Parshat Acharei Mot Kedoshim

Here are a few words I wrote for the Liberal Judaism website for their Thought for the Week page

Greetings from Modena!

Parshat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim

Thoughts of the world outside our current Lockdown bubbles turn first to those stricken by Covid-19 – may they be healed in body and spirit.  We also think of those who do their best in myriad ways throughout the system to care for the sick. There are no words to describe the magnitude of their service. We thank them with all our hearts. 

To protect ourselves, and each other, we have remained physically within our homes. Hopefully they are places of safety, even if we feel constrained. We reach out into the ether via unstable internet connections to continue work, if we still have a job; to contact loved ones far and near, and to occupy our minds and hearts. Much time has been spent in alien worlds, ranging from a Borg cube to the imagined centre of ultra-orthodox communities in Brooklyn & Bnei Brak. And people have come to synagogue! Zoom[1] has brought us together to pray, to celebrate our festivals, and to study Torah.

Acharei Mot-Kedoshim is one of the double Torah portions that can be split when there is a leap year in the Hebrew calendar and extra portions are needed for the extra leap month. 5780 may not be a leap year, but 2020 is. And in 2020, I see a split between the portions.

Acharei Mot is set in the period after the death of Nadav and Avihu, the sudden, inexplicable and devastating death of Aaron’s sons. In the wake of this shocking event, Moses is given instructions for Yom Kippur, followed by a list of sexual prohibitions that define the Biblical boundaries of family relationships. God says that following these mitzvot will protect the Israelites from spiritual corruption, and keep them safe in their land. While now we have a different interpretation of some of these ancient laws, we can certainly empathise with tough measures as an initial response to a severe threat to the entire community.

Kedoshim takes us into Phase 2. Having turned our faces from the yetser ra, our evil inclinations, God teaches us what we should be doing, pointing us towards the yetser tov. The topic sentence of the portion is:  “Be holy, because I, Adonai your God, am holy.”[2] But what does it mean to be holy? This is a question that we don’t often discuss. We might talk about being separate, but what does that mean? Different? Special? Each word leads to a further examination of its own meaning, and even further from the original question. What does it mean to be holy? Rabbi Joe Black reminds us that we are created b’tselem elohim, in the image of God, which means that we have holiness naturally within us.[3] We don’t have to define it. We just need to learn how to find it.

Could this be the purpose of the mitzvot? When we are in lockdown, there’s not much we can do but think about things, turning them this way and that. As the windows and doors open, and we are able to interact with each other again, what are we going to do? How shall we behave? Will we do anything differently? Kedoshim commands us to leave the corners of our fields and the gleanings for the poor and the stranger.[4] We must not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.[5] We must not stand idly by while the blood of our neighbour is shed.[6] There are a lot of marvellous mitzvot in Kedoshim, but if I could choose one with which to start it is, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”[7] It all begins with compassion.

This week, I see my neighbours in the UK in Acharei Mot, in the valley of the shadow of death. Your phase of the journey still has some way to go. But it will end, hopefully very soon. Here in Italy, we are a couple of weeks ahead of you, and about to enter Phase 2, Kedoshim. Our nerves are terribly frayed, and it is so easy to take offence at words said or typed by others. As we move towards more social interaction, we should recognize how sensitive we are. We should begin with compassion, being kind to others, and gentle with ourselves. And, as we regain our strength, we can return to the holy work of reconnecting with our loved ones, and rebuilding our communities. We will be holy, because it is an essential part of our nature. Learn from what we do well, and from where we falter. Meanwhile, we look forward to the time when we can continue that work together with all of you.

Shabbat shalom.

---

[1] and, of course, other platforms, e.g., Google Hangouts, Skype & FaceBook. But mostly Zoom.

[2] Leviticus 19:2

[3] CCAR RavBlog 28.04.20

[4] Lev. 19:9

[5] Lev. 19:11

[6] Lev. 19:16

[7] Lev. 19:18

Parshat Tsav from Modena

Here is another in the weekly series of notes on the Torah portion for Or 'Ammim, our chavurah in Emilia Romagna. For the Italian version, click here.

Parshat Tsav

04.04.2019

This Shabbat has a special name. It is called Shabbat Ha-Gadol, the Great Sabbath. It is one of the two Shabbatot in the year when the rabbi is required to give a sermon*. Your rabbi is supposed to remind you about all the Jewish laws of Pesach, so that you may spend the following week preparing everything properly.  Traditionally it was quite a long sermon, because there is a lot to do. This year, we are sending Or Ammim-niks an e-mail with information (and charoset recipes) for those who will join us for our virtual Seder on Zoom next Wednesday night at 19:00.

