few more moments to be heard.

Another solution suggests itself. Perhaps we have been spiritual sleepwalkers, inattentive throughout the day to the open gates. It is only at day’s end when the gates begin to close that we open our eyes; it is only now that the gates are truly open for us. Are we too late? We pray that it not be so.

We stand at so many gates struggling to gain entry. Yet in those same moments we can be oblivious to other gates that open themselves to us, waiting for us to step through them. Maybe we are standing at the wrong gate. Maybe we need to open ourselves up and search for the gate that is meant for us.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

There are several distinct covenants with God in the Tanakh, including with Noah and all humanity; with Abraham and his descendants; with the Jewish people through the giving of the Torah; with Aaron and his priestly descendants; and with David and his royal House.

And in our parashah, the (somewhat lesser-known!) covenant of salt:

וְכָל־קָרְבַּ֣ן מִנְחָתְךָ֮ בַּמֶּ֣לַח תִּמְלָח֒ וְלֹ֣א תַשְׁבִּ֗ית מֶ֚לַח בְּרִ֣ית אֱ-לֹהֶ֔יךָ מֵעַ֖ל מִנְחָתֶ֑ךָ עַ֥ל כָּל־קָרְבָּנְךָ֖ תַּקְרִ֥יב מֶֽלַח׃

You shall season your every offering of meal with salt; you shall not omit from your meal offering the salt of your covenant with God; with all your offerings you must offer salt. (Lev. 2:13)

The law here is clear: the grain offering and all other (i.e. animal) sacrifices have to be made with salt. The use of the word covenant (berit) is puzzling and an exploration of this phrase can teach us about the nature of covenants with God and beyond.

A similar phrase (berit melakh, rather than melakh berit) appears two other times in the Bible:

All the sacred gifts that the Israelites set aside for God I give to you, to your sons, and to the daughters that are with you, as a due for all time. It shall be an everlasting covenant of salt before God for you and for your offspring as well. (Num. 18:19)

Surely you know that the God of Israel gave David kingship over Israel forever—to him and his sons—by a covenant of salt. (2 Chron. 13:5)

Unlike in our parashah, in these contexts the subject matter isn’t about salt at all—so what is this “covenant of salt” in Numbers and Chronicles?

Ramban suggests on our verse in Leviticus that the phrase refers to the requirement for salt in sacrifices as a covenant itself, and that the other verses are compared to it to emphasize their long endurance:

“because there is a sacrificial covenant, the Torah also uses this covenant as a model for other covenants, as both the priestly covenant (Numbers 18:19) and the Davidic covenant (2 Chronicles 13:5) are called “covenant of salt” because they are upheld just as the sacrificial covenant of salt.” (Sefaria Community translation by Zev Prahl)

The notion of an enduring covenant—one that continues through the generations in particular—is important in both Numbers (where the verse specifically discusses Aaron’s descendants) and in Chronicles (where this is part of a demand by David’s great-grandson, Abijah, that a challenger submit to his authority). But it’s not immediately clear why this “covenant” of salt on sacrifices is so quintessentially enduring.

I suspect that as covenants broadly have a link to salt, the word “covenant” was added in Leviticus because the emphatic requirement regarding salt brought this link to the author’s mind. So, what is the connection between salt and covenants that endure? One quite intuitive suggestion is that it is due to salt’s preservative qualities. The Midrash on the passage from Numbers states:

“The covenant was made with Aaron with something that is not just healthy [i.e. resistant to decay], but maintains the health of other things.” (Sifrei Bemidbar, Korah, pis. 118, ed. Horovitz)

Similarly, on 2 Chron 13:5, the Metzudat David commentary of David Altschuler explains the phrase “covenant of salt”:

“The establishment of the enduring covenant [with David’s house] is like salt, in that it endures and does not rot.”

