Parshat Tazria: A Letter from the Parsha to the Jewish people

Dear Jewish community,

My name is Parshat Tazria; yes, I am this week’s Torah portion the one that, in this year’s triennial cycle, speaks of skin affections, scaly eruptions and scalls, skin discolorations and streaks, hair that falls out, leprosy, impurity and how an individual must be isolated from the rest of the community during the time of his or her impurity.

Along with my neighbor Parshat Metzora, I am the parsha that upcoming bar and bat mitzvahs do not want to get, the one that on the surface has nothing to do with our modern observance of Judaism and modern medicine as well. 

Like the isolated individual, the one with the leprous affection who must identify himself or herself with torn clothes, uncovered head, and by covering our upper lip, the one who must call out ‘Impure!  Impure!’ while walking out of the camp, out of the community, to be quarantined until the disease passes.  Like this individual, I’m the Torah portion for which people scratch their heads and wonder, why, oh, why do we read this anymore?

The great readers of the Torah, like Rashi, were kind and gave me due consideration.  He reminds us all that Rabbi Simlai in the midrash gives us a good reason why I, the parsha about purities and impurities on humans, follow Parshat Shemini, the parsha that details the signs of pure and impure animals.  Rabbi Simlai explains, “Just as the formation of human beings in the Genesis creation stories follows the creation of domesticated and wild land animals and birds, so too the teachings about human beings are explained after the teachings about the variety of animals.”(Vayikra Rabbah 14:1)  Ibn Ezra also gives me the same nod. 

It’s good to feel like one has a place in the chain of unfolding revelation and teaching.

But even if there’s a place for me here, even if we read and study me, it’s difficult to figure out just what I’m saying especially since we do not isolate the impure anymore, we’re all impure, we reminded ourselves of that last week on Shabbat Parah when we studied the ritual of the red heifer that purified us in the past, but that is no longer in effect. 

This is the kind of thing I think about while waiting quietly and patiently while the Jewish people chant the other 53 Torah portions.

I think about the way Nechama Lebowitz brings forward the commentary of  Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, the Meshech Chochma, who teaches about me, (quote) “The preoccupation with these plagues, entrusted to the judgment of Aaron and his sons, is one of the mysteries of the Torah…”

In other words, it is not the diseases themselves that are a mystery, it is the emphasis here in Leviticus about these diseases that is the mystery.  After all, as Nechama Lebowitz argues, “If the plague denotes a natural phenomenon requiring isolation as a preventive measure against contagion, the question arises, why has the Torah selected this disease, and has not alerted us to the countless natural risks that surround us in our daily life, like poisonous plants, wild beasts and dangerous illnesses, but left their discoveries to human intellect, judgment and research, so that he may become partner to God’s creation.”(Lebowitz, Leviticus – Volume 1, p. 185)

Please don’t think me ungrateful – I am part of the Torah and that is an honor.  The questions above are significant and insightful, and while I do often feel like a second class citizen to parshiyot like Vayera – with the Binding of Isaac, or Beshalach – the Song of the Sea, I do think I’m still around and that I’m still chanted for a reason.

You see, when we roll to my neighbor Metzora next week, we will find that when the quarantined individual is ready for purification, the kohen, the priest, takes the initiative and goes outside the camp himself to where the affected person is.  The priest goes himself!  God’s representative, the one who offers the holy sacrifices and performs the holy rituals in the most holy place, strikes out to give attention to one person whom the priest then prepares to come before God at the holy place for a public ceremony to demonstrate to the world that he or she is pure again and ready to rejoin the community.

And so I am the humbly worded beginning of a clarion call for communities over the millennia, and through until today, to actively seek out those who are disconnected and disaffected, those who feel that they gain little to nothing from association with Jewish community, those who have suffered in silence illnesses physical and mental, those who are marginalized because a synagogue or JCC or other Jewish institution was not structured to help or ready to help at the time of that person’s greatest need.

