This teaching appeared as part of Hot Off The Shtender, a series of teachings from SVARA fellows. Starting From The Same Beginner’s Mind
Pesach 5782 On The Seder As A Living Experience
April 13, 2022 by
On seder night, we embark on a holy commemorative journey through the Haggadah as we move spiritually and temporally from degradation to praise. We do not merely recount by rote our journey out of Mitzrayim, out of the narrowness to a wide expanse, but we engage in holy reenactment of the experience.
In Mishnah Pesachim 10:5, it is taught that in every generation, every single one of us is obligated to see ourselves as though we, too, went out of Egypt. We aren’t only recounting the origin story of our ancestors, passed down generation after generation. We are part of the holy collectivity. We are active participants, not passive observers.
The Telling that we ritually experience on Pesach is not only about remembering our people’s foundational story. Indeed, this story is so central that we are asked to recall it every day of our lives. Jewish liturgy makes mention of it in the morning and the evening. Each holiday is referred to as a Zecher—a remembrance—of the exodus. Those who wrap tefillin bind these sacred words to their bodies. It is so central that we access it using as many sensory vehicles as are available to us.
Truly, Pesach is such a momentous event in spiritual terms that it is our duty to be actively shaping this experience for ourselves in every generation.
We move from the narrow place to one of wide expanse, a place devoid of G-d consciousness to one suffused with it. We move from a sense of degradation to praise, of owning our own narrative, no longer allowing others to define or shape it for us. We think about what represents mitzrayim in our own lives. What are those things that we cannot seem to free ourselves from? What would it mean for us to find a sense of liberation and possibility after years, perhaps, of feeling weighted down by story, by fear, by expectation that is far greater than we are as individuals yet impacts us so intimately?
In every generation, we are each obligated to perceive ourselves as if we, too, left Egypt. The promises G-d makes to our ancestors, which we recount on seder night apply to us as much as they did to those who came before. Our physical and social locations as a people have undergone tremendously radical shifts over the generations and continue to do so in our own day.
Pesach has carried our people through trials and tribulations, through times of great joy and ecstasy. Our calendar, with its emphasis on the spiral of time, encourages us to return, again and again, to the essential theological truth. We, too, were there, a part of the story. We participated in the awesomeness that was the exodus and as such, we are enjoined to bring its power into our lives. We do so in an embodied way so that it does not become a rote, stultified experience. Ideally, we bring this power with us into how we show up in the world around us.
We know that this leave taking is multifaceted, as relevant to us on the personal level as it is on the collective. So how do we actualize this beautiful idea from the Mishnah on a personal level? Maybe we choose one thing this Pesach we yearn to break free from. Maybe we set modest goals for ourselves. My anxiety might not vanish overnight, perhaps, or perhaps this one gnarly habit I have will remain with me. Yet, I can set an intention to embody the liberative possibility of choosing to live or act or show up in a unique way.
I can spiritually imagine and embody a future rich with the possibility of reemergence and rebirth by recalling that I, too, left Egypt, and so did we all. Our sederim are not meant to be rote, tired exercises in reciting lines that may not have meaning for us. They are, instead, about embodying the theological radicalism of our tradition. We move from degradation to praise, from narrowness to expanse in every generation, in large ways and in small ways. May it be so.
Finding My Possibility Model
April 13, 2022 by
A version of the below piece originally appeared as part of Hot Off The Shtender, a series of reflection pieces from SVARA.
It is hard, nay impossible, to adequately capture the feelings that came over me when I learned about the passing of a dear friend: the fierce and unapologetic activist for disability justice and lover of Torah, Sheryl Grossman. May her memory be a blessing. I dedicate my learning today to her.
I found out about Sheryl’s passing in the way so many of us do these days. It was a typical Tuesday morning (or so I thought). I was taking a moment to scroll Facebook and there it was. I slumped over my desk upon receiving the news, the traditional words we say upon hearing of a death far from my consciousness. What came out first was a cry of disbelief. I knew she struggled with a multitude of cancers for the better part of seventeen years. I knew she often experienced scares and interfaced with the medical system in ways I frankly cannot even begin to fully comprehend. And yet, I was left speechless. “Blessed is the true judge.” What more can one say? And how impossibly hard is it to say that? True judge? How can I, how can anyone, wrap their minds around that when a person leaves the world so young?
Sheryl is the second friend I have lost in the past few months. Both were people I knew through disability community. Both were folks I had taught and learned with. Both friends challenged me to think about disability and Torah more broadly. From Sheryl in particular, I learned the importance of finding ourselves in Torah. This isn’t done by stretching narratives to fit us but rather by reclaiming our disabled ancestors who are right there in the text. As mentioned at her funeral, one of Sheryl’s greatest mentors was Moshe Rabbeinu—Moses our teacher who, it seems clear from the pshat (or simple read of the text) had a disability of some sort.