Salt is in fact mentioned in reference to covenants in several ancient Near Eastern sources beyond the Bible, and this may well be because “its preservative qualities made it the ideal symbol of the perdurability of a covenant.” (Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 191)

Salt also played a less figurative role in some ancient covenants as it was a key ingredient in meals that were eaten on the establishment of a pact:

What is fundamental is that “the communion partaking of salt is a sign of friendship and a symbol of communality.” [from Wilhelm Rudolph’s  Handbuch zum Alten Testament volume on Ezra and Nehemia] The same was true for the Greeks and Romans. . . .

Binding mutual commitments result from the hospitality of table fellowship. … The “covenant of salt” transfers to the divine covenant the notion of hospitality associated with table fellowship, with its subsequent commitment to loyalty and solicitude; Israel is to keep its covenantal obligations, although God, too, is to provide for the election and rights of the covenantal partner  . . . . (Hermann Eising, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, s.v. salt)

Sitting down and eating a proper meal together (salt seems to make the meal “proper” in some of the ancient world) forms a bond. And it’s worth noting that the priestly families literally shared sacrificial meals with God! Biblical scholars often compare the covenant between God and Israel to political arrangements between leaders of greater and lesser powers. That kind of geopolitical framing can obscure the personal, even intimate nature of these covenants. (Indeed, political leaders today still have state banquets as acts of foreign relations.)

A kabbalistic connection between salt and covenant can also be found in Rabbenu Bahya (on Lev. 2:13), who conceptualizes salt as the product of sea water and the heat of the sun. Therefore,

“In the essence of salt is the power of water and the power of fire, which signify two of the [Divine] attributes on which the world is established: the attribute of Compassion (midat rahamim) and the attribute of Justice (midat hadin), and for this reason . . . it is called “the salt of your covenant with God” . . . . And just like [the Rabbis] said [in Midrash Bereshit Rabbah], God saw that it [humanity] could not endure with Justice [alone], so God combined it with the attribute of Compassion. Relatedly, salt preserves and destroys, it preserves meat for a long time and gives flavor to food, and it also destroys, as vegetation cannot grow in a place that is very salty.”

This commentary serves to highlight two important features of covenants: that they are very powerful forces, and that they must be held in balance to harness their forces for benefit and not for harm. The illustration given by Bahya is instructive: that God had to compromise on God’s initial plan to allow a place for humans in the world. The notion that both parties have to compromise in order to have a successful relationship is familiar from human relationships, but radical when ascribed to divine ones!

Covenant is a form of committed relationship—and the facets of the covenants revealed by the efforts of commentators traditional and modern to explain this curious reference in our parashah can be instructive to us as we think about the relationships in our own lives (including our relationships with God). How will we make them endure? Will they have impact beyond our own lifetimes? What intimate activities seal and reseal our commitments—especially during a time when physical proximity is limited? How can we keep them in balance and thereby harness their power instead of being consumed by it?

The Ben Ish Hai notes that there was a custom amongst the Jews of Baghdad to put salt on the dish that they used to gather pieces of bread whilst searching for hametz before Pesah. One of the reasons he suggests for this tradition is that it might be an omen for fulfilling this mitzvah for many years to come as the Torah refers to salt as an “eternal covenant.” (Halakhot, Year 1, Tzav, 6)

As we prepare for our upcoming sedarim, when we hope to sit down for a ceremonial meal together with some of those with whom we are in relationship, and as we continue to celebrate the ongoing relationship that God established with our ancestors, may we remember (perhaps as we taste the salt water) to reconsider, reseal, and strengthen all the covenants in our lives.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

The rabbinic definition of Jewish status is one of many voices in the highly contested debate over Jewish identity that erupts at the end of the Second Temple period. This issue is perhaps most famously articulated in the Books of Acts in the Christian Bible. The followers of Jesus deliberate at the Council of Jerusalem over the requirement of circumcision for converts. Ultimately, the group privileges faith over the performance of commandments in what proves to be a critical step in the creation of Christianity as we know it today. We also find competing definitions in the writings of first-century historian Josephus Flavius, and in the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in Qumran.

