TorahParsha

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

www.TorahParsha.com

How God talks to us

for Parshat Shemini

 

i

God speaks of the animals we may eat

and the animals we may not:

we may eat

cloven-footed beasts that chew their cud;

insects with jumping legs

like crickets, grasshoppers, locusts;

we may not eat

rabbits, pigs, eagles, owls, mice.

*

God says we may eat

any creature of the water

with fins and scales,

but no other water- creatures.

*

God mentions beasts, birds, vermin by name.

He mentions nothing of the water by name.

For creatures of the water,

God mentions only qualities.

 

ii

Perhaps this is because

God speaks to a desert people.

In the desert,

the people know beasts,

birds,

vermin.

But the sea is far away.

Water and the fish and the animals in it

are far away.

So perhaps these people

have many names for beasts,

birds,

vermin—

but few names

for the creatures of the sea.

*

So God does not mention

the creatures of the water

by name;

God merely describes.

 

iii

To say:

God does not speak to us

in spiritual codes

in lofty constructs;

God speaks to us

in the language we speak

in the lives we live,

as the people

we actually are.

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,

~Abe

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Leviticus Chapter 11

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Answer to last week’s question: The “error” in last week’s piece was that it was about Parshat VaYikra, not Parshat Tzav. A special commendation to Evan Farber, Hadar Wise, and Yosi Kra for guessing correctly!

Are we meant to follow rules?

for Parshat Shemini

 

i

When Aaron and his sons

are initiated as priests,

Moses says:

conduct the initiation rites

precisely as God has commanded.

*

But tragedy strikes.

In the midst of the rites,

two of Aaron’s sons die.

*

Suddenly God tells Aaron

how he and his remaining sons

must teach the people what is holy

and what is secular,

what is impure

and what is pure,

and what the Laws are.

*

Then Aaron does not eat from a sacrifice

though God has commanded that he must eat from it.

Moses is angry.

But Aaron says:

Such things have happened to me today,

would God want me to eat from the sacrifice?

And Moses agrees.

 

ii

Moses thinks:

God wants people

to simply follow rules.

But God has told Aaron:

you must teach the people what is holy

and what is not,

what is pure

and what is not:

the people must learn to see the world

as God sees the world—

and through this to come to God’s Law.

*

This is the truth that Aaron teaches Moses.

And Moses agrees.

 

 

____

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com

Is there space for emotion in religion?

 

for Parshat Tazria / Mezora

i

In the midst of the rapture

of the inaguration of God’s Tent

Aaron’s two sons

bring a strange fire that was not commanded

before God.

God burns them in fire.

*

Then God offers

a series of Laws

and God teaches Aaron

how to approach His holy place

and not die:

how to approach Him

where his sons could not.

 

ii

One of the Laws

of this interim series

is the Law of circumcising sons.

It is couched in the Laws of a woman after childbirth:

the first Law of masculine life

made womanly.

 

iii

Men live with rules

but women know feelings

beyond what is commanded.

God commands Adam away from the Fruit

but Eve sees in it

a pleasure to the eyes.

*

Not unlike the worldview

of Aaron’s sons,

approaching from rapture,

bringing a strange fire that was not commanded.

 

iv

This worldview can be tragic

(we saw this with the Fruit,

with Aaron’s sons)

but enveloping the Law,

made a framework for the Law,

it can change Law from mere rules

to a bridge

that runs straight from the heart to God.

 

____

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

To my friends in Israel: my apologies for writing about the parsha in chutz laaretz this week and last.

www.TorahParsha.com

Could a religious life gain from a secular world?

 

for Parshat Shemini

i

Moses commands Aaron and Aaron’s sons

to inaugurate God’s Tent of Meeting.

They conduct each step

as Moses had commanded

and God’s Presence comes.

*

Then two of Aaron’s sons

offer up a strange fire

which Moses did not command them.

And God burns them in fire.

 

ii

From the start of this entire ceremony

the place of this ceremony

is called the Tent of Meeting.

Only after the sons bring their fire

and only after they are burned

is this place called mikdash,

holy place.

 

iii

Perhaps a holy place

needs even what is not holy

even what is not commanded 

within it.

*

Perhaps holiness is not a pristine thing

but a variety of many kinds of things

commanded

not commanded

all brought together

all brought before God.