I am the clarion call to the friends and family of those who quietly slip through the gaps, who become lost in the wash of time, people who we could help the most if only we could find ways to hear their cry, like the sound of ‘Impure!  Impure!’ that once caused everyone to turn and look.   No, in this case, the comparison is thin, since what the person in need is saying is, ‘I’m in need of chesed, lovingkindness,’ and so they would be saying, ‘Chesed, Chesed…’

During my many off weeks, waiting for my turn to be read, I peruse Jewish books and articles and recently came across a piece by Rabbi Harold Kushner in the Weekday Sim Shalom (p. xiii) that speaks to what we could offer here to people in need, and to people who may not even perceive they have a need, as he says, “What does religion offer that we lonely human souls need? In a word, it offers community.  Our place of worship offers us a refuge, an island of caring in the midst of a hostile, competitive world.  In a society that segregates the old from the young, the rich from the poor, the successful form the struggling, the house of worship represents one place where the barriers fall and we all stand equal before God.”

I wish I could write those sentiments between the columns in the Torah right where I, Parshat Tazria, begin, we’ll have to settle with taking those thoughts and turning them into action.  And if I can contribute that to the continuing evolution of Jewish people and communities, then I’ve done my job well even if I’m not at the top of the Bar and Bat Mitzvah speech list.

Sincerely yours,

Parshat Tazria

April Fool's Day: A Jewish holiday?

You may not be aware, but April Fool’s Day is a Jewish holiday; rather, a holiday originated by a Jew named, in all seriousness, Kugel -  the perfect name for originating such a holiday.

A scholarly explanation of the origins of April Fools' Day was provided by Joseph Boskin, a professor of history at Boston University in a 1983 article.(*See citation for source below.) He explained that the practice began during the reign of Roman emperor Constantine, when a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that they could do a better job of running the empire.

Constantine, amused, allowed a jester named Kugel to be king for one day. Kugel passed an edict calling for absurdity on that day, and the custom became an annual event.

"In a way," explained Prof. Boskin, "it was a very serious day. In those times fools were really wise men. It was the role of jesters to put things in perspective with humor."

Ok, I admit it, I just played a joke myself, the article by Boskin was a big fib that actually ran for 2 weeks on the Associated Press in 1983 until they realized they had been the victims of a clever April Fool’s joke themselves.

Oh, and I fibbed too – the fictional Kugel wasn’t necessarily Jewish, but you never know, right?

April Fools jokes and tricks are usually about convincing someone of something in such a complete way that they are surprised when we reveal we’re just having fun.

In a similar way to the Book of Esther, it is a day for upending the world as it is, turning the world upside down, so we can achieve a new perspective, a fresh perspective and, for sure, laugh, take a deep breath, and remind ourselves we’re human beings – sensitive, sometimes gullible, flawed, and in that way we are like God who created us in God’s image.

After all, when the great Rabbis of the ancient academy spoke to God’s representative Elijah, when they spoke to him after having argued a point of Jewish law with Rabbi Eliezer, a point with which the majority of the academy did not agree but with which God did agree – they caught God in an April Fool’s day type of moment by citing that the Torah, which God gave them at Sinai, says, “Make decisions based on the majority.” 

And in that moment, God realizes God’s hands are tied, and Elijah says in that moment God laughs.  Ok, ya’ll got me…

April Fools' day, again like Purim that we just celebrated, reminds us we need to strive to make the outside appearance more and more similar to the inside, to the intention, and the truth of who we are.

Jewish tradition teaches about us mortals that our outside should be like our inside, ‘tocho ke’varo.’

When we make the jokes and tricks we’re in effect showing just how important it is that every other day of the year we do our best to overcome dissonance, to pursue truth with all our hearts, and to honor fellow human beings rather than make them vulnerable.

All that being said, we’re a relatively small group here, so if you’d like to tell the story the way Professor Boskin did, it might be worth an April Fool’s try.

*Source for the April Fools' history:  From Infoplease.com 

April Fools' Day: Origin and History

The uncertain origins of a foolish day

by David Johnson and Shmuel Ross

Parshat Shemini: What does it mean to be 'Kosher'?

 There was a popular ad campaign for the Hebrew National food company with the slogan, “We have to answer to a Higher Authority.”  Given that in one spot the actor holding the hot dog is Uncle Sam, the government, that would allow fillers and other non-natural products in the food, the commercial stresses that because the company is kosher, it provides a higher standard or quality product.

Is a kosher hot dog a better quality hot dog?  Does it look better, taste better?  I’ll leave that to the consumers to decide…

Suffice to say that Kosher has never meant ‘better’ or ‘superior’.  It has never been a litmus test for comparison, only the result of preparing foods in accordance with Jewish tradition.

