After taking something of a narrative hiatus in the book of Vayikra/Leviticus (which serves as a handbook for kohanim as the rules and roles of the sacrificial system are put into place and issues of ritual purity and impurity are defined) we are picking up where we left off at the end of the book of Sh'mot/Exodus. In other words, we are "bamidbar" . . . we are in the wilderness. Specifically, still camped at the foot of Har Sinai.
Here we see Moshe as camp bus counselor (count the kids as they get on the bus at camp, count the kids when they got off the bus at the amusement park, count the kids when they get back on the bus back to camp . . . ): God turns to Moshe and instructs him to conduct a census, a head count. "We're breaking camp, packing up, and continuing the journey through the wilderness, Moshe, so make sure you know how many people you've got before you leave."
Then God delivers instructions further instructions for Aaron and his sons, the tribe of Levi: "At the breaking of the camp, Aaron and his sons shall go in and take down the screening curtain and cover the Ark of the Covenant with it. They shall lay a covering of dolphin skin over it and spread a cloth of pure blue on top; and they shall put its poles in place. . . .Then they shall take a blue cloth and cover the lampstand for lighting ...they shall put it and all its furnishings into a covering of dolphin skin, which they shall then place on a carrying frame . . . Next they shall spread a blue cloth over the altar of gold . . . " (Bamidbar/Numbers, Chapter 4)
The act of packing up is also of significance . . . all the accessories that had been so lovingly crafted in order to initiate the sacrificial system connecting God and Israel are now to be packed up as well, and very specific instructions are given to the tribe of Levi concerning how that packing was to be done.
Just a few weeks ago, we at Torat Yisrael packed up the sacred accessories that had enhanced our worship in Cranston for 60 years: our sacred scrolls, the white high holy day mantles, the eternal lights and the different sorts of prayer books and bibles we read, the Torah crowns and shields and pointers, the memorial plaques and dedication plaques, the ark curtains and doors and the building full of mezuzot as well . . . . It was a jarring sight to watch these iconic items taken down, wrapped up, packed into trucks and transported to storage. I had a strong sense that the kedushah, the sanctity, of each piece was being wrapped up along with the item itself. These objects cannot be reduced to mere "things." They are infused with the sanctity of their roles as they cover the scrolls, point to sacred words, adorn the Torah, reflect God's light in our places of prayer.
Just as the tribe of Levy mindfully wrapped up those items preparing to leave Sinai, we have mindfully wrapped and stored our items in anticipation of the day when our new synagogue building will be dedicated. Then our Torah scrolls, our Torah pointers and crowns and shields and mantles will be unwrapped and brought into their new home. Then their kedushah will be released from its wrappings and will be free to infuse our new sacred space with the holiness of our Torah and our kehillah k'doshah, our sacred community.
This week's parashah/Torah portion establishes one of the cornerstones of Jewish tradition: there are two categories of animals, those that may be consumed and those that shall not be consumed by those who consider themselves to be part of the brit/covenant between God and Israel.
Not that long ago, "keeping kosher" was normative practice among Jews in the United States. Jews who today do not maintain kosher kitchens in their homes most probably recall the kosher homes of their parents or grandparents. Living in a state in which there are no kosher butchers (although Trader Joe's always carries fresh kosher meat and poultry!) and one kosher coffeeshop/bakery (Wildflour Bakery in Pawtucket, yum!), it is clear that a minority of Rhode Island Jews follow kosher guidelines when making decisions about food.
Last night I had occasion to write in an e-mail to a Torat Yisrael member that it is often the case in the Torah that a mitzvah / commandment is given and no reason is provided. Thus, Passover, according to the Torah, lasts seven days. and although we might come up with engaging and inspirational reasons for this number, the bottom line remains that Pesah lasts seven days for the simple reason that God said so.
