...and the kehunah will be a perpetual statute for them...
Today in the Torah two rams and a bull
are going down. I don’t have to worry about it
because the Rabbis who came later said so.
Still, the details haunt me.
There is a lot of blood and descriptions
of what’s to be done with their innards.
I hadn’t read this in 1986 when I became
a vegetarian, but it must have been part of
the internal history passed to me
through the blood of my ancestors
only to become a perpetual part of my non-diet.
The rams had to be perfect, which feels
exclusionary to those of us with imperfections.
As much as I don’t want to slaughter a ram
I want every mammal to have an equal opportunity
to get whatever they feel they should.
Aaron’s sons are being slathered and anointed
and nearby fingers are touching the blood.
This should have the desired effect.
On the other end of it, they will kehunah forever.
I can’t get over the word kehunah
and how it is not Kahunah, which is Hawaiian
or maybe they had a meeting about it
all the King Davids, the Jewish one and
the Hawaiian one, and they decided
let’s share this so even on non-Jewish vacation
I will be reminded of what always is.
I have a long list of things that always are.
I keep adding to it, to the point my wife asks
you’re doing another thing, every day, forever?
It is like our love, my love.
Always room for more. A perpetual state.
My kehunah.