May 2017

There’s a fantastic scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in which Dr. Jones is explaining to his class the basics about archeology. Archeology, he says, is the search for fact. It is not the search for truth.

The reverse is true about our Torah: It is not a book of fact, but a book of truth. Whether or not God  it is a fact that God split a sea in two so that Israelites could cross the Red Sea, it is true that the Exodus narrative is essential to our identity.

I’ve talked before about the concept of *imitatio Dei.* It’s a religious concept in which we find virtue and blessing by imitating God. God creates Adam and Eve, we imitate God by creating life. God heals Abraham by sending three angelic messengers, we are taught to visit the sick. God loves, we love … And in this section of Leviticus we see that we can imitate God’s holiness as well. We have the opportunity to be God-like in our actions.