Keeping kosher is largely about religious discipline. It is a statement: all the food God created is healthy, delicious, nourishing . . . but as an expression of the centrality of my Jewishness in my life, I am going to avoid eating pigs and lobsters and veal parmesan. Here is a place where we might very well expect "God said so" to be the only available reason in the Torah.
But Parashat Shemini not only provides criteria for kosher creatures (mammals with cloven hooves that chew their cuds, water creatures with both fins and scales) but we get a reason, too. Toward the end of the parasha we read:
(vayikra/leviticus 11:44-45) For I am the Lord your God, and you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, because I am holy, and you shall not defile yourselves through any creeping creature that crawls on the ground. For i am the Lord Who brought you up from the Land of Egypt to be your God. Thus you shall be holy because I am holy.
Here we are given to understand that accepting the discipline of kashrut endows us with holiness. i find this to be an astounding and energizing concept: holiness is not exclusively a divine state, it is an attainable goal for human beings as well.
In traditional parlance, a Jewish congregation is referred to as a kehillah k'doshah, as a holy congregation. I believe that our Torat Yisrael community, on the verge of leaving our 60 year old building in Cranston and preparing to settle in East Greenwich is very much a kehillah k'doshah, a holy community. We express this in innumerable ways: we support the hungry in our state through our partnership with the Edgewood Food Pantry in the Church of the Transfiguration on Broad Street and our support of the Chester Kosher Food Closet; we support the homeless in our state through our annual Kosher Christmas Dinner for the Rhode Island Family Shelter; we are committed to the perpetuation of the covenant between God and Israel through our outstanding Torat Tots, Yeladon and Cohen Religious School; we deepen the Jewish spiritual and intellectual journeys of our members through our services and Torah study. We declare our commitment to striving for that exalted k'dushah / holiness that God offers us through our adherence to the system of Kashrut.
The insights of this week's parashah are a gift: by the simple, accessible means of choosing eggplant parmesan over veal parmesan we can take a step towards human holiness: a gift of an eternally accessible opportunity to us as individuals and to us as a kehillah k'doshah, a holy congregation.
In this parashah, we embark upon a great enterprise that will concretize the relationship between God and Israel for all time: It begins with God's declaration:
"And they [the children of Israel] shall make Me a מקדש/mikdash/holy place and I shall dwell among them." (Sh'mot/Exodus 25:8)
Who is Involved?
There is so much to say about this project: As the name of the parashah implies, the materials to build this holy place were to be collected by voluntary donation. There was no tax to be levied, there was to be no pressure to contribute. The list of materials required (skins, precious metals, dyes, fabrics, stones) were to be brought by individuals as their hearts dictated. So when God declares "...they shall make Me a mikdash..." the emphasis is very much on the "they." This holy place must be an expression of the commitment and love of the people themselves. A grassroots effort.
What Will Be Constructed?
Then we come to what is being built: מקדש / mikdash means a holy place. This word is based on a root ( ק ד ש ) that is familiar to many of us in words like קידוש/kiddush (the blessing on wine which sanctifies [makes holy] the Sabbath or festival) and קדיש/kaddish (the Aramaic prayer which declares the holiness of God recited as markers between units of our liturgy and by mourners). That which is קדוש / kadosh / holy in Judaism is that which is "other", unique, set aside for a purpose like no other. Thus, Shabbat is a day like no other, set aside for rest, for appreciation of the world God created during the six days of creation, the Kaddish addresses the uniqueness of God. So this מקדש/mikdash was to be a unique place set aside for a use like no other.
What Will Happen There?
The last phrase of the verse expressed God's plan for this construct: "I shall dwell among them" ... among the people who build this place for Me. The Hebrew word is שכנתי/shachanti, based on the same root as the modern Hebrew words for neighbor (שכן/shachein), and neighborhood (שכונה/sh'chunah). God says: I'm moving in!
