Guilt

Leviticus, as its English name implies, is the book of the Bible concerned with the Levites or priests and the many duties they had to perform in order to ensure the purity of the camp. The regulations regarding ritual purity were so exacting that they were sometimes transgressed accidentally. For example, a priest wandering through the desert might come into contact with an unclean animal and not even realize or remember it. This week’s portion provides a complicated sacrificial ritual to expiate this “unwitting” guilt.

The early light slants into the cul-de-sac,
picking out the frond of the neighbor’s palm
so it appears to be a hand, raised
in blessing. The lemons are without blemish.
A white birch cants crazily over the road,
but does not fall down. And yet despite the sky,
limpid as an easy problem in sums,
this morning you’ve brushed up against the dead—
the boy on the TV news, fallen in battle,
whose formal photo in the white uniform cap
is propped up before the flag-draped coffin.
You should know how to expiate this sin:
The formula—the dipped and sprinkled blood—
is in the book. But you are not a priest;
the golden altar has been melted down,
struck as coins that bear a Hebrew girl
mourning beneath a palm: Judea Capta*.
Are these wrongs with which you have to live?

*A series of coins issued by the emperor Vespasian in honor of the capture of Judea and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE by his son Titus.