This week’s Torah reading is Parshat Tsav (Leviticus 6:1-8:36). Following on from last week, God gives Moses further information about the korbanot (sacrifices) to be offered by the priests on behalf of the people. God tells Moses to command (“tsav”) Aaron and his sons to follow God’s instructions. 

“Tsav” is a hard word for Progressive Jews. According to tradition, when God commands us to do something, we must obey. We should trust that it is the right thing to do, even if we do not like it or understand why. After all, as the Sages teach us, God’s commandments were given to protect us, and to help us to live good lives. Yet it is hard to submit just because God told us to. We are intelligent beings, designed to ask questions, and learn from our experience. We like to go through a linear process, and base our belief on some kind of rational argument. What do Progressive Jews do with the mitzvot? We do not steal, but we may not keep kosher. Or maybe we do. We may light Shabbat candles when 3 stars are visible in the sky, but we will drive to the synagogue service. We help the stranger, the orphan and the widow. And we include our LGBTQ family and friends. We make Jewish choices, based on our learning from Torah, and the world around us. We are privileged to have that freedom.

That is exactly what Pesach is all about, but we are not there yet. We will talk about it together next week. We will look at what God did as well as what God said. For now we are still in Mitzrayim, literally narrow places (& the Biblical name for the land of Egypt). Our mitzrayim today may be more physically comfortable than the slave quarters of our ancestors, but the loss of our freedom of movement brings our community closer to the tale told in the Torah, closer than we may ever have been before.

This week the Torah returns to the korbanot we studied in the previous portion, and looks at them from the perspective of the priests. Once again we might say: but the Temple is destroyed, and the priests are gone, and the sacrifices are no longer possible. How is the work of Aaron and the priests relevant to our lives? 

The words that stand out for me this week are in chapter 8, verses 23-4. They describe the ordination of Aaron and his sons, as they become the priests who will translate the offerings of the people into the fulfilment of God’s commandments. A ram is slaughtered:

“and Moses took some of its blood, and placed it on the cartilage of Aaron’s right ear, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. And he brought Aaron’s sons forward, and Moses placed some of the blood on the cartilage of their right ears, on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet."

What is the significance of these particular parts of the body? They highlight the skills that were most important in the work of the priests. That they should listen, should really pay attention to what is being said to them. That they should be aware of what they do with their hands. And that they should watch where their feet are going. 

Once again, the world of the priests is gone. However now, under lockdown, surely these words, words that describe holy work, speak directly to us:  

What should we do when the world that we know, to which we are accustomed, is gone?  When the places we went and the things that we did are no longer viable?  

Our feet should stay home, unless we need food or medicine, or it is an emergency.

Before we touch any thing or anybody, have we washed our hands?

And we must listen to the instructions we are given, in order to stay as safe and well as possible.

Do we accept the words of God as orders, as mitzvot? It is a difficult question. And I’m not sure it is the correct question at this moment in time. Will these actions protect us, and help us to live good lives? That is a more pertinent question. I believe so, and thus I will follow them to the best of my ability. 

Wishing that we shall all stay safe and well.

Shabbat shalom.

* the other is Shabbat Shuva, between Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur, when the rabbi should remind everyone to make teshuvah (to apologise and make restitution for the damage we have done) before the end of the 10 Days of Penitence.

the 'sky torah'

can't believe i missed it - the party at jfk to welcome the first ever torah that will travel the sky. unfortunately, i was just finishing a therapy session and was far too vulnerable and too far away. here is one version of the pr release:

" Israir Airlines Introduces the 'Sky-Torah'

First Ever Torah Scroll to Fly the Skies - Grand Welcome Parade and Celebration at JFK

VALLEY STREAM, N.Y., Dec. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Israir Airlines will soon become the first airline to maintain an authentic Torah Scroll on board its aircraft. The "Sky-Torah," handwritten according to Jewish custom by a professional Jewish Scribe especially for the airline, is the first of its kind. The Torah will enhance the prayers of those who are in the skies, praying in the closest place to God in the world. Keeping a traditional Torah Scroll*, on an aircraft is the idea of Rabbi Shlomo Elharar, Chief Rabbi of Colombia, South America. After years of hard work towards this dream, the Torah is finally ready to be installed permanently on board one of Israir's aircrafts.