The Rabbis use the second verse from our parashah in order to explore two possible paradigms for defining Jewish identity. The verse serves as an introduction to the sacrificial laws that are to follow: “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When any of you presents an offering of cattle to the LORD, he shall choose his offering from the herd or from the flock.” The verse makes it clear that God’s laws of the sacrificial rite are intended exclusively for the Israelite people. This directive provides the Rabbis with the opportunity to ask: Who is considered an Israelite?

The Rabbis’ exegesis of the verse is based, as it often is, on an apparent redundancy in the text. The verse begins with a declaration to the children of Israel that would seem to include the entire Israelite population. Why then must God again clarify and state, “any of you?” Are these not the same group of people? Let us examine a large selection of the midrash from the Sifra: 

[1] “Any” (Lev 1:2)—this incorporates the proselytes.

[2] “Of you” (Lev 1:2)—this excludes the apostates…

[3] What characterizes “Israel” is that they accept the yoke of the Covenant, this includes the proselytes, who accept the yoke of the Covenant, and excludes the apostates, for they do not accept the yoke of the Covenant.

[4] Perhaps [you should say]: What characterizes “Israel” is that they are the descendants of those who accepted the yoke of the Covenant, and this includes the apostates, for they are the descendants of those who accepted the yoke of the Covenant, but excludes the proselytes, for they are not the descendants of those who accepted the yoke of the Covenant?

[5] Scripture teaches: “Of you.” Therefore do not conclude so, but [as we said first]: What characterizes “Israel” is that they accept the yoke of the Covenant, this includes the proselytes, who accept the yoke of the Covenant, and excludes the apostates, for they do not accept the yoke of the Covenant.

[6] And so does Scripture say: “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination, how much more when he brings it with evil intent” (Prov. 21:27).

The midrash begins (section 1) by asserting that the redundancy is necessary in order to clarify that proselytes are included in the sacrificial rite even though they are not according to the strict literal definition, “Children of Israel.” The midrash continues (section 2) explaining that the words “of you” are intended to limit who may bring a sacrifice and come to exclude apostates—those who are born from Israelite parents but reject God and the Covenant. Section 3 explains the rationale behind the inclusion of proselytes and exclusion of apostates: Simply put, acceptance of the yoke of the Covenant is the essential identity marker of belonging in Israel. Section 4 pushes back on the assertion and suggests that the true marker of identity is biology: An Israelite born from an Israelite remains so regardless of belief. This, in turn, would exclude proselytes from the community of Israel. Section 5 rejects this suggestion and emphatically maintains that acceptance of the yoke of the Covenant is the true character trait of “you,” the Israelite nation. The Rabbis support this conclusion with their reading of the verse from Proverbs which indicates that the sacrifice of the wicked (i.e., apostates) will not be accepted by God.  

As Professor Adiel Schremer of Bar Ilan University explains in his article, “Thinking about Belonging” (JSJ 43, 249-275), the two choices in the midrash represent two competing answers to the question of belonging in the Jewish community. Is Jewish identity determined solely by birth or is there an essential component of acceptance of God’s covenant in order to be a member of the Jewish community? The Rabbis argue vehemently for the latter. All who accept the yoke of God’s commandments may be called Israel, not just those with the proper lineage.

The Rabbis’ definition of belonging sets an important example for us as we think about what makes each of us part of a larger community. This is true both for our local communities and our global responsibility as members of the Jewish people. The Rabbis demand that we ask ourselves: Do our behaviors and commitments clearly identify us as part of Israel? Can we respond to the call directed at “any of you” found in the verse from our parashah?

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

I was on a small cruise ship with my family in Alaska this summer, when a couple whom I had come to like and admire asked me with great respect a question that Jews have been been hearing from Christians for many centuries, one that had been put to me more than once by students at Stanford: “How can Jews worship the God of the Old Testament, so full of harsh judgment and wrath, and so unlike the God of the New Testament, who calls to human beings in love?”

I explained—patiently, I hope—that I, like most Jews I know, do not experience God or the Hebrew Bible that way. The prayers we recite overflow with expressions of love and injunctions to love. At the very center of the Torah, in chapter 19 of the book of Leviticus, we find (v. 18) the instruction that Jesus said was the most important of all: to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Rabbi Akiba too called this “the great principle” of Torah. Love is an integral part of the regimen of holiness to which Leviticus calls its readers: not taking vengeance, treating strangers and the needy well, offering sacrifices properly on the altar, observing the Sabbath, and performing dozens of other acts of justice and kindness. Every one of these commandments is a gift of God, Who reaches out to Jews and all other peoples in love, and Whose loving instruction—Torah—guides us in loving our neighbor.

The conversation on the boat made me consider that Christians and their clergy (and theologians) seem to talk more about love than Jews do. The reason is perhaps related to the fact that we and our rabbis (and even our theologians) also seem to talk less about God. It’s as if modern Jews find both these subjects too daunting to broach. We want to be credible when we teach Torah in this complex and rapidly changing world. Biblical notions of love (or of God!) can sometimes seem woefully outdated or even primitive. Our conception of marriage has evolved from what it was even a few short years ago. It is certainly not self-evident, reading Leviticus 19:18, who should be counted as a “neighbor,” or that one owes neighbors more than all others.

I believe that it’s worth pausing, as we prepare to enter the precincts of Leviticus once more, to think a bit about love. Let’s stipulate at the outset that the Torah, as much as philosophers and poets through the ages who have written about the matter, understands that there is more than one sort of love—and believes these varieties of love are integrally related. There is the love that Jacob feels for Rachel (Gen. 29:20). There is the love of neighbor, extended by Leviticus (19:34) to the “stranger.” There is the love of God with all one’s heart, soul, and might, joined in Deuteronomy (6:4–5), and in daily Jewish liturgy, to the proclamation of God’s Oneness or Unity. Elsewhere in the Bible, there is the love of close friends, evident in the relationship of David and Jonathan (e.g. 1 Sam. 20:41-42, 2 Sam. 1:26). And there is the erotic desire—heightened by fantasy and longing—of the Song of Songs, later read by Jewish and Christian commentators as an allegory of human love for God. I doubt the Bible would have exercised the hold it has on millions over so many centuries and cultures down to our own day, were its teachings on love less complex or profound.

Leviticus (like the rest of Torah) claims no monopoly on wisdom or insight. Nor does it address itself only to Jews. The book is in many respects a “manual for priests” on which the rest of us, as it were, eavesdrop. Instruction in the various sorts of sacrifice and how to perform them correctly was no doubt of some interest to the Israelites who brought those animals to the altar, forced thereby to contemplate the fact that they too were mortal, and enabled to express petition, remorse, or thanksgiving.

Contemporary readers, distant from sacrifice and perhaps repelled by all the blood, gore, and priestly technicalities, can still derive meaning from Leviticus’s attention to human frailty and imperfection, its sustained reflection on the importance of ritual, and its understanding of the need for holiness and community. These concerns are universal, common to all human beings of whatever tradition. Only the details of ritual—like the language we speak, the cultural inflection of our love—is particular. Leviticus knows we have much to learn from other sources, as we do from experiences that take place outside the walls of the Tabernacle. It assumes that we will do this when studying its lessons about love.

I read its words very much with Plato’s Symposium in mind—specifically the passage in which the goddess Diotima defines love as “the desire to have the good for oneself always” (204e–205a). Plato starts with desire: higher and lower, conscious and unconscious. He surely got that right. Note too his insistence—also correct, I think, and very much like that of Leviticus—that we desire not only those we love but the good that we hope to attain in and through them. We aim to be better than we are. We want our friends and partner in life, who know us as we are, and love us nonetheless, to help us do that. And we want this love to be “forever.” The content of that wish varies from person to person and culture to culture. Modern adults, “religious” or not, want at the very least to walk on a way that is larger than themselves and perhaps everlasting. They want to be connected to and serve the very essence of things; to live Life with a capital L; to love those held close with love that is from the Source of all things, the Source of love. One can translate Deuteronomy 6:5 as enjoining us to “love with the Lord your God.” The human ability to love with all our heart, soul, and might is a function of the fact that this love stems from “the Lord your God, Who is One.”

