This Sabbath, Jewish congregations begin reading the third book of the Bible, which is concerned almost exclusively with ritual matters: sacrifices, purity and impurity, dietary restrictions, and the like. Many of these laws apply exclusively to the kohanim—the members of the priestly caste made up of descendants of Aaron—rather than to the Israelites as a whole. So why, asks Jeffrey Tigay, include them all in the Torah?

One clue seems to be found in Leviticus 21, a chapter that is addressed [explicitly] to the priests: “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them . . .’”. The chapter requires the priests to avoid actions . . . that would disqualify them from officiating. Surprisingly, the final verse of the chapter . . . adds that it was addressed to the people as well: “Thus Moses spoke to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites.” . . .

Moses seems to be informing the people of the rules incumbent on priests in order to [enable] the people to make sure that the priests comply. This enables us to view this chapter, and all the priestly laws, in the larger context of the Torah’s instructions to make all of its laws public.

Making the laws public informs the people not only of their own duties but also of the duties of public officials (priests and prophets, judges and kings), including the limits that God placed on the officials’ rights. [It thus makes possible] public scrutiny and criticism of officials and prevents them from gaining the absolute authority and prestige that they would command by controlling important information known only to them. . . .

[In ancient times], teaching the laws to the entire citizenry was unusual. . . . This aspect of biblical religion was expressed artistically in the frescoes from the 3rd century CE discovered in the ancient Syrian city of Dura Europos. As [the great historian of ancient Judaism] Elias Bickerman wrote, “The sacred books of all other religions . . . were ritual texts to be used or recited by priests. In the temple of Mithras at Dura it is a Magian in his sacred dress who keeps the sacred scroll closed in his hand. [But] in the synagogue of Dura, a layman, without any sign of office, is represented reading the open scroll.”

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.