A Principle to Live By / Behar-Bechukkotai 2015-5775

(This drash is “text-centric.” If you like text, dive in. If you’re wary, please give it a try. If you’re still confused after reading it, know that you are not alone because Talmud texts are confusing to many people, and feel free to be in touch with me. The two Talmudic passages that are discussed in this drash— from tractates Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah—are included at the end of the drash.)

We think we know what time is. Scientists have defined one second to be 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a hyperfine transition in the 133 caesium atom—at least if we’re all in the same inertial reference frame. Einstein’s Special Relativity taught us that it’s not that simple. Hermann Minkowski’s spacetime gave us a very different perspective on the very large scale. But here at home, a day still has 24 hours, an hour has 60 minutes, and the garbage goes out Thursday morning. Most of contemplate the meaning of time in our lives far more than the implications of spacetime for the universe. Steve Jobs said: “My favorite things in life don’t cost money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.” More than two centuries earlier, William Penn said: “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” And twenty-one centuries earlier, Pericles said: “Time is the wisest counselor of all.”

This week’s double portions, Behar and Bechukkotai, has something to say about time. Among the many subjects it takes up is shemittah, the sabbatical year. As an ancient and extraordinarily progressive eco-friendly and anti-poverty institution, shemittah is unsurpassed. It’s remarkable. For one in every seven years, the land was permitted to lie fallow to renew itself—a sabbath for the land. All those who had sold themselves into slavery to pay off debts was released and sent home. Land that was sold outside a patrimony due to economic hardship was returned to the original owner. The shemittah is a great leveling institution: the poor were given a new lease on life, an opportunity to begin anew. It turns out that Behar offers us even more wisdom: a principle to live by that speaks to ever facet of life. Tracing the path of that principle, we begin with Chanukah.

The Babylonian Talmud records a famous argument between the Schools of Hillel and Shammai concerning how to light the Chanukah menorah.

Bet Shammai say: On the first day eight lights are lit and thereafter they are gradually reduced. But Bet Hillel say: On the first day one is lit and thereafter they are progressively increased. 

We know who won this one because we light one candle the first night and increase by one each night. But did you ever wonder why the School of Hillel held this opinion and why the School of Shammai held the opposite view? Talmud provides two explanations, one attributed to R. Yose b. Avin, and another according to R. Jose b. Zevida (see Shabbat 21b below). The first R. Yose understands the candles in the menorah to be a counting mechanism, a candle-calendar for keeping track of the festival. The difference is that Bet Shammai want to count how many days remain which, given the story of the miraculous cruse of oil that lasted eight days, makes sense; Bet Hillel want to count each day of the festival as it occurs. The second R. Yose tells us that Bet Shammai is concerned with the sacrifices, which makes sense since Chanukah is about the rededication of the Temple and reinstitution of the sacrificial rites; Bet Hillel, however, is aiming for a far more general principle that applies well beyond Chanukah: “we promote in sanctity but do not reduce.” For Bet Hillel, this principle bespeaks not only the story of Chanukah, but all of Torah and Judaism: it is all about increasing holiness in the world.

Bet Hillel has framed the principle of increasing holiness in very general terms, but it has concrete applications. Tractate Rosh Hashanah (daf 9) considers the situation of holy time. If we want to add to holy time, where do we draw that extra time from? Clearly, from ordinary time. For example: Shabbat begins at sundown Friday and ends at sundown Saturday, but… we light the shabbat candles 18 minutes before sundown Friday and do not make havdalah until at least 42 minutes after sundown Saturday. Therefore, while in theory Shabbat is 24 hours long, in reality we keep it for 25 hours. We take 18 minutes from Friday and 42 minutes from Saturday to—in the words of the Rabbis—“add from the ordinary on to the holy.” We convert “ordinary time” into “holy time.”

