by Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan

In this week's Torah portion, we are commanded "you shall keep my laws and my rules, by the pursuit of which man shall live: I am the LORD" (Leviticus 18:5). How do we attain life by the observance of commandments?

The Torah portion for this week contains the seemingly obvious instruction Ushemartem et chuqqota ve'et mishpata asher ya‘aseh otam ha'adam vachai bahem "And you shall observe my statutes and commandments which each person shall do and live by them" (Leviticus 18:5). The closing clause - vachai bahem - can be translated quite simply, "he shall live by them." It means in its plain sense that each person should live their lives in obedience to God's commandments throughout their lives.

This statement has, however, engendered much reflection among commentators. The first major trajectory of interpretation has understood them as teaching that obedience to God's commandments leads to life in the world to come. This perspective is seen early-on in Jewish interpretation in Targum Onqelos, an early Aramaic translation of the Torah:

And you shall guard my edicts and my laws, for if a person performs them, he shall live by them in the life of the world to come.

Rashi interprets our verse in a similar fashion:

He shall live by them: that is, in the world to come, for if you say in this world, is not its end death?

Ibn Ezra, likewise, interprets this verse as reflecting eternal reward. He writes:

And what is the reason for the repetition in the verse And you shall observe my statutes and my commandments? To show that there is life in two worlds for those who perform them. For the one who understands their secret, eternal life we shall live and not die forever.

A second interpretive approach to this verse has been to see it as upholding the value and sanctity of life. The Tosefta, in Shabbat 15:17, records,

And one may live by them, and not that one should die because of them.

Thus, this verse is understood as legislating the pursuit of piquach nefesh "the preservation of human life." This rabbinic value concept, understood as deriving from the Torah, teaches that pursuit of human life trumps the Shabbat and all other commandments. Thus, an observant Jew can drive to the hospital on Shabbat if the purpose is to seek medical care for a life threatening illness. Likewise, one can consume a medication of which part is derived from a non-kosher animal, if its purpose is to preserve life.

Yeshua echoes this concern for the value of life in the besora of Luke when he teaches,

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath. The Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?"

Luke 13:10-16 (NIV)

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