Parshas Acharei-Kedoshim: Sacrifice Sin, Not Children

We have a double Torah portion this week, Parshas Acharei - Kedoshim, Vayikra (Leviticus) 16:1-20:27. Much of contemporary culture around the world chooses to remain uninformed of the Almighty’s life preserving instructions conveyed in these Torah readings. The best remedy for what ails us is to study and apply them.

Acharei Mot, Vayikra (Leviticus) 16:1–18:30, invites us to look to a future when human spiritual growth finally merits the messianic Redemption. The portion opens with Moses delivering a stern warning from Hashem to Aaron to lead His people on the path of true life affirming holiness not the death inducing delusions found in false spiritual pursuits that sacrifice life for self interested goals.

Life Begins at Conception

Acharei describes very specific annual Yom Kippur priestly rituals needed to atone for harms done when wickedness rules the human heart and mind. A long list of prohibited behaviors commences with a complete prohibition from eating the blood of a food animal or fowl because the blood contains the soul of that animal.

The Almighty considers the soul so sacred that the blood of an animal must be used only by a priest as representation of the owner’s personal sacrifice for his own sin.

Acknowledging that the soul is in the blood puts to rest any confusion about an unborn baby’s ensoulment at conception, when immediately blood cells begin forming, leading to blood and blood vessels visible at 2 1/2 weeks after fertilization.

Child Sacrifice Forbidden in Torah

Chapter 18 begins as the Almighty tells Moses to alert the people that Canaanite law and social norms will not be tolerated among the Jews. Rather, they must safeguard holy rules of conduct or be ejected from the land, just as the morally depraved Canaanites were ejected. 

Abortion is modern day child sacrifice exacting the same consequences as in biblical times. Within the long list of deviant sexual behaviors listed in this portion, a warning against child sacrifice gets its own line item in Leviticus 18:21, And you shall not give any of your offspring to pass through for Molech. And you shall not profane the Name of your God. I am the Lord.

Expanded curses to anyone involved in child sacrifice occurs in Parshas Kedoshim, Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:1–20:27. In biblical times, killing one's children is ordinary, Torah makes it a capital crime for Jews and non-Jews. If the community fails to  prosecute the offender, the Almighty will do it in His own way. 

Here are the relevant verses. Leviticus 20:2-5: Whosoever he be of the children of Israel that giveth his children to Molech, he shall surely be put to death.

And to the children of Israel, you shall say: Any man of the children of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among Israel, who gives any of his offspring to Molech, shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall pelt him with stones.

And I will set My attention upon that man, and I will cut him off from amidst his people, because he gave of his offspring to Molech in order to defile My holy ones and to profane My holy Name.

But if the people of the land ignore that man when he gives of his offspring to Molech, not putting him to death I will set My attention upon that man, and upon his family, and I will cut him off, and all who stray after him to stray after Molech, from amidst their people. 

Abortion Industry Practices Forbidden in Torah

Many laws enumerated in this portion strongly repudiate abortion and abortion industry practices, all of which are evil and ruinous.

Leviticus 19:2: Speak to the entire community of the Israelites, saying to them, ‘You must be holy, for I, God, your God, am holy. It doesn’t say determine what is fair and helpful in your own mind. It says, be holy!

Leviticus 19:3: Every man shall fear his mother and his father and keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord. We respect our parents’ authority unless they ask us to violate God’s moral authority. Along with the power of peer pressure and social media, parents have tremendous influence over their children's moral development or disintegration.

When parents persuade or coerce their daughter or son into an abortion they teach moral weakness. They put their children at risk for a variety of complications. They lose a grandchild.

Abortion vulnerable couples facing parental threat of eviction must have uncommon courage and moral support. Tragically, too many young adults unwillingly succumb to parental intimidation instead of looking to a higher authority on moral grounds.

Leviticus 19:4: Do not turn to idols, nor make for yourselves molten gods; I am the Lord your God. Abortion propagandists claim godlike authority over life and death. They must be rejected.

Leviticus 19:11: You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. Abortion steals life, money, peace of mind and the future. Abortion profiteers engage in duplicitous practices by routinely failing to report evidence of sexual assault and sex trafficking. They withhold informed consent to patients about maternal risk, fetal pain, and profits garnered from procuring babies for research.

Patients receive biased counseling in favor of abortion to meet monthly quotas. Lies abound. Abortion is healthcare, it’s a harmless medical procedure, it will solve your problems, it's not human, it’s not alive, these pills aren't dangerous, etc.