In tractate Rosh Hashanah, the Sages want to know what the basis in Torah is for this principle. A baraita (Mishnah-era teaching that didn’t make it into the Mishnah) is brought that offers as the basis the verse Exodus 34:21: …the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and harvest time you shall rest. This is a surprising verse to bring because it’s about shabbat and, in context, merely means that even during the pressured seasons of plowing and harvest, one must nonetheless cease from work on shabbat.

Talmud then records the differing views of two Sages: R. Akiba and R. Yishmael. R. Akiba understands the verse from Exodus to apply to the shemittah (sabbatical year) because in our Torah portion, Behar, we already find the prohibition of plowing during the sabbatical year: You shall not sow your field (Leviticus 25:4). Therefore, the reference to plowing and harvesting in Exodus 34:21 must refer to something else (since, for R. Akiba, Torah never repeats itself). R. Akiba explains: in the sabbatical year, we are to stop plowing even before the year begins, and refrain from harvesting even after the year ends. In this way, we lengthen the year by a few weeks or perhaps months on both ends, enlarging it, “adding from the ordinary on to the holy.”

R. Yishmael offers an alternative view. For him, the verse from Exodus pertains to Shabbat. He learns the principle of “adding from the ordinary on to the holy” from another source: the commandment concerning Yom Kippur. Specifically, he cites Leviticus 23:32: It shall be a sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall practice self-denial; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall observe this your sabbath. R. Yishmael, noting the peculiar wording of the verse, explains that, in fact, we begin fasting before sundown on Yom Kippur, and do not eat until after sundown at the conclusion of Yom Kippur. And so it is: we stop eating prior to sundown and arrive in synagogue prior to sundown because Kol Nidre must be chanted before the sun sets. At the other end, after Yom Kippur, we must pray ma’ariv (evening prayers) and then make havdalah before we break the fast. The “day” of Yom Kippur is stretched out at both ends, “adding from the ordinary on to the holy.”

For the Sages, holy time provides a unique and unparalleled opportunity. Let’s return to the observations of three wise people, and imagine that they were talking, specifically, about holy time. Pericles: “[Holy] Time is the wisest counselor of all.” Holy time calls us to stop our normal activity and consider our impact on the world and the lives of others. Holy time carves out space in our lives for meditation, reflection, and prayer: Who are we? Who do we wish to be? What are we doing with our lives? William Penn said: “[Holy] time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” Holy time affords us the opportunity to live in eternity and to contemplate what might be, on the one hand, and on the other to be wholly in the moment with our thoughts, with those we love, and with all creation. But for that to happen, we need to consciously and purposefully sanctify the time. The Jewish mechanisms for that include lighting candles, kiddush, and other rituals that help us savor holy time. Steve Jobs: “My favorite things in life don’t cost money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is [holy] time.” Imagine holy time as a resource to help us infuse our lives with purpose and meaning, pleasure and joy, reflection and direction, community and eternity. And it’s free. Hey, if it’s free, “add from the ordinary on to the holy” and enjoy! There’s a principle to live by.

Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat 21b

            Bet Shammai say: On the first day eight lights are lit and thereafter they are gradually reduced. But Bet Hillel say: On the first day one is lit and thereafter they are progressively increased.

            Ulla said: In the West [Land of Israel] two amoraim, R. Jose b. Avin and R. Jose b. Zevida, differ. [R. Jose b. Avin] maintains that Bet Shammai’s reason is that it shall correspond to the days [of the festival of Chanukah] still to come, and Bet Hillel’s reason is that it shall correspond to the days that are gone. But [R. Yose b. Zevida] maintains: Bet Shammai's reason is that it shall correspond to the bullocks [offered as sacrifices on the altar in the Temple] for the Festival; while Bet Hillel's reason is that we promote in [matters of] sanctity but do not reduce.

Babylonian Talmud, tractate Rosh Hashanah 9a,b

            And how do we know [from Scripture] that we add to from the ordinary on to the holy? — As it has been taught: …on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and harvest time you shall rest  (Exodus 34:21).