The Torah will be completed December 27 in Aventura, Florida, and will be escorted to JFK Airport in New York for a welcome celebration, and then to Israel. The Torah will be welcomed on its way to Israel with a grand celebration in JFK Airport, Terminal 4, December 28, 12:00 pm. The Torah will be carried under a traditional "chuppah," with singing, dancing, live music, children and important Rabbis and dignitaries in attendance. The Torah is dedicated to the Chief Rabbi of Colombia and to the fallen soldiers of Israel, and those still in captivity."

why have a scroll on a plane? yahoo says:

"The Torah will be housed in a compartment on the plane and will be accessible through a flight attendant."

do you think people are going to read from it? i'd be interested to see hakkafah, hagba and glilah at 35,000 feet :-)

leviticus

thinking about the ways that people interpret the torah after reading about the possibility that the conservative movement in the us might actually start to accept g/b/l/t rabbis, i then came across the following bbc world service broadcast written by my dear father:

"More than thirty years ago, I shared a bed with a Catholic priest and a Methodist minister. It was a small bed-and a long night. Just the same, I would not have forgone that experience for all the tea in China. And we didn't even have tea in that small cottage in Selma, Alabama. We had spent the night in the black ghetto of that town in order to join in the Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery. The next morning, I would walk alongside Martin Luther King, the Nobel Prize Laureate Ralph Bunche, and my own teacher and friend Professor Abraham Heschel. It was all part of a statement of support for the persecuted black community in the United States which would be heard and seen throughout the world. But, the night before, we discovered solidarity and religious faith in the family bed of our hosts who insisted that they would sleep on the floor. It meant so much to them to have us as their guests. And it was important to us as well.

What can a rabbi, priest, and minister discuss together on a night like that, when sleep is almost impossible? We should have talked about the shared dream, the hopes to achieve full civil rights for dispossessed and persecuted minorities. Or we could have talked about dangers: during the afternoon, some rifle shots had been sent in my direction. The rednecks roaring by in their car had only intended to scare me; and I could have assured them that they had succeeded in this. But what DID the three of us talk about that night? We talked shop, of course-about the Bible, and how to interpret the sacred texts.

Oddly enough, one text we did discuss was read in our synagogues this week: Leviticus 19. The first words in it define all of that text: kiddoshim t'h'yu 'You shall be holy, because I the Lord your God am holy'. The three of us, clergymen in different traditions, strive after holiness. As a rabbi, I had less problems than the others. Rabbis are not really holy. When I am not in town, any lay-person in my congregation can take the service, read from the Torah, give the sermon and pronounce the blessings. Rabbi means 'teacher', not a holy man. In any event, the three of us, interpreters of that shared sacred text, knew that we could find a definition of holiness in these lines. The text is very clear here. It turns to the Ten Commandments, and lists them with new interpretations which make us aware that to be 'holy as God is holy' means to be compassionate and merciful and to spend our lives in ethical actions. That is the only way to acquire holiness, although my colleagues on that night could disagree with me to a certain extent. 'A hermit in the desert, a monk or a nun in an enclosed order can be very holy', was their argument. In the end I suggested that this training might make them holy-but only if they then served the community and the world.

But there were subtleties in the Biblical text which all of us enjoyed. 'You shall not curse the deaf, or put a stumbling block before the blind' is an absolutely marvellous text. We could argue that a deaf person is not damaged by a curse he or she will never hear; and that a blind person will stumble over an obstacle on an unfamiliar road without realising that it was not bad luck but malice which caused a fall. But the key to the passage is the final sentence: "v'ahavta rea-cha kamocha, ani adonai", 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself; I am the Lord.' God reaches out to every human being; and we are taught to see others as ourself, to recognise each human being as an aspect of God. Then, ethical actions unite us, and we become like God: HOLY.

In the morning we went out to march with Martin Luther King towards freedom."

why, she cried in a fit of naivety, why is it so hard not to do to each other what is hateful to us? gut shabbes

selichot

one of my favourite parts of the torah is in the book of numbers, at the beginning of chapter 14. the children of israel are complaining again, wishing they were dead, or back in egypt; and contemplating returning to egypt. a few chapters earlier i love the bit where they remember the melons and cucumbers and leeks they used to eat in the good old days! anyway, despite the pleas of moses and his guys, the congregation threatens to get nasty and are about to stone them when god shows up in the tabernacle. god is utterly fed up, and suggests that god will destroy them all and start all over again with moses. this could be a big opportunity for moses - to be the founder of a whole new, and hopefully better, people! so what does moses say? listen god - i think this is really bad p.r. for you. if you kill the children of israel now, the egyptians and the others won't be saying o well they were really whiny and totally deserved all they got. no, god, these guys will be saying that you are all mouth and no trousers. you made big promises, but you just couldn't follow through. don't you think it would be a better move to forgive the children of israel and give them another chance? and god responds: good point, moses. i shall do as you say.