It was Sheryl who challenged me to read Exodus 4:10-16 in a radical way. I met Sheryl while I was in rabbinical school, which was a time of great existential angst for me. Much of that was internal. Some was external, though the internal parts were by far the hardest to navigate. I was feeling confused and alienated from Torah, and yet I knew in my neshama that I wanted and needed to be in relationship with Torah. Sheryl, whether she knew it at the time, was a model of possibility for me.
In the fourth chapter of the Book of Exodus, we encounter a famous dialogue between G-d and Moshe. G-d has chosen Moshe to lead the children of Israel out of mitzrayim. Moshe demurs, saying that as a man of few words, who will listen to him? Without missing a beat, G-d replies rhetorically, asking who makes a person as they are—blind or sighted, deaf or hearing, speaking or nonspeaking? “Is it not I, G-d, your G-d?”
For years, I argued vigorously that this passage assumed disability to be a punishment, G-d-forbid, and that this passage was the foundation of the moral model of disability: a model of disability that assumes disability exists due to sin, G-d-forbid. G-d makes us as we are, so all the ableism and oppression we encounter is just something we’re going to have to deal with. I find myself taken aback by the self-loathing in that read now. How often do we read texts in weaponizing ways, not only because that’s the tradition we’ve received, G-d-forbid, but even worse— because we believe it. How often do we understand Torah through a distorted prism that tells us more about ourselves and the brokenness in our souls than it does about the written or oral text?
Exodus 4:10-16 is now my favorite text in Torah, and it’s something I strive to recite daily alongside the blessings I make over Torah study. That transformation came about due in large measure to Sheryl’s unapologetic challenge to me: “Have you completely forgotten the second half of the passage?” G-d responds to Moshe that, of course, G-d understands Moshe is not an orator and provides him with a reasonable accommodation. Aaron, his brother, will be his attendant. It is from here that the Torah affirms the crucial need for attendant care and accommodations.
I could hear and absorb that from Sheryl in ways I might not have been able to from anyone else. Sheryl, who cared as much about disability rights as she did about keeping Shabbat in an Orthodox manner. Sheryl, who would accept nothing less than showing up as her full, authentic self, including her religious self. Being disabled and religious were not mutually exclusive things, she reminded me again, again, and again. I often felt between two worlds—wanting to connect with observant disabled folks but not identifying as Orthodox. Sheryl helped bridge that gap for me. But even more than that, she showed me how I, too, could find myself in Torah.
As Rabbi Benay Lappe has noted, we all have our donkey stories—those stories that jump out at us because they give words to our experiences. G-d giving Moshe a reasonable accommodation (though of course the Torah doesn’t know or use that term) helped me realize that perhaps, G-d reminds Moshe that he, too, is created in G-d’s image, specifically because Moshe might have forgotten otherwise. Many of us forget our inherent worth because of the social positions we find ourselves in. We forget because of old, tired, harmful narratives. We forget because of our family systems. We forget for so many reasons. With Sheryl’s help, I have come to believe that G-d reminds us that we are created in G-d’s image again in this passage because it is so easy to forget—so easy to think of ourselves as subhuman.
I often wonder about Moshe’s upbringing in Pharaoh’s palace. I imagine, though of course can never know with any degree of certainty, that Moshe might have been taunted or humiliated because of how he spoke. Perhaps he, too, wondered whether he’d ever fit in with his own people. Perhaps, as Brené Brown writes about in her latest work Atlas of the Heart, Moshe feels like he’ll have to fit in by fitting a mold that doesn’t fit him. How many of us feel that way? How often did I wonder if I’d ever fit in with Jewish community, though my heart and soul longed to? How often did I wonder if I was on the wrong life path? How often did I ask myself, “who will listen to me, a blind female rabbi with many marginalized identities?” What I was asking, ultimately, was “am I good enough? Who am I?” The voice that told me I’d never measure up to an abled, sighted ideal that I could never achieve was making its presence known in destructive ways.
Sheryl’s funeral ended with a recitation of her favorite poem (which also happens to be my favorite poem), You Get Proud by Practicing, written by the incredible disabled poet Laura Hershey, may her memory be a blessing. Listening to the live stream of the service, I alternately cried and tried (through my tears) to recite the poem along with the reader. This powerful poem is an antidote to all of the self-loathing and internalized oppression that many of us struggle with every day. Feeling at home with oneself unapologetically is a spiritual practice in and of itself—one we must engage with every day. I know I have much work to do myself. I urge us all, whether we identify with disability or not, to integrