To The Reader

By now I think we’re getting clear on the idea of sacred space. It has to be different than “normal” space. If this idea makes you uncomfortable and you take interpretive steps to weaken it, (like telling yourself the text doesn’t actually mean what it sounds like it means), you will simultaneously be diminishing the…

Crime & Punishment ⚖️ Chapter 19 feels like the unabridged version of the 10 Commandments. Some of the original 10 are repeated like… Many of the new ones deal with the practical application of loving God and neighbor – like leaving the gleanings of the harvest (as a kind of welfare system for the poorest…

Happy weekend, Dear Reader. I’ve been endeavoring to fight off some kind of cold or flu so I have a bit of NyQuil in my system. One does not write at one’s best with an antihistamine-laden, sleep-inducing cocktail flowing through one’s veins – particularly when faced with SUCH a topic as today’s. I therefore warn…

I’ve decided to forego comment on chapter 17. It lays out the rules for where sacrifice may be done and why we don’t consume blood. Pretty self-explanatory. Chapter 16 Introduces the Day of Atonement. It’s the day when sins are sent away- out of sacred space. We tend to think of this day as the…

Bodily discharges… Or- “We’ve all got issues.” 😏 My biggest takeaway from this chapter? If you were in the laundry business in ancient Israel you could make a killing. 🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🫧🧼🫧 How on earth could anyone stay ceremonially clean for very many days together? Imagine the situation for a happily married couple with teenage sons and…

Priest skill set tracker: meat processing, baking, dermatology, and home inspection. I’ve heard horror stories of people dealing with mold in their houses. Some types of mold can kill you. Mold Toxicity is often mistaken for mental illness. The Israelites were in a desert yes, but they were (for the foreseeable future) living in tents.…

Skin diseases & contaminated fabrics. I think I’ll forego any comments on moldy fabrics. I once had the toilet in the apartment above me run and run until my closet was flooded. I had just moved in and most of my clothes were still in boxes or suitcases. And I was out of the country.…

Purification after child birth… This law relates to ceremonial cleansing from bodily discharges which we will cover later this week. If you’ve given birth or been at a birth, then you know it’s basically all the bodily discharges. To the max. It is a messy and miraculous affair. I have not the foggiest idea why…

We get a clue at the end of chapter 10 (v19) that this all happens on the same day as the events of chapter 9. Let’s pretend we get a peek at Eliezer’s (fictional) journal: 🌄 morning of day 8 Been fasting for a week. I’d like to bathe and change clothes but Uncle Moses…

Aaron’s first day on the job. Starting a new job can be tough. Especially when you have to fast for a week before you start and if you do things wrong, it could kill you. If this chapter feels familiar it’s because we’ve read the description of what would happen twice already- in Exodus 29…

I had a copy of the book “Eat This, Not That” (Fast Food Edition) in my glovebox for several years. You could turn to the chapter on whatever fast food place you were headed to and get info on the better-for-you menu options. They included all the stats like sodium, fat, saturated fat, calories, grams…

🥳 🎶 Happy birthday to me… This post is dropping on my birthday. Consider it a party favor. 🎉 (Note to self: when you use the word “party” to describe a blog post on a chapter of Leviticus… your social life might need work.) This chapter is like a set of appendixes to the instructions…