TorahParsha

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.

www.TorahParsha.com

Is change good?

for Parshat Metzorah

 

Given some readers’ strong reactions to last week’s thought, and since the idea straddles this and last week’s Torah readings, I decided that I’d revisit the piece and clarify. I hope you enjoy the new version. -Abe

 

i

The skin- sickness

discolors skin,

it discolors hair.

When the discoloring appears

or when the discoloring spreads

or the discoloring shrinks,

the sickness brings impurity.

*

But when the sickness goes away,

the healed man

purifies himself

and is pure once again.

 

ii

Here is impurity

that comes in change:

growth,

shrinking.

*

It is not an impurity

that a person is born with

and it is impurity

that does not last.

*

It is iterally skin- deep.

 

iii

So this impurity is not a part of a person.

This impurity

is only a way a person seems to change.

*

Sometimes the way we are impure

is not who we are,

it is not something

within our depths.

Sometimes the way we are impure

is how we’ve lost track,

how we’ve grown to change

from who we actually are.

 

__

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

Leviticus Chapter 13 – 14

www.TorahParsha.com

When change isn’t good

for Parshat Tazria

 

i

There is skin-sickness

house-sickness

clothes-sickness;

it discolors skin

discolors hair

discolors walls

discolors cloth.

*

When the discoloring appears

or when the discoloring spreads

or the discoloring shrinks,

the sickness brings impurity.

 

ii

A person is not born

with this impurity;

a house is not built with it;

it does not come

ready-woven into cloth.

The impurity comes in change.

 

iii

Sometimes your impurity

is not who you are;

it is how you’ve changed

from what you used to be.

 

____

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

Leviticus Chapter 13 – 14

www.TorahParsha.com

Why we need others

for Yom Kippur

 

i

On the day the priests

—Aaron and his sons—

are inaugurated to serve

in God’s beautiful Tent

two of Aaron’s sons

approach God with a strange fire

they are not commanded to bring.

And fire devours them.

*

Soon after, God commands the priests

to teach the people:

which animals are impure,

about Laws of childbirth

and Laws of menstruation;

and God commands the priests

to help lepers find their way

through their disease

and back to their brethren,

the people of God.

*

Then God teaches of Yom Kippur:

the day the high priest 

enters alone

into the holiest chamber

of God’s Tent

to atone on the people’s behalf.

 

ii

Aaron’s sons attempt

a personal closeness with God.

*

Sin comes

of our viewing God’s world

as the place for our own private experience.

*

So that Aaron’s sons attempt

something close to sin.

 

iii

God says:

Let the priests bring their work

beyond the cloistered Tent

to the world of animals

of birth

of flesh

of sickness

of others.

Let them move far beyond the private.

*

Through this religion of selflessness

sin is upended.

And God brings us to Him.

 

 

___ 

Gmar chatimah tovah,

Abe

___

For the complete list of mitzvot that God commands between kashrut and Yom Kippur, and their correct order, see parshiot Tazria and Mezorah

www.TorahParsha.com

What we learn from the ones outside

for Tazriah - Metzorah

 

When a man is impure with skin-sickness

he waits outside of the camp

until he is better.

Then the priest comes to him

and sees that he is well

and the priest offers sacrifice.

 

Not in God’s Tent

in the heart of the camp,

where most sacrifices are brought.

 

No:

this sacrifice is outside of the camp,

by a field.

 

So the man who has been sent away

who has lived outside of the camp

who has lived outside purity

shows the priest

that there are many places to find God.

 

 

 

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

___

Correction from last week: I wrote that Moses is angered that Aaron does not eat of the inaugural sacrifice. This may not be the case: Moses does not initially address Aaron over the matter, instead scolding Aaron’s remaining sons. However, Aaron’s response suggests a feeling of personal duty; perhaps his sons’ obligation is an extension of his own.

___

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

How do we keep piety in check?

for Parshat Metzora

 

i

When a man is cured of the skin-sickness

that makes him impure,

the priest conducts a ceremony.

The priest shall command that two birds are taken,

and he shall command that one bird be slaughtered,

and he shall send the living bird loose into the open field.

*

The skin-sick man returns to purity.

 

ii

On Yom Kippur,

the day we are forgiven,

the High Priest conducts a ceremony.

He take two goats

and puts his hands in a box

and pulls out markers for each goat—

one for HaShem,

to be sacrificed;

one to be sent away

by another priest

to a barren land. 

*

And we are forgiven.

 

ii

The priest purifying the man

commands that a bird be slaughtered

and sends the second bird away himself.

The High Priest’s goats,

are chosen by chance—

which is to say: by God—

and another man sends the second goat away.

 

iii

How do we bring purity?

We command the world:

we shape, force the world into something religious.

*

But also we say:

the world is not ours to shape,

it is not ours,

the world is God’s.

 

 

____

I am indebted to Rav Ezra Bick for the underlying metzorah / Yom Kippur parallel.  

____

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

____

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, Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther, and Daniel ben Arella.

 www.TorahParsha.com

 

 

How we deal with loss

for parshat Tazria

 

i

Aaron loses two of his sons.

God’s fire burnt them up.

*

Moses tells Aaron and Aaron’s still-living sons:  

do not grow your hair wild, and do not tear your garments.

Do not mourn.

 

ii

God says:

The people must come to Aaron’s family, the priests:

after childbirth,

and during skin-sicknesses—

- one skin-sickness appears in skin that has been burnt by fire;

- the skin-sick shall grow his hair wild, and his clothes must be torn.

Others must come to the priest as well

and the priest will cleanse all of these people before God.

*

Then after these commandments, and after the death of Aaron’s two sons, God says how Aaron may come before God,

and how the priest… who shall serve in his father’s stead may come before God.

 

iii

These priests, Aaron’s family,

who are forbidden from mourning,

must uncover what they have lost

—the child, the burnt afflicted, the mourner’s wild hair and torn garment—

in other people’s needs,

in bringing others back to God:

and this makes them whole;

this makes them a line of fathers and sons serving in their father’s stead.

*

They come through mourning

by reaching out,

by tending.

 

______

I cannot remember if this idea is my own or if I encountered it elsewhere.

 

 

____

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

____

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, Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther, and Daniel ben Arella.

 www.TorahParsha.com

 

 

Impurity (for Parshat Tazria-Metzora)

i

If a person will have skin-sickness, then he must come to the priest.

The priest will decide if the skin-sickness is of the kind to make a man impure.

*
The priest’s chief method is to

isolate the affected person for seven days….

and if the person’s rash has spread on the skin after these days, then the person is impure.

ii

The rash spreads in isolation.

It gains strength in a life distanced from all others.

*
Here is impurity.

 

 ______

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

___

Verses cited: Lev 13:5,7

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

Intimacies

i
The text speaks of Laws of food.

And then the text speaks of Laws of childbirth.

Then the text speaks of Laws of skin, and clothes, and houses.

Then the text speaks of Laws of touching between people.

*
Then the text speaks of Laws that are kept between a woman and a man.

ii
Then we see the Laws of how the High Priest, on Yom Kippur, must enter the Holy of Holies—the room that is God’s chamber.

iii
We learn to live in our small world.

We learn to be with each other in that world.

*
This education brings us to God.

It readies us to share His intimate space.

_