WHAT WAS THAT?!

the holy sacred torah has a passage in it where moses argues with god, and not only is not struck down, but also changes god's mind?

indeed it is so. and it is not the only place in the torah where god's mind is changed after a discussion with a human.

this is such an important moment - i don't understand why it is not one of the most famous parts of all the torah. moses' words requesting pardon are part of our atonement services. the previous verses, however, where he dares to argue with god, are not highlighted.

i have so much to say about this, and no idea where to start.

first of all i'll go with brit, which i choose to translate as covenant. by this i mean a relationship, that i often describe on the one hand as a deal, i.e., god gets this and we get that; and on the other hand as a partnership, where we agree to work together towards a particular goal.

try and forget about all the power stuff with superman god smiting us according to his will and punishing us with his absence.

try and think about being in a relationship with someone that you think you could like if you got to know them better.

what kind of things might you do to develop this relationship in a positive way?

perhaps most organised religions started out as a way of gathering together the things they thought would help to develop this relationship.

the problem for me is that over time many people forgot that their records, their sacred scriptures, and the rituals that they had developed over the years, that these things were supposed to help them, rather than oppress them. by this i do not mean to say that if something is too difficult then it is ok to just bin it. i am trying to talk more about how the forms themselves become sacred over time, and the content within them, the thoughts and feelings that engendered them, start to melt into the faraway corners of memory.

trying to get back to the point here ... why am i so excited about the above passage of torah? because god listens. and god is flexible. and god is flexible enough to hear something difficult, and not let pride stop god from changing god's response. even the greatest power that the human mind can posit is able to turn and say hmmmmm maybe there is another way to do things. not only that, but god also is the one to begin the conversation.

whether you believe in god or not, is not the question. whether you believe in relationship, or not - that is the question! if so, what follows logically for me is how do i figure out how to be in relationship with anyone and anything? and that's where selichot comes in! selichot is a time put aside every year as we start to prepare for the new year. the summer is ending (unless you are in the southern hemisphere of course. apologies for my northerncentric perspective). it is a time when we can check in on our relationships, when we can turn to each other and ask, "are you ok?" and then, i hope, i can listen to the answer.

and you shall love

in the book of deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 5, the torah says:

"v'ahavta et adonai elohecha
and you shall love adonai your god"

in our liturgy, these words follow the shema, and continue with a description of practical ways to work on one's relationship with adonai. i have been thinking about this verse quite a lot recently, especially the first word.

when i work with bar & batmitzvah students, it is important to me that we discuss the meaning of the prayers as well as perfect the reading of them. of course they don't have to agree with or believe in anything i or the prayerbook say. i do, however, insist that we talk about the whys and why nots. a parrot could read the prayers. i do not want my students to be parrots.

nu - i ask my student: "what does it mean - and you shall love?" they usually answer very properly: "you're supposed to love god." or something like that. "so *do* you love god?" "well, er, yeah, i dunno, i suppose, whatever ..." etc.

here's the thing ... when i think about love in my life - the people i love and who love me - it doesn't just happen overnight. when i was born, all i knew was waaaah hungry waaaaah wet waaaaah poohy waaaaah tired. i had to learn about trust and caring and kindness; and whence they came. as i got older i had to learn how to be trustworthy and kind myself. in any relationship we may have an initial attraction/connection, but what makes it healthy and lasting is working on it and developing it. why should it be any different with god or the divine or whatever your name is for the energy that i choose to refer to as god?

so i talk with the kids about their parents and how their relationship has developed over the last few years. and then i ask - why should it be any different with god? i say that in my experience many people assume that "v'ahavta - you shall love" is a command ordering you to do this. but love can't be commanded. respect may be commanded, but not love. so what might this word mean?

when you look at the hebrew (apologies to my dikdook klassi teacher yossi that i no longer remember the correct grammatical phrases) the verb 'to love' is the second person singular past tense, but the vav in front of it turns it into a future tense. what's the big deal? you *shall* love, i.e, in the future, i.e., as the relationship develops. it is the beginning of a process, and the rest of the passage lists a number of practical actions one may do to that end.

when the students realise that, rather than being a demand to do something that currently makes no sense to them, this is actually a suggestion that may guide them to find some meaning in their religious tradition, they think it's pretty cool. i do too.