            R. Akiba, [commenting on this,] said: There was no need [for Scripture] to specify the plowing and harvest of the Sabbatical year, since this has already been mentioned [in], You shall not sow your field (Leviticus 25:4). It must therefore refer to plowing on the eve of the sabbatical year that is passing into the sabbatical year, and to harvesting in the sabbatical year that continues into the period after the sabbatical year.

            R. Yishmael said: Just as plowing is optional, so too harvesting [here referred to] is optional, excluding the harvesting of the Omer, which is a mitzvah.

            Whence then does R. Yishmael derive the rule that an addition is to be made from the ordinary on to the holy? — He learns it from that which has been taught: And you shall afflict your souls on the ninth day (Leviticus 23:32^[1]). I might think [literally] on the ninth day. It therefore says, at evening. If at evening, I might think, after dark. It therefore says, on the ninth day. What, then, am I to understand? That we begin to afflict ourselves [by fasting] while it is yet day. This teaches that we add from the ordinary on to the holy.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

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^[1] Leviticus 23:32 on Yom Kippur: It shall be a sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall practice self-denial; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall observe this your sabbath.

All Nighter / Emor 2015-5775

In college I rarely went to bed before 1:00 am. Staying up all night was no mean feat, and it was not challenging to bounce back from an all-nighter. That was then and now is now, if you follow my drift. The tradition of staying up all night on Erev Shavuot to study Torah has its origins not in the Bible nor on college campuses, but in the mystical tradition of the 16th century. The first mention comes to us from Moses ben Yehudah ibn Machir of Tzfat in the 16th century, on the basis of the Zohar’s suggestion that anyone wishing to dwell in the “royal palace” (of righteousness) should study Torah throughout the night of Shavuot. But how did they manage to remain awake all night? It would seem that a secret elixir—coffee—is the magic potion, and its introduction into the Near East made possible a new custom that many erroneously think stretches back to the Bible. Elliott Horowitz, in an article that received a great deal of attention when it appeared, suggests, "Where coffee spread, it extended the range of possibilities for making use of the night hours, whether for purposes pious or profane.” Nicely put. With coffee at their disposal, our ancestors could remain awake all night learning (even those older than 35). It may also be that eating dairy for Shavuot was introduced at this time and all the ex-post facto explanations were spun out. Certainly coffee and cheesecake make a nice late night snack.

Not only does Torah say nothing about staying up all night to study Torah on Shavuot, but perhaps more surprisingly are two peculiarities surrounding Torah’s mentions of Shavuot. The first is that Torah rarely employs the term “Shavuot.” The second is that in no instance is the giving of the Torah (revelation) connected with the festival. How can that be?

We stand in the midst of Sefirat ha-Omer (the Counting of the Omer, the period between Passover and Shavuot). This shabbat will mark the 35th day of the Omer. This week’s parashah, Emor, recounts both the festival of Shavuot and the Sefirah. But we don’t find the name of the festival here. Rather, we are told that on the day after “shabbat” (understood to mean the first day of Pesach), a sheaf of grain is to be brought to the priest, who elevates it and offers a yearling lamb along with a minchah (grain offering) and wine libation. This offering inaugurates a counting of seven times seven weeks. The following day—the fiftieth day—a מִנְחָה חֲדָשָׁה “offering of new grain” (Leviticus 23:16) and two loaves of bread from the new grain are brought along with a variety of animal sacrifices. Exodus 23:16 also refers to Shavuot but by another name: חַג הַקָּצִיר chag ha-katzir (“the harvest festival”). Numbers 28:26 refers to Shavuot as יוֹם הַבִּכּוּרִים yom ha-bikkurim (“the day of first fruits”) and שָׁבֻעֹתֵיכֶם shavuoteichem (“your weeks”). It is only in Deuteronomy 16 (verses 10 and 16) and Exodus 34:22 that we find the term חַג שָׁבֻעֹת chag ha-shavuot (“feast of weeks”) employed.