Leviticus 19:12: You shall not swear falsely by My Name, thereby profaning the Name of your God. I am the Lord. Jewish abortion activists and supporters routinely violate this law with each repetition of 'Abortion is a Jewish value and a religious right/rite.' This is a desecration of God’s name and very dangerous. It mirrors our enemy’s conviction that killing Jews is a religious duty.

Leviticus 19:13: You shall not oppress your fellow. You shall not rob. The hired worker's wage shall not remain with you overnight until morning. Abortion homicide oppresses mothers, father, families, and communities, and robs the human family of a future and all the productive years that child would provide. Abortion is the sacrifice of human capital for profit. This is wicked.

Leviticus 19:14: You shall not curse a deaf person. You shall not place a stumbling block before a blind person, and you shall fear your God. I am the Lord. Pro-abortion attitudes and policies in law and politics set a trap for vulnerable parents.

When abortion is  framed as compassionate care, it exploits and destroys others for personal and commercial gain. We counsel our Tikvat Rachel participants to recognize the superbly constructed trap into which they fell and to be open to forgiveness for their weakness in the face of a powerful antagonist.

Leviticus 19:16: You shall not go around as a gossipmonger amidst your people. You shall not stand by [the shedding of] your fellow's blood. I am the Lord. Gossip kills. Spreading the lie that unborn children are not human or alive gets them killed in abortion, literally, shedding their blood.

Leviticus 19:17: You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your fellow, but you shall not bear a sin on his account. Rather than harbor ill feelings and resentment towards those who distort Torah to justify killing babies in the womb, we educate and encourage a life affirming view in the Jewish community. To the degree that our community stays silent, everyone assumes the tremendous guilt associated with mass slaughter of innocents.

Leviticus 19:18: You shall neither take revenge from nor bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Babies are members of our people. We must love and protect them, not blame them for our problems after we invite them into the womb. Babies born from rape and incest must not be demonized and executed. We must acknowledge them as our neighbors and love them.

Leviticus 19:29: You shall not defile your daughter by making her a harlot, lest the Land fall into harlotry and the land be filled with immorality. Progressive sexual freedom permeates our culture, often corrupting family systems. Provocative behavior allows early sexual activity, remedies teen pregnancy with baby killing, and leads to sex trafficking, pornography and abuse. 

Leviticus 19:35: You must not commit a perversion of justice with regard to measures of length, area, weight, or liquid or dry volume. Continuing to advance policies and attitudes that dehumanize an unborn baby as a product of conception or less than fully human perverts justice. 

Banning Truth Then and Now

In our Haftarah portion this week, Amos 9:7-15, we meet the prophet in mid chapter attempting to reassure his audience that Israel will be redeemed after sharing his vision of a devastated, conquered northern kingdom due to the moral failure of Jewish leadership. He preaches that God and His people are bound in a moral contract.

Amos' clear understanding of spiritual cause and effect is lost on the establishment. He is banned from Samaria, continuing to write and preach remotely. Amos preaches in the years 780 to 760 BCE. The northern kingdom of Israel disappears in 556 BCE.

This very long commentary can be summed up thus: Child sacrifice is strictly forbidden to Jews and to non-Jews. God warns that we must hold those accountable for shedding the blood of innocent babies in the womb. If we don't, He will.

Our sensibilities have been coarsened to the heinous nature of child killing. We now live in a soulless society, far removed from the holy vision God had for us. In 2025, over one millions babies were destroyed in America and we still do not have a political majority who considers this immoral and unacceptable.

Hadassah estimates that 20,000 Jewish babies are destroyed annually in Israel and it is not considered politically important to stop the government from paying for many of them.

At the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation, we realize that the risks of abortion are lost on the Jewish majority. This is why we educate Jewish communities about the biblical foundations of pro-life attitudes and laws.

Our support and love for Jews and Israel isn't dampened by the Jewish majority rejecting our work. They are puppets of abortion industry profiteers who project on us the danger they themselves pose to Yiddishkeit when they label us anti-semitic for rejecting Jewish self extermination by abortion. 

Like Amos, we see a path of redemption ahead, as sanity and holiness is restored, and unborn children once again take their rightful place in the human family.

Please share this post on your social media to amplify our message in this troubled world. Thank you.

Cecily Routman

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.

Cecily Routman is the founder and president of the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation. She opposes abortion homicide in general and among Jews in particular and laments secular policy making in Israel that results in loss of Jewish life and delays the messianic redemption. Cecily envisions a Torah based holy Land of Israel and a world that respects the life of every human being from conception.

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