It is clear from the immediate context of Leviticus’s command to love the neighbor (“do not take vengeance or bear a grudge”) that it believes love to be a matter of behavior and not only of feeling. Love does not dwell inside individuals but between and among them. The Torah, here as always, focuses on the objective realm that people share and the communities they build together. Commentators have long noted that the syntax of the Hebrew directs love toward the neighbor rather than at them. We first learn to love in this way at home, if we are blessed with loving parents, and we must continually practice the art of love-in-action throughout our lives (this too, if we are so blessed, in large part at home). As one recent book on marriage puts it, connecting internal attitude to external behavior very much in the spirit of Leviticus, “vulnerability [is] what love is all about . . . yielding control, revealing weakness, embracing imperfection, and opening ourselves up to the possibility of loss” (Daniel Jones, Love Illuminated).

What is true between adults who love one another acquires still more force when they together (or as single parents) raise children. One hopes with all one’s being that the children will store up love and share it one day with others; that they will be good to a degree their parents never managed to attain, and that life will be good to them; that suffering will not come their way. The desire for “always” takes on new meaning when children (and eventually grandchildren) join parents, friends, and spouses in the congregation of those we love. Everything matters more, including community. Relationships are more fraught. Love is fiercer. We give more as parents than we ever thought we had or could. We also hold back, in ways that are surprising. We love friends, partners, and parents differently. Life takes on added texture. So too does the prospect of death.

Leviticus understands these things very well, I believe, and offers profound guidance in dealing with them. It is utterly “up front” about imperfection, mortality, and sex—and therefore insists that “holiness”—the book’s key term—must be practiced in daily life, and in the family as much as in the Tabernacle or the community. Were human beings immortal or flawless, were we not plagued by insecurity and self-deception, were we not subject to powerful desires that impel us to do good and to do the very opposite of good, if we never caused pain to those we love—Leviticus would not speak as powerfully to the contemporary situation.

For all the differences between us and our ancestors (even our parents!) where love, friendship, and marriage are concerned, Leviticus to my mind remains relevant, even invaluable. The longings and fears that individuals and couples bring to relationships remain constant. “Am I really a good enough person for anyone to want to love or marry, or attractive enough to for anyone to be interested in me?” “Do I have it in me to be faithful to one partner for life—or to my own highest ideals?” “Is this really love I am experiencing, or just desire?” “Can we, whose imperfections are glaring, hope to do a better job raising children than our parents?”

I find myself bringing insights from Leviticus to those who confide such doubts to me. Of course, marriage is hard; it takes a lot of work, and one may fail nonetheless. It requires the support of a caring and just community. Loving relationships can be exhilarating and depressing, wonderfully clear and hopelessly messy, all at the same time. They can make life holy—and cause great pain. I attest humbly that my wife and children are by far the greatest gifts I have in this world, and that the Torah, another of my greatest gifts, helps me mightily to love them. The problem with marriage as with life, I say (this too very much in the spirit of Leviticus) is not that the years drag on but that they speed by much too fast.

The Jewish wedding ceremony expresses these truths eloquently through poetry and ritual. The seven blessings recited under the huppah connect the human beings who are about to join one another on life’s journey to humanity as a whole, going back to Adam and Eve, and to the Creator of humanity. The self-respect and dignity the couple bring to the task of loving one another are linked to the Source of dignity, Whose image we human beings bear. The couple are called “loving ����’i��” in a clear echo of Leviticus 19:18, and the relationship that the wedding ceremony sanctifies is described with six different words for joy and four for various aspects of love. Leviticus, devoted to ritual at every turn, would not be surprised that the Jewish wedding captures a complexity of thought and emotion that language and law cannot.

I am immensely grateful for this book of Torah and for the instruction to love at its heart.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).