And while every school child will tell you that Shavuot celebrates Matan Torah (the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, i.e., the Revelation of Torah)—that’s why why we study Torah all night long on Shavuot—that connection is not found in Torah itself.  The early Rabbis of the second century are the ones who associated Shavuot (which they called Atzeret) with the Giving of the Torah. In the shadow of the Destruction of the Second Temple, when animal sacrifices were no longer possible and the sheaves could not be brought to the Temple, the Rabbis ascribed new meaning to the festival of Shavuot so that it would continue to have currency in the Jewish community and not become lost. The culmination of the Passover and Omer season became for all Jews a celebration of the Revelation of Torah at Mount Sinai.

We might still wonder: Why does Torah mention sheaves of grain and new loaves, but not the giving of Torah? Rabbi Yitzhak Arama (1420–1494, Spain), author of the work Akedat Yitzhak, offers us an answer:

The commemoration of the Giving of the Torah cannot be limited to a particular time like other matters connected with the festivals, but is a precept that applies at all hours and at all times, as it is written, The Book of the Law shall not move from your youth, and you shall meditate in it day and night (Joshua 1:8). Every day we are commanded that its contents should remain as fresh and as dear to us, as on the day they were given…

Arama seems to be warning us that celebrating one particular day each year as the day on which Torah is given could close us off to the experience every day of receiving Torah.

Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz (1550-1619, Prague) also wonders why Torah does not tell us that Torah was given on Shavuot. In his commentary Kli Yakar, he finds the answer in Torah’s mention of the מִנְחָה חֲדָשָׁה “offering of new grain” (Leviticus 23:16) that marked the fiftieth day, the festival day we know as Shavuot. Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim tells us that the offering of grain alludes to Torah, and the new grain refers to new insights and explanations of Torah that keep Torah ever fresh, vibrant, relevant, and exciting. He goes on to explain, “For the words of Torah shall be new to you, and not like old matters that the heart detests. For, in truth, you are commanded to derive novelty each and every day.”

What a marvelous double call to keep Torah alive and and vital. That is a major challenge for us today, one that concerns me greatly. In the scramble to provide clever, innovative, entertaining programing in our synagogues and institutions, I worry that substantive, deep, and meaningful Torah study gets short shrift. (And here I include more than the Pentateuch in the term “Torah”—I include Talmud, midrash, mystical works, and more.) It’s not deemed “cool,” nor sufficiently entertaining in a culture that demands 24/7 entertainment. But study is spiritually fulfilling and I believe many are thirsty for this kind of fulfillment.

Torah defines who we are and Torah binds us together through both time and space. Delving into existing interpretations combined with generating new insights insures that Torah continues to be the glue that holds us together as a people and secures our future.

In a sense, Rabbi Yitzhak Arama and Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz are telling us that every day should be Shavuot. Every day should be one of spiritual inquiry and discovery, affording us an opportunity to find new meanings, new insights, and new expressions of the holy in our lives. I suppose that also means that every day should include cheesecake, too.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

Leaving Tophet / Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 2015/5775

Violence erupted on the streets of Baltimore Monday. Shortly after the funeral for Freddie Gray z”l concluded, and despite pleas by Gray’s family that all protests be suspended and the day be devoted to prayer and remembrance, as 3:00 pm rolled around and schools let out, youth and others descended on Mondawmin Mall. Media reported that, in conjunction with three local gangs, looting began, police were attacked, and numerous fires were set. A CVS in West Baltimore was torched and a community center under construction in East Baltimore was engulfed in flames. As evening wore on, African American pastors, to their great credit, called members of the three gangs to meet with them at the Old Shiloh Baptist Church where Freddie Gray had been eulogized earlier in the day.

We watched horrified as the events unfold on our TV screen. Days of largely peaceful demonstration and protest against what appears to be another case of police brutality against a young black man who died in police custody was now being overtaken by violent rioting and looting by people who appeared to be inspired by greed far more than any semblance of righteous anger. In all, it was reported that 15 structures were burned, 144 cars destroyed, dozens of businesses looted, and 20 police officers injured. The National Guard was activated and the city placed under a curfew for perhaps a week.

