TorahParsha

In Memory of Rav Lichtenstein

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, one of the world's great sages and my former teacher, passed away this week. In his honor, I am re-posting a thought I wrote inspired by his philosophy. I've also written a longer piece about him in The Forward.

 

-Abe

 

 

The daily things are sacred

 

i
God says Let there be light

and makes light for day

and dark for night

and there is evening

and there is morning

and there are seven days of light

that are the days of creation.

 

ii

The priests

shall arrange the Temple Menorah’s seven lights

the permanent flame

lit from evening to morning

a Law that stands forever:

that is how God introduces

the role of the priests,

the ones who make the Mishkan

the dwelling- place of God

into a functioning home.

 

iii

First you must bathe time in light

first you must make a schedule of light

you must commit to a schedule of light

day in and day out

for weeks into eternity

over and over:

that is how God makes the world,

that is how we build a world of God.

 

Genesis Chapter 1; Exodus 26:20-21

___

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

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Empathy

for Parshat Shemini

 

When Aaron’s sons die, Moses tells Aaron: God is sanctified through His holy ones.

And Moses proclaims that the people should cry over this death.

These people grew up in brutal slavery. We have never seen them consider each others’ tears. For instance, we are never told that Moses’ mother hears her own son crying—it is Pharaoh’s daughter, seeing the baby Moses in the water that should have drowned him, who hears a crying boy.

Now the people will do something miraculous. They will cry for another family’s loss. Aaron’s sons have spurred them to this empathy.

Perhaps what Moses means is this: in empathy, we sanctify God.

 

---

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

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How We Find Freedom

for Passover

 

Joseph is sent by his father to see his brothers as they tend the flocks.

But Joseph’s brothers hate him. When they see Joseph, they throw him into a pit. They leave him to the elements to die. They dip Joseph’s garment in goat’s blood. This rending of family begins the chain of events that comes to four hundred years of slavery.

*

When God saves Israel from Egypt, He tells the people to slaughter a lamb of the flocks.

They are to dip hyssop into the lamb’s blood.

They are to partake of the lamb by family.

That dipping of hyssop is reminiscent of another dipping ceremony: that of the leper. When the leper is cured, the priest dips hyssop in bird’s blood on the cured man’s behalf. And the cured man rejoins his people.

*

This first meal of Exodus is a meal of family, a meal of dipping hyssop—of bringing the outcast in.

It is a reversal of the break in the family that sent Joseph away.

It is a welcoming of all.

It is in this welcoming that freedom comes.

 

___

Chag Sameach,

Abe

Note that the ceremony of the leper is introduced significantly after the Exodus; however, I am assuming a single set of symbols applied throughout the Torah.

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