Wisdom of today

This parashah also includes warnings against sexual abuse and perversions, which in a broader sense, is what the word usually translated as “adultery” in the Ten Speakings really means. The teaching for Am Yisrael is painfully clear: the various forms of sexual abuse, listed in detail in VayYikra 18:6-29, ritually practiced by the seven Canaanite tribes we were told to remove from the land, are more than illicit; they are acts of perversion and distortion.

“Do not let yourselves be defiled by any of these acts. It was as a result of them that the nations that I am driving away before you became defiled. The land became defiled, and when I directed my providence at the sin commited there, the land vomited out its inhabitants. You (however), must keep my decrees and laws, and not become involved in any of these disgusting perversions –neither the native born or any foreigner who settles amongst you. The people who lived in the land before you did all of these disgusting perversions and defiled the land. But (you shall not cause) the land to vomit you out when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. Thus, whenever anyone does any of these perversions, (all) people involved shall be cut off (spiritually), from the mids of their people. Keep my charge, and do not follow any of the perverted costums that were kept before you (arrived), so that you not be defiled by them. I am God your Lord”

(VayYiKra 18-24-30)

Source: Torah as a Guide toEnlightenment, Dr Gabriel Cousens