 

Of all the words and images that emerged in the following 24 hours, two stand out in my mind. The first is an interview reporter Deborah Weiner conducted at the Old Shiloh Baptist Church with members of three gangs: the Bloods, the Crips, and Black Gorilla Family. You can view it here.^[1] The second is a video of Toya Graham, who found her son dressed in black hoodie and face mask to participate in the looting; she pulled him out, screamed at him and smacked him, telling him to go home. “I don’t want him to become Freddie Gray,” she said.  You can see several video clips here.^[2]

These scenes of Baltimore, and especially the interview of the gang members and the mother pulling her son off the street, came into sharp focus for me this week as I read the combined Torah portions of Acharei Mot and Kedoshim. Amidst a long litany of forbidden sexual relationships enumerated in Leviticus chapter 18 (traditionally read on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, as well) we find this seemingly out-of-place prohibition against sacrificing children to Molech^[3]:

וּמִזַּרְעֲךָ לֹא-תִתֵּן, לְהַעֲבִיר לַמֹּלֶךְ

Do not allow any of your offspring to be offered up to Molech. (Leviticus 18:21)

Who or what is Molech, what is this about, and how does it speak to what is happening on the streets of Baltimore and elsewhere in our country?

Molech was an ancient deity, worshiped by the Ammonites, Canaanites, and Phoenicians, that was propitiated by the sacrifice of children. Acharei Mot forbids offering up children to Molech. Kedoshim (Leviticus 20:2-5) tells us that one who goes ahead and sacrifices his children to Molech is to be executed by stoning; but in the next verse we are told that such a person will be punished by karet, the divine punishment of “being cut off” from the peoplehood of Israel. Despite these dire warnings I Kings 11:7, in describing the many excesses of King Solomon, tells us that he built a high place for Molech. Similarly 2 Chronicles 28:3 and 33:6 and Jeremiah 7:31 and 19:2–6 know these sacrifices to have happened in a place called Tophet in gai ben-Hinnom “the Valley of the son of Hinnom.” For example, Jeremiah 32:35 tells us.

וַיִּבְנוּ אֶת-בָּמוֹת הַבַּעַל אֲשֶׁר בְּגֵיא בֶן-הִנֹּם, לְהַעֲבִיר אֶת-בְּנֵיהֶם וְאֶת-בְּנוֹתֵיהֶם לַמֹּלֶךְ, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-צִוִּיתִים וְלֹא עָלְתָה עַל-לִבִּי, לַעֲשׂוֹת הַתּוֹעֵבָה הַזֹּאת--לְמַעַן, הַחֲטִי אֶת-יְהוּדָה

They built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to set apart their sons and their daughters for Molech; which I did not command them, nor did it ever enter My mind that they should do this abomination thereby causing Judah to sin.

The term Gehenna is derived from gai ben-Hinnom. Gehenna is purgatory. Hell on earth. Where children are sacrificed, hell is established in our midst.

The Rabbis, in an attempt to explain what evil could have been so great as to warrant the destruction of the Second Temple by the Babylonians in 70 C.E., employ the image of Tophet in the Valley of the son of Hinnom. They craft a horrifying description of parents who ceremonially process with a variety of offerings to enter concentric gates around a core cultic sacrificial altar. The priests loudly praise each offering, saying “May it be sweet and pleasing to you!” in order to mask the cries of children who, behind the innermost gate, are being offered up as sacrifices.

Another interpretation of And her uncleanliness on her skirts (Lamentations1:9): There was a place below Jerusalem, called "Tophet." And why did they call it "Tophet"? R. Yudan said: "Because of the fire that was there." And why did they call it the Valley of the son of Hinnom? It was named “the valley of [a person named] the son of Hinnom"; and our rabbis said: Because from there they could hear the groaning of their children. There was a great idolatrous image there placed before [the entrance to] seven chambers. Below was a copper stove and in its hand a copper basket. For one who brought an offering of flour they would open the first gate; for an offering of turtle-doves the second gate; for a lamb the third gate; for a ram the fourth gate; for a calf the fifth gate; for an ox the sixth gate; for a human being the seventh gate. The priest would accept it and place it in the copper basket, light the fire underneath, and praise aloud: “May it be sweet to you! May it be pleasing to you!” Why so much [exclamation]? So that [the parents] would not hear the cries of their children and repent their deed [i.e., change their minds].” (Eichah Rabbah 1:9, Buber ed., pp. 71-72)

Certainly no such place existed in the first century, if ever it did exist. Why are the Rabbis drawing on the image of sacrificing children to Molech? What are they telling us?

It seems to me that the message is that the people are destroying their own future. Sacrificing children is emblematic of their failure to set priorities that insure a healthy, prosperous future for the nation. Narrow, selfish concern with being lauded for minor “gifts” to Molech conceal the enormous evil of children being sacrificed on an altar none choose to see or hear, behind a series of gates, out of sight, their cries muffled by the affirming praise of priests.

How different are things today? I’m not excusing the violence and looting—there is no excuse for such anti-social and criminal behavior. But at the same time, it’s important to honestly confront the reality of the lives many of these kids live. Far too many of the schools they attend are deplorably inadequate and under-resourced, the dropout rate is still far too high, and poverty is a crushing existential reality in their lives. Here is a frightening assessment.^[4] We still have a drug policy designed to incarcerate black men in obscene numbers, but fewer and fewer vocational programs to convey skills needed to earn a living (click here^[5]). It’s important to honestly assess the employment situation these young people face. No longer does a full time job pay a living wage.^[6] Income equality in America grows each day—the gap is a yawning chasm—fueled by the insidious myth that those who don’t “make it” are “lazy” and “undeserving.” (Read this.^[7]) How many young people, and young black men in particular, are sacrificed on an altar of misconstrued and avaricious capitalism?

II Kings 23:10 tells us that when Josiah ascended to the throne of Judah in the 7th century B.C.E., he ordered the High Priest Hilkiah to use tax monies to clean out the Temple. There Hilkiah discovered סֵפֶר הַתּוֹרָה “the book of the Torah” (understood by many scholars as Deuteronomy) which inspired Josiah to institute sweeping reforms to obliterate rampant idolatry introduced by his predecessor Manasseh. Josiah burned the Asherah in the brook of Kidron, cleared the Temple of the vessels and altars for worshiping Ba’al and,

וְטִמֵּא אֶת-הַתֹּפֶת, אֲשֶׁר בְּגֵי בני- (בֶן-) הִנֹּם:  לְבִלְתִּי, לְהַעֲבִיר אִישׁ אֶת-בְּנוֹ וְאֶת-בִּתּוֹ בָּאֵשׁ—לַמֹּלֶךְ

He defiled Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, so that no one could make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.

It is time to defile Tophet and tear down the altar to Molech. We owe our children far more. It is trite to say that are our future—but it is true. People who destroy their future degrade their lives and society.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

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^[1] http://www.wbaltv.com/news/gang-members-we-did-not-make-truce-to-harm-cops/32609810

^[2] http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2015/04/baltimore-mom-catches-son-rioting-beats-him-on-national-tv-hailed-a-mom-of-the-year/

^[3] Molech is often written Moloch based on the Septuagint.

^[4] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/23/6-facts-about-black-americans-for-black-history-month/

^[5] http://educationnext.org/50-years-moynihan-report-one-quarter-young-black-males-neither-employed-enrolled-school-vocational-training/

^[6] http://livingwage.mit.edu/

^[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/business/economy/income-inequality-is-costing-the-us-on-social-issues.html

Linking All of Creation / Tazria-Metzora 2015-5775

Recent news items:

•    Globally: The National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council is releasing a booklet this month. It explains that global climate change is radically reshaping the Arctic which, in turn, will produce more intense snow, heat, and rain; rising sea levels; and amplified global warming due to the thawing of the permafrost.^[1]

•    Across the ocean: As many as 900 migrants packed onto a ship that capsized off the cost of

Libya may have died, as the number of refugees escaping poverty, persecution and war in North Africa, Syria, and other parts of the Middle East continues to surge.^[2]

•    In the Middle East: ISIS continues its murderous rampage, cutting a brutally bloody swath through Iraq. For the first time, Daesh^[3] carried out a suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed  at least 33 and wounded more than 100.

