Priests [per the Torah], in order to retain their holiness and to remain clean, need to have unblemished wives.
One might say that it was not my grandmother's fault that she divorced my grandfather when he turned out to be an arsonist. Why should she be punished?
I think the emphasis was to preserve the holiness of the priest, not to do what might be fair for the woman.
This opened the door for Christ, who embraced Mary Magdalen and others who did not have pristine backgrounds.
If the priest was not surrounded by that which was without blemish then he could not perform sacrifices to G_d.
I'm curious about the idea of embracing an ideology that is so unforgiving. But I imagine that the Torah is the maxim, as expressed by Martin Buber. In practice, I'm hoping the circumstance would allow room for the former harlot or present divorcee... or my Grandma... to marry a priest.
I think you have to be able to separate holiness from kindness. Obviously holiness per Leviticus doesn't take kindness into consideration. The important
ReplyDeletething is that people evolved over time and started taking kindness more seriously.