Parashat Acharei Mot

Parasha Thoughts

Chaim Saeedian

By Rabbi Chaim Saidian

Do not imitate the practice of the land of Egypt… and do not imitate the practice of the land of Canaan (18:3)

This is one of the Torah’s introductory verses for the section that commands the Jewish people to be holy. Upon commenting on our verse, Rashi notes that the Torah is singling out the practices of the Egyptians and Canaanites as the worst and most corrupt of all nations.

Rav Moshe Feinstein points out that this explanation is a bit puzzling. We know that we are commanded not to emulate or imitate any of the nations and their practices, even the best of them. Therefore, according to Rashi, what’s the significance of our verse specifying Egypt and Canaan as the worst?

Perhaps the answer is as follows: we are certainly commanded not to follow or imitate any of the gentile nations, even the best. However, throughout history there were nations that had prohibitions of their own against immorality and other unholy acts, but only the acts and not what would lead to them. Ultimately what happened was that slowly they were led to committing even the prohibited acts. So the lesson from our verse is that unless there are safeguards, the mere prohibition of an act is not enough to prevent one from sinning. And that’s the message of our verse: unless we protect ourselves through safeguards on not emulating the Gentiles, then we can go as low as doing that which was committed by the worst of them all- the Egyptians and the Canaanites.

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