•    Close to home: Freddie Gray, 25, died in Shock Trauma a week after his arrest by Baltimore police, who refused to say why they stopped Gray. It appears that he suffered a broken vertebra while in police custody, lapsed into a coma, died, was resuscitated, underwent surgery but finally died.

Meanwhile, we open the Torah to a lengthy and detailed discussion of the ancient taboos of tum’ah (ritual impurity) and taharah (ritual purity). It’s hard to find two Torah portions more concerned with the gritty side of and the baser side of the human corporeality than Tazria and Metzora. Etz Hayyim delicately notes that, “After the previous chapter’s discussions of how food entering our bodies can make us ritually impure [i.e. the laws of kashrut in Parshat Shemini], the Torah now discusses how that which comes out of our bodies can do the same.”^[4] What has any of this to do with the world we inhabit and the challenges we face in the 21st century?

For those unfamiliar with Tazria and Metzora, here is a brief survey: Tazria opens with laws concerning the impurity imparted by childbirth, tzara’at (skin afflictions evident both on human bodies and houses), seminal emission, and menstruation. We are told the procedure for restoring ritual purity, which generally involves a period of quarantine (for tzara’at), emersion in a mikveh, and a sacrifice. It is important to point out that none of this is related in any way to cleanliness and hygiene as we understand them. It’s about being in an invisible and intangible state of ritual purity. Etz Hayyim points out that, arguably, “no concept is less accessible to the modern reader” than tum’ah. It is certainly difficult to access the concept, but the question I wish to pose is: Is it irrelevant? Do Tazria and Metzora have any wisdom to impart in an age of characterized not only by remarkable scientific discoveries and technological progress, but also plagued by the horrors in the daily headlines?

The S’fat Emet (Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger, 1847-1905) provides a commentary that bridges what strikes many in the 21st century as an inward and obsessive concern with ritual purity and a more outward-looking, worldly concern with what is happening around us and among us today. The Gerer rebbe begins not by citing our parashah, but instead by citing a classical midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 1:54-55) that opens with a verse from Psalm 139:5. The verse is: אָחוֹר וָקֶדֶם צַרְתָּנִי  וַתָּשֶׁת עָלַי כַּפֶּכָה “You formed me backward and forward, and You placed Your hand upon me.” The midrash from Bereishit Rabbah offers R. Yochanan’s interpretation of this verse: “If a person is righteous, he will enjoy two worlds, for it says, You formed me backward and forward but if not, he will have to account for it, for it says, and You placed Your hands upon me.”^[5] It certainly sounds like R. Yochanan is speaking about this world, and the world-to-come, but the S’fat Emet writes:

All of creation is in need of Tikkun (correction, repair, redemption), as Scripture says, אֲשֶׁר-בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים לַעֲשׂוֹת which God created to do (Genesis 2:3). The human was created last in deed [i.e., on the sixth day, after everything else in the world had been created], but first in the order of Tikkun, because it is through humanity that Creation and Tikkun are joined together. That is what the Sages meant by noting [Tosefta Sanhedrin, ch. 8] that humans were created last [on the sixth day, just before the advent of the first sabbath], so that they could enter shabbat immediately [upon being created], since shabbat is about Tikkun. “Backward” refers to the weekdays, the days when we work to repair/redeem those things of this world that are not yet repaired, and through this we afterward come to merit shabbat, which is the “forward,” the time for thought and Tikkun/redemption. The human being is the one who links and connects all [the aspects of] Creation together. That is why the human contains the lowest corporeality of all physicality and [also] a spirit that surpasses all [the rest of Creation]. כִּי בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים עָשָׂה אֶת-הָאָדָם [God] created humanity in the divine image (Genesis 9:6).

What has any of this to do with Tazria-Metzora? And what has it to do with the state of the world in which we find ourselves living?

The S’fat Emet alludes to polar human tendencies: our baser animalistic physical instincts, activities, and proclivities on the one hand, and our loftier spiritual capacity on the other. Human beings, alone in all creation, embody both. Only human beings are capable of comprehending the unity of all Creation, all being, on all levels, from the base corporeal level to the vaulted spiritual level. The process of undergoing ritual purification from tum’ah (ritual impurity)—from the lowly aspects of our corporeality as described in Tazria/Metzora—parallels the process of raising and repairing (tikkun) the various elements of this world in need of redemption that we are called upon to labor to redeem six days a week. When we succeed, we can experience the joy of shabbat, “the time for thought and Tikkun/redemption,”—the spiritual reward of our labor. Just as Torah describes people going from tum’ah (a state of ritual impurity) to taharah (a state of ritual purity), so does our week go from six days of purifying “the things of this world that are not yet repaired” by doing mitzvot, to “the time of thought and Tikkun/redemption” that is shabbat. Just as an individual can go from tum’ah to taharah, so too can we transform our world, bit by bit, from the tum’ah of injustice, greed, violence, and cruelty to the taharah-vision of a world redeemed.

At the outset, the Gerer Rebbe makes clear that people, and people alone in all of Creation, are capable for coupling Creation (the baser elements of physicality, deriving from our experience as embodied beings) and Tikkun (spiritual redemption, our capacity to see beyond “what is” to “what ought to be”). We might be inclined to identify Creation/Tikkun with the Body/Soul dichotomy, but just as the S’fat Emet resisted going down the path of the this-world/world-to-come dichotomy,  I have the sense that this is not what the S’fat Emet has in mind. To  the contrary. I think the Gerer rebbe’s intention is to tell us that the aspects of “Creation” and “Tikkun” are inseparably fused in the realm of ultimate reality and only people have the capacity to comprehend the unity of the universe. Our lives should reflect this: We should live in such a way that we don’t try to wrench them apart and focus on only one at the expense of the other. Living in and of the world without a vision of what it ought to be, or living in a spiritual bubble without participating fully in the physical world, is only half-living.

This has enormous implications for our mindset toward life and the universe and, indeed, everything we do: how we spend our time and resources, what causes we promote, with whom we engage. In particular, our attention to the use of earth’s resources and how we live in relationship to the global environment, and the tragic social injustices at home and abroad. How do we in our lives inadvertently and unintentionally contribute to the problems and injustice that surround us, and how can we, in our lives, affect a measure of Tikkun? The Psalmist reminds us that as small as we may feel at times, in God’s eyes our potential is enormous:

מָה-אֱנוֹשׁ כִּי-תִזְכְּרֶנּוּ; וּבֶן-אָדָם, כִּי תִפְקְדֶנּוּ
 וַתְּחַסְּרֵהוּ מְּעַט, מֵאֱלֹהִים; וְכָבוֹד וְהָדָר תְּעַטְּרֵהוּ
What is humanity that You are mindful of them?

What are human beings that you think of them?

Yet You have made them but little lower than the angels,

and have crowned them with glory and honor.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

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^[1] http://www.nap.edu/catalog/21717/arctic-matters-the-global-connection-to-changes-in-the-arctic.

^[2] Meanwhile, another ship crashed near the Greek island of Rhodes. Altogether, it is estimated that ~1,100 people drowned this week in the Mediterranean Sea.

^[3] DAESH is the acronym for al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham, which means the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Daesh is a name commonly used by its enemies because it sounds similar to the Arabic words Daes ("one who crushes something underfoot") and Dahes ("one who sows discord”).

^[4] Etz Hayyim Torah and Commentary, JPS and the Rabbinical Assembly, p. 649.

^[5] The midrash goes on to describe the primordial human God created: a hermaphrodite that God separated into two separate beings, female and male. The S’fat Emet writes only about R. Yochanan’s interpretation.