Pro-Life Torah Kedoshim

The Torah reading this week, Kedoshim: Leviticus 19:1-20:27, challenges us to view our ‘choseness’ as a mandate to be holy, for God’s sake and for our own sake. Escape from sin, shame, guilt, and moral failure comes from a life based on Torah’s spiritual principles that set us apart from secular lifestyles. Many of the guidelines enumerated in this portion strongly substantiate a repudiation of abortion industry practices, which epitomize evil. 

Every man shall fear his mother and his father and keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord: We accept our parents’ authority unless they ask us to violate God’s moral authority. Parents often feel compelled to insist on abortion for a daughter’s unplanned pregnancy to save family embarrassment, her reputation, or her future success.. It requires uncommon courage and faith to choose life in this extremely frightening situation. Tragically, too many young adults succumb to parental intimidation, rather than seek financial and moral support outside their family. 

Do not turn to idols, nor make for yourselves molten gods; I am the Lord your God: We have a tendency to idolize intellectual ability, reputation, financial security, professional status, ourselves and others, all of which can easily convince us that abortion is necessary to promote and protect our selfish interests. We can reclaim our spiritual dignity with renewed allegiance to HaShem and active commitment to the sanctity of human life, made in His image and precious in His sight. 

You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. Abortion advocates engage in duplicitous practices by routinely failing to report evidence of sexual assault and sex trafficking, failing to provide informed consent to patients about negative consequences of the procedure. Abortion propaganda depends on many lies: ‘abortion is healthcare’, it’s a harmless medical procedure’, it will solve your problems’, “it’s not a baby”. 

Do not stand by your fellow’s blood: We have a duty to get involved when another’s life is threatened. We are obligated to participate in activities to save the lives of our innocent children, to protect our vulnerable women from the harmful, sometimes life-threatening effects of abortion, and to support concerned fathers who want to save their children. 

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, rebuke, rebuke your fellow: We seek to educate and encourage a life affirming view in the Jewish community, We diligently work to reverse decades of indifference to abortion and promotion of abortion among Jewish leaders and teachers, 

Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a harlot, lest the land fall to harlotry, and the land become full of foulness: Many Jewish teens and young adults invariably suffer emotional, physical, and mental damage from sexual freedom ideology pervasive in popular culture and school curriculum, Modesty , abstinence, and self respect lead to healthy, happy fulfilled lives. 

Love your neighbor as yourself: Love rejoices in and supports life. We are required to love our neighbor and our neighbor’s unborn child by taking actions that support and encourage successful life saving outcomes. Born and unborn are all alike in God’s loving creation. 

Whosoever he be of the children of Israel that giveth his children to Molech, he shall surely be put to death: Child sacrifice is strictly forbidden to Jews and those who live among us. God makes this a capital crime, and warns that He will make desolate the soul of any person that commits or condones this crime. Our sensibilities have been coarsened to the heinous nature of child killing, so that many of us may consider God’s punishment extreme, but it is clear that abortion has resulted in a growing soulless society, far removed from the holy vision He imagined for us. 

Cecily Routman 

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