בנים אתם לה' אלוקיכם, “You are children to Hashem your G’d;” Seeing that in Leviticus 21,5 the Torah had forbidden the priests to make bald spots on their heads and their flesh as signs of mourning because even in mourning they are not truly orphans, being holy unto G’d, Moses wants to assure the people at large that they are no less beloved by Hashem than are the priests. All the Israelites are holy, and all are Hashem’s children. As proof of this, they are to observe the same restriction spelled out for the priests already in Leviticus. According to the tradition cited by our sages (Sifri 89), the prohibition mentioned here applies only to such incisions when they are made as signs of mourning for a dead relative, both in the case of ordinary Israelites and in the case of the priests. (Although the prohibition in Leviticus did not mention the word למת.) Ibn Ezra writes that seeing that you have been told that Hashem considers you as His children and He loves you more than a mortal father loves his children, you must not register your dismay at what you perceive as something that Hashem has done to you by disfiguring the body He has lovingly given to you. Just as you know that a mortal father’s actions are always motivated by his love for his son, so G’d’s actions are even more definitely motivated by what He knows as being good for His children, even if at the time we, His children, are unable to understand this. We must always subscribe to the cliché of “Father knows best.” It is possible that the reason that this prohibition first appeared as if it applied only to the priests was that when a priest engages in such disfiguration he thereby disqualifies himself from performing his duties in the Temple until such a blemish has healed. Now the time had come to extend this prohibition also to the ordinary Israelites. Rashi explains that seeing that you are Hashem’s children it is incumbent upon you not to disfigure “His” property. Ultimately, your body belongs to Him. Nachmanides disagrees with Rashi, saying that if he were correct this prohibition would apply also if it did not involve mourning for a dead person.

כי עם קדוש אתה, “for you are a holy nation.” Moses reminds the people that we, the Jewish nation, are not like other nations; therefore you must not conduct yourselves as they do. Some commentators phrase it thus: Moses, by reminding the people that they are all G’d’s children, explains that there would not be any point in disfiguring oneself even if one loses father or mother, as we always retain our immortal Father, Hashem. Personally, (Nachmanides writing) I believe that the principal meaning of the words כי עם קדוש אתה is an assurance that every Israelite basically is entitled to a life after the death of his body, i.e seeing that you are a holy nation, and that you are children of Hashem, you are not even the kind of creature that could die in the accepted sense of the word, i.e. that the death of your body would mean the end of your existence. Seeing that this is so, your parents when no longer “clothed” in a physical shell known as “body,” are not really dead, and therefore you did not suffer the kind of loss that gentiles suffered when they lose their parents. If, nonetheless, weeping, and other forms of mourning, were not outlawed for you by Hashem, this is a concession to the nature of human beings who upon being irrevocably being separated from their near and dear ones, express their grief in this fashion. Our sages, keeping in mind our verse, have decreed that such mourning must not exceed the limits prescribed by our sages.

לא תאכל כל תועבה, “You must not eat anything that is an abomination.” Nachmanides writes that this wording [the additional word כל, all, Ed.] expands the prohibition we have been taught in Leviticus chapter 11 in the sense that it teaches that the reason why eating the foodstuffs mentioned is forbidden, is because their consumption would leave a spiritually negative effect on our pure, G’d-given souls. The meaning of the term תועבה whenever it appears, is “something hateful and despicable,” the common denominator of the forbidden foods being that if absorbed by our tissue they are apt to leave behind an effect of deadening our spiritual impulses. The reason why the Torah actively promotes the eating of the fowl labeled טהור, is to contrast them with the vast majority of birds that are טמא, ritually impure, the flesh not being suitable to feed a pure soul. It is therefore a general rule to be remembered that everything the Torah has forbidden us, -although it had expressly permitted it for the rest of mankind in Genesis 9,3- is an abomination. The Torah does not need to repeat this again and again when referring to low life such as creeping reptiles large and small, -as most civilized persons, even gentiles refrain from eating these creeping creatures;-but by giving us the details of how to recognize animals that are “pure”, as well as forbidding consumption of the flesh of even such animals when they have died from natural causes, as opposed to ritual slaughter, it delineates clearly the creatures and their respective condition before death, that do not fall under the heading of תועבה, abomination. The consumption of animals that are suffering from a terminal disease or injury is not specifically mentioned as forbidden under the same heading, as the reason is not that they confer negative spiritual influences when eaten, but that they infect the person eating them with something physically poisonous but not spiritually poisonous. Our sages (Kiddushin 57*)* derive from the wording כל צפור טהורה תאכלו, “you may to eat every ritually pure bird,” (verse 11) [and the apparent repetition, slightly amended in verse 20 of כל עוף טהור תאכל, Ed.] that the live bird which served as part of the offering of the person healed from the dreaded tzoraat skin disease (compare Leviticus 14,8) has not been infected and is therefore potentially fit for consumption by Jews (if caught without injury after having been released) The emphasis by the Torah on the word טהורה in verse 11 is to tell us that the ritual impurity from which the person afflicted with tzoraat is infected does not transfer to the bird, as no living creatures other than man is susceptible to that kind of disease. None of G’ds creatures other than man, is susceptible to transmittable ritual impurity before it dies.