A Transformation
For weeks, we are going to read about the construction of this divine residence: we will read the "to-do list" of what to build and what materials need to be collected. We will read of dimensions, shapes and methods of construction. Then we will receive reports as each item (the tents, the implements, the altars, the accessories, the priestly vestments) are completed. Then we will read a report of everything that was made and completed just before the precincts of this area are dedicated, the priests/kohanim are trained and the first sacrifices are offered.
Very quickly, the name of this project changes. In chapter 25, in the verse quoted above, the Israelites are instructed to build a מקדש/mikdash/holy place. But in the beginning of chapter 26 (verse 1) this same project is referred to as the משכן/mishkan! It will continue to be called משכן/mishkan through the remaining 39 years or so of the Israelite journey through the wilderness.
משכן/mishkan: Based not on that root for holy (ק ד ש) but based on the root for neighbor (ש כ ן). In the space of a few verses, God's hopes for this place are embodied in its name: this is not a place for God to be separate, apart and "other" from the people. This is a place designed to bring God and the people closer together. To live in proximity through the decades of wandering to come.
Ultimately, the name מקדש/mikdash will be revived. The מקדש/mikdash will be the Temple in Jerusalem. The fixed edifice that will anchor the worship of God in the land God ordains for the Israelites. Here the dynamic will be so different: in the משכן/mishkan, God will travel where the people travel, in the מקדש/mikdash the people will have to come to God, so to speak. For all the magnificence of that Temple, for all the significance of b'nai yisrael, the childrenof Israel, returning to and settling into the land of their ancestors, there will be a certain intimacy lost with the replacement of the מכשן/mishkan with the מקדש/mikdash/Temple.
I seek the intimacy of the משכן/mishkan when I seek God with my community. This is how God first sought us, this is how we can find God: building a community together as our hearts dictate.
In a parasha/Torah reading of extraordinary events, there lies one verse which I find a true source of wonder: Jacob is fleeing his home land of Canaan on the way to his mother's homeland and safe haven from his (ostensibly) enraged twin, Esau.
There was no Amtrak, not even a stagecoach, to facilitate this journey: Jacob made his journey on foot and was required to make camp at night in the middle of nowhere on his way. It is in this vulnerable night that Jacob dreams: a ladder stretches from earth to heaven and angels are ascending and descending this ladder. And then we read:
And Jacob awoke ... and said: Surely, God is present in this place, and as for me, I did not know it!. (28:10,16)
That's the amazing verse to me: Jacob did not know that God was in that particular place.
Isn't the first lesson in Torat Tots (our pre-school program) that God is everywhere? For all that we cannot see God . . . despite the cartoons and the Renaissance paintings, God has no corporality, no arms or eyes or beard . . . God is omnipresent, in every place. Jacob, who may or may not serve as a paragon of virtue or faith (that's another d'var Torah!), apparently left home without the assumption that the God of his grandfather, Abraham, would be with him wherever he went. It took a divinely inspired dream to establish that truth for our ancestor.
We, who were raised with that basic premise of "God is everywhere," have our own difficulty with grappling with that reality. My rabbi and teacher, Rabbi Neil Gillman, Professor of Theology at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, tells a story about one of his early encounters with his own teacher Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
The two of them had attended Shabbat services on a spring Shabbat at The Jewish Theological Seminary and were walking home together through Riverside Park. Suddenly, Rabbi Heschel stopped, pointed and said to the pre-rabbinic Neil Gillman: "There is God in that tree!"
Others might have taken that same walk and commented: "Oh how nice, the trees are budding again." or "Isn't that a pretty shade of light green?" But Rabbi Heschel had a very well-developed "awe radar system" . . . he had the capacity to sense and appreciate God's presence in the most prosaic as well as in the most elevated moments.
Our ancestor, Jacob, was able to appreciate the significance of that message God sent him in the dream "you are travelling far from home and I am with you wherever you go." Rabbi Heschel taught Neil Gillman that God is there for us if we would only open our eyes to God's presence.
All our lives can be richer, more fulfilling, less anxious--all we need do is fine-tune our "awe radar" and let God in to our prosaic and our elevated moments.
Parashat Kedoshim Torah Reading: Leviticus 19:1-20:27 This week's Torah portion is called "Kedoshim" a word taken from the opening verses of the reading. Every portion is named through this same technique of pulling one significant word from it's first or second verse. Many times that word has no real connection to the content of the entire parasha, sometimes it does. In this case, "Kedoshim", "holy" in the third person plural, very much sums up the verses that follow.
That verse reads:
דַּבֵּר אֶל־כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם קְדשִׁים תִּהְיוּ כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי ה' אֱלֹהֵיכֶם:
Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: You shall be holy because I, Adonay, your God, am holy.
The Israeli Torah commentator, Benyamin Lau, in his brilliant work Etnachta, introduced his discussion of this week's Torah reading with the thought-provoking title: Holy Community not Holy Person.
Rabbi Lau's title highlights an element of the verse which is literally lost in translation . . . and that is that the "You shall be holy" is written in the plural, not the singular. The mitzvah conveyed in the verse is a challenge to be a holy community, not a holy individual.
We don't have saints in Judaism. We don't elevate those who close themselves off from the world: we have no nuns or monks.
Our tradition honors scholars of Jewish texts, laws, theology and values. Our tradition honors people who bring holiness into the world through their integrity, their compassion. Our tradition honors people engaged in bringing the teachings of our faith into the real world.
Rabbi Lau's insight is that we cannot be holy as a collection of individuals. Even as a collection of individuals who study Torah and who do good deeds. We can only fulfill the challenge of this verse if we engage in a community that studies Torah, worships and does good deeds together.
In Hebrew, a synagogue community is referred to as a "Kehillah Kedoshah" as a Holy Congregation. I find this to be a much more engaging and challenging appellation for a Jewish community than "Temple." The Temple was a building. It was the site of the sacrificial cult and it was run by an oligarchy of Kohanim/Priests. In my eyes, our verse in this week's Torah reading lays out a challenge to be not a Temple, but a Kehillah Kedoshah . . . a Holy Community of people coming together for the ultimate Jewish experience: bringing the sacred into the world through our commitment, our learning, our actions, and our joy and pride in our Judaism.
Parashat Tzav Torah Reading: Leviticus 6:1-8:36
Immediately before sitting down to write this message, I had a deloghtful experience. a class from a Brown University adult education program came to Torat Yisrael as part of a course on the Abrahamic faiths.
I spoke about Judaism's roots in the relationship between God and Abraham. We opened up the Eitz Hayyim Humash and discussed the seminal moment in Chapter 15 of Genesis in which God creates the first covenant with Avram/Abraham, I talked about our basic concepts of Covenant and Commandment, of revelation and what Torah means to us.
The group was very appreciative, and i enjoyed revisiting these basic premises of our faith through the eyes of those who are new to these ideas.
As I walked back into my office, after the group left, I realized that there is a whole area of discussion I could not engage in because not everyone in the room was Jewish and because our discussion was meant to be an academic exercise: What does it mean to be following this faith?
That's what I feel moved to share with you, and I am grateful to my colleague Rabbi Harold Kushner for stating this so elegantly in his book To Life!:
"Judaism has the power to save your life. It can't keep you from dying; no religion can keep a person living forever. But Judaism can save your life from being wasted, from being spent on the trivial....Judaism is a way of making sure that you don't spend your whole life, with its potential for holiness, on eating, sleeping and paying your bills. It is a guide to investing your life in things that really matter. It comes to teach you how to feel like an extension of God by doing what God does, taking the ordinary and making it holy."
We do, at times, lament the "high bar" we need to meet in order to understand services conducted largely in Hebrew, and there is certainly a series of skill sets we are challenged to acquire as Jews to increase our literacy. But the holiest task of all, of bringing holoness to the world as Jews, most often requires no expert knowledge, just a commited heart.
That's the most important thing to know about being a Jew.
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