Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim

Achrei Mot, Leviticus 16-18 & Kedoshim, Leviticus 19-20

We will repeat this week's parasha reading in five months, in Yom Kippur. Will we ask ourselves the same questions? Will it change our perception of what we read? What's more, as we read it this week, are we wondering the same thing that seven months, when we read it last Yom Kippur?

We read this double parasha not only five months after a new Yom Kippur, and seven of the previous one, but completely immersed in the Counting of the Omer. the mystics saw Counting the Omer as a way to purify ourselves to receive the Torah on Shavuot. Each day, combining the qualities of seven of the ten Sefirot, a system that gives us the opportunity to be more kadosh.

The Omer invites us to reflect on how each day counts, each day is important and each day we can be a little better. The norms that make us uncomfortable in this double parashah invite us to reflect on who we are and who we want to be, but The social norms that I invite you to read in this parashah encourage us not only to be better people, but to build a better, more just and supportive society. read with attention, remembering that, as Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks said, z''l, there is no text without interpretation, nor interpretation without tradition.