וזה אשר לא תאכלו, “this is the type of bird you may not eat;” this includes birds which have undergone ritual slaughter. The following had to be stated explicitly, as once no longer alive, such birds are susceptible to ritual impurity. One might have thought since the ritual impurity that had left the person stricken with tzoraat had been transferred to his offering, that offering had become contaminated. The Torah therefore indicates that this is not the case.

כי עם קדוש אתה, “for you are a holy nation.” Nachmanides writes that Moses deliberately wrote the prohibition of mixing milk and meat right next to the reminder that we are a holy nation, to remind us that although milk and meat cannot be considered abominable foods, else how could each by itself be perfectly acceptable, but in order to remind us that we are not merely not abominable, not despicable, but on a much higher spiritual level, one that needs to concern itself also with more refinement in matters physical and material. A holy nation does not display signs of inhumanity, ruthlessness, and insensitivity, even when relating to its domestic animals. Milking a mother animal in order to boil its young in that milk is considered an act of extreme insensitivity towards both of the animals involved. Even though mixing any kind of milk with any kind of meat is included in the prohibition listed here, so that in the vast majority of situations the element of insensitivity vis a vis specific animals is not involved, seeing that basically any nursing woman or animal is considered as a “mother,” first and foremost, and every suckling is considered as a גדי, “kid,” observing this law brings home the underlying motive contained in it to each one of us.

היוצא השדה, “that emerges from the field, etc.” The Torah took it for granted that the reader mentally adds the word מן, “from,” after the word היוצא. Some commentators understand the words היוצא השדה as referring back to the word תבואת “yield of, harvest of,” in the earlier part of our verse. The message- i.e. what additional information does the expression היוצא השדה yield for us, would be that even the seed used in planting is also subject to the laws of tithing. Even though we read in the text the words כל תבואת זרעך “all the produce of your seeds,” this is not meant literally, as there are crops that do not require tithing, except for the categories of crop spelled out by the Torah in verse 23, i.e. grain, wine, and oil. The word דגנך, loosely translated as “your grain,” comprises five species of grain, the kinds subject to becoming fermented, i.e. wheat, barley, oats, spelt and rye. The meaning of the word תירוש is new wine that has not yet fermented. The word יצהר refers to the oil from olives. The meaning of the line עשר תעשר את כל תבואת זרעך therefore is: “make certain that you properly tithe all the types of harvests that are subject to the laws of tithing.” The words היוצא השדה are a warning not to be overly eager and give tithes of grain still in the ground or fruit still on the tree, seeing that the tithe is subject to being measured and even a generous “over”-tithing (giving by estimate but definitely more than the required 10%) would invalidate the whole procedure and leave the crop as טבל, untithed, and therefore forbidden food. The plain meaning of the text is designed to teach us that even grapes and olives do not become subject to the laws of tithing (from a Biblical perspective) until after the olives have been converted into oil, and the grapes into wine. The expression שנה, שנה, usually translated as “annually,” means [halachically speaking, Ed.] that the duty to tithe in the manner described applies during two successive years at the beginning of the shemittah cycle. At the end of the third year of that cycle any remaining tithes from the previous two crops plus the new crop’s tithes have to be distributed to the poor, the second tithe during the third and sixth year of the cycle is not consumed by the owner in Jerusalem, but instead is shared out among the poor, as distinct from the first tithe which is given to a Levite.