 

 

____

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

www.TorahParsha.com
@TorahParsha

How can we eat consciously?

for Parshat Shemini

 

i

During the priestly coronation, two of Aaron’s sons die.

Moses says to Aaron: Do not mourn your sons. Continue the ceremony.

The rest of the people will cry instead of you.

*

Aaron and his remaining sons do not eat of a coronation-day sacrifice.

Aaron says: such things as these have happened to me—if I had eaten of this sacrifice today, would it be good in God’s eyes? 

*

Then God speaks of kosher food.

God tells the people: These are the animals which you shall eat.

 

ii

Eating, you bring the world beyond you into yourself.

If you cannot tie yourself to this world beyond yourself, it is not possible to eat.

*

The people, who cry for Aaron’s sons—who bring Aaron’s tragedy to themselves—are told: you shall eat.

Aaron, who may not cry for his sons, cannot eat.

 

iii

This is the Truth that opens the Laws of what is kosher.

We open our discussion of eating food—the most self-focused of all acts—by saying: Even now, especially now, I am bound to the world.

 

 

 

____

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

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Please pray for the infant Ayelet Yakira bat Chaya Hinda Matel Nechama, and register for bone marrow for Ayelet. Please pray for the premature infant  Baer Yakov ben Emunah, who has finally come home from the hospital. Please also pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther.

 www.TorahParsha.com

 

 

Limits (for Parshat Shemini)

i

Nadav and Avihu, Aaron’s sons, bring a strange fire which God did not command up before God.

God strikes them down.

*

God says to Moses:

Tell Aaron and tell his remaining sons: teach the people of what they may eat, and what they may not eat, from all the beast that are on the earth… and of all the creatures that are in the waters… and of the fowl… and of the creeping things that creep upon the earth.

*

All the beast that are on the earth; all that are in the waters; the fowl; the creeping things that creep upon the earth—these words are very like the words by which God created the Heavens and the Earth and all their host, at the beginning of Time.

 

ii

Nadav and Avihu bring a fire that God did not command.

They strive to live beyond limitation.

*
But God says: Eat this, do not eat that.

Carve limits.

In these limits you will come to the Heavens and the Earth and all their host.

*
It is in a smaller life that you reach the whole universe. 

 

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

_______

Verses cited: Lev 10:1; 11:2,9,13,29. See Gen. chap 1 for parallel language.

Please continue to pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah, and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther

Eating, the Holy

1.
When we bring a sacrifice to God, the text says, God eats of the sacrifice. And we eat of that sacrifice as well.

And in the telling of the sacrifices, the text repeatedly uses the language of eating.

*
To come to a world in holiness is to incorporate it totally. It is to ingest.

2.
Aaron's sons bring strange fire that God did not commanded them, upon the altar in the dwelling-place of God.

This is what kills them.

*
Soon afterward, God commands that the priests may not do sacrifice when they are drunk. They must distinguish between holy and unholy, between clean and unclean.

They must know what is fit for the holy, and what is not fit for the holy.

They may not ingest what will lead them astray.

They must stay alert to strange fires.

*
Then God says the Laws of kashrut: We may eat clean things; we may not eat unclean things.

3.
God is in the world. So the world is holy. So we partake of the world fully--we ingest it--as a holy place.

But we may only partake of the world (we may only ingest of it) in the ways that God has seen fit.

*
All of life is not very different from standing at God's altar.

Through My Close ones I Will Be Sanctified

Nadav and Avihu brought a strange fire to the Lord which He did not command them; and God burned them with His fire to their death.

Through My close ones I will be sanctified, Moses told Aaron, Nadav and Avihu’s father, speaking on behalf of God.

*
After, God told Aaron and his remaining sons: When you enter the Tent of God,

do not drink wine or strong drink... and you will not die...
[so you will be able] to separate between the holy and the profane, and between the impure and the pure, and [you will be able] to teach the children of Israel...

Then again after this, God delivered many Laws of what is pure and what is impure, such as the Laws of food.

*
In Nadav and Avihu’s death, the pure and the impure are suddenly visible.

A life of God is a life of knowing difference. Sometimes it is only through closeness to Him that this difference is seen.

Sometimes this closeness is dangerous.

This closeness is like closeness to fire.

 

Based, in part, on a thought from Rabbi Yonatan Snowbell