It is serendipitous that the only time the word ‘kasher’ appears in the entire Tanach or Bible is in the Book of Esther that we read this past week on Purim.  In chapter 8, Esther says to King Achashverosh, “If it is well with the King, and if I have found favor in the King’s eyes, and the matter is kasher/appropriate before the King, and I am good in the King’s eyes, then let the King write a response to the letters expressing the will of Haman son of Hamedata the Agagite who wrote to destroy the Jews in all the King’s lands.”

Kosher here means appropriate or fitting.

And it is fitting that in our Torah reading this week, Parshat Shemini, we read about the living things the people are permitted and not permitted to eat, again, it is worth noting that the word Kosher does not appear here – only tamei, impure, and pure, tahor.

These categories, tamei and tahor, impure and pure, apply in the ancient world both to people and to animals.  And again, they are not judgment calls.  The person who is impure is only that way temporarily.  The great commentary of Rabbi Isaac Abravanel on the Torah explains there’s nothing inherently negative about animals and thus meats that are not kosher by the rules set out in the Torah, in fact, he writes, “For the most part, they are pleasant for human beings to eat.”  In other words, there’s no risk, health or otherwise in eating them.  He’s practical in this area, citing the way many do eat these things and they appear healthy and strong.

Rather, Abravanel argues, kosher is not about the health of the body but rather of the spirit.  In the way we nourish our bodies, there is great potential to nourish our souls as well.  This idea can help us as a lens for our Judaism and faith in other areas, too.  Take Shabbat as an example, Friday night into Saturday the world continues turning as normal, the sun sets, rises, winds blow, it is a day like any other but with a potential to infuse the day itself, and every other day of the week, with a renewed appreciation of time, of creation, of each other.

And so Kosher as well can be both a way of eating and a way of thinking about how to infuse our lives with important Jewish values.  Perhaps a better way to say it is that Kosher can be a way of eating that guides us to be mindful of Jewish values and mindful, at the same time, of ourselves.

Let’s focus for a moment on being ‘mindful of ourselves’ since I think this is the less intuitive part of Kosher.  How often do we feel in our lives we are operating on auto pilot?  We can drive to familiar places while talking on the phone, listening to music, talking to a friend, and if there’s traffic on route A we can automatically divert to route B.  I remember in my house growing up if you were looking for something, whatever it was, it was worthwhile opening up the refrigerator since from time to time someone would open up the fridge and put the item there by accident.  Given that we easily lapse into auto pilot, what better way of regaining our mindfulness than by asking us to be more aware of the food that is a necessary part of our daily existence, that gives us the energy to do what we must do and what we want to do.

And in terms of our Jewish values, we are talking about, for example, the value of tzar ba’aley chayim, protecting living things, that Kosher preparation has the potential when done right to reduce the pain and suffering of animals when they are slaughtered.  And increasingly there is a movement to add tzedakah, justice, to the values Kosher or Kashrut inspires.  Is the food that is by tradition kosher being prepared in an ethical way?  Are employers paying a living wage?

And after all, Kosher does not mask or redeem unethical behavior.  A righteous person cannot be righteous if he or she eats Kosher but acts unethically.  The unethical behavior in every case invalidates dietary laws and any other ritual law or practice, as the Rabbis teach, “Derech eretz” – right action, right living, comes before everything, even before the etz ha’chayim, the Tree of Life itself, which is symbolic of the Torah that guides and sustains us.(Eliyahu Rabah, Ish Shalom, Parsha Aleph, Vaygaresh et Ha’adam & Yalkut Shimoni Braysheet, Remez 34, Hen ha’adam haya)

In a recent article that makes just this argument, Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo (www.timesofisrael.com - Parshat Shemini:  Are you really keeping Kosher?), quotes before the opening words of his article, of all people, William Shakespeare!  Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1:

“With devotion’s visage, and pious action, we do sugar o’er the devil himself.”

Wow.  That’s a powerful indictment of human character.  Like Kashrut, Shakespeare’s work is meant to make us mindful of our humanity – let’s not forget that “To be or not to be” is also in Hamlet act 3 scene 1.

Hebrew National is right, of course, that kosher does mean recognizing, acknowledging, and responding to a Higher Authority.  When we are sensitive to what animates us, we become more sensitive to the Source of what animates all of life, all of creation, the Creator of the sun that causes flowers to open and the seeds to grow into food for the animals that eat them and that we eat in turn – reminding us that we all, not just the hot dog guys, do strive to answer not to a Higher authority but to the Highest Authority.