Parashat Aharei Mot: Holiness of the family

The final section of Parashat Aharei Mot, which will be read this coming Shabbat, deals with the prohibitions of forbidden relationships. 

After a general introductory warning – “None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness” – we read a list of types of women with whom a man is prohibited from having intimate relations (of course, a woman is equally warned against such acts, but the warnings in this portion are directed toward the man). This list includes a mother, a stepmother, a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, a paternal aunt, a maternal aunt, a niece, and a daughter-in-law.

The list concludes with prohibitions against relations between two men and relations with animals, but before that, another prohibition appears: “And you shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God” (Leviticus 18:21).

Offering to the Molech

“Molech” refers to a form of idol worship that existed during biblical times, and its nature was particularly cruel to the extent that it’s difficult to describe in words: fathers would burn their sons alive in honor of this idol. 

This idol worship is described in the Bible several times, particularly in the specific context of a stage set up in honor of the Molech near Jerusalem, in the valley called Gehenna (south of Mount Zion), where idol worshipers, including some from the Kingdom of Judah, burned their sons in a barbaric and horrifying act of idolatrous cruelty.

The question that arises is, why does this prohibition appear in the list of prohibitions of forbidden relationships? This question troubled sages thousands of years ago, and the Mishna records a creative interpretation stemming from this perplexity. 

According to that interpretation, this verse uses the prohibition of worshiping Molech as an allegory for the prohibition of marriage with a woman who is not of Jewish descent. However, the sages of the Mishna rejected this interpretation and said that anyone who interprets it thus is “silenced by a beating” because he uproots the verse from its literal meaning and reveals a Torah facet that is not in accordance with Jewish law.

So, we return to the question: why does this prohibition – as severe and horrifying as it may be – appear in the list of prohibitions of forbidden relationships? Isn’t this about a prohibition that belongs to another realm, the realm of idol worship?

The thread connecting the prohibition of burning children for Molech to the prohibitions of forbidden relationships is the harm to the family. The idolatrous cult of Molech, as mentioned, included the burning of children alive. This act resembles the prohibitions of forbidden relationships that harm the sanctity and integrity of the family, the proper order of family life. 

The family is required to be a clean space, both from inherent impulses and from various idolatrous acts.

On a deeper level, the stability of the family depends on the separation between it and acts – seemingly hidden – that harm it. The idolatrous ecstasy experienced by people in antiquity when performing the horrific act of the sacrificial burning of children may have seemed to them a profound religious experience of sacrificing the most precious for the sake of the divine. But the Torah sets a contrast to this experience and equates it with another extreme experience – that of intimate relationships within the family, a taboo in every civilized culture recognizing the value of the family and the need to keep such violations at bay.

The sanctity of the family and the severe prohibition of harming it, whether in lesser acts of exposing nakedness or in idolatrous acts, is an eternal value that Judaism has promoted since time immemorial. 

Even thousands of years after the giving of the Torah, we are still required to be reminded of the importance of the family and its integrity and completeness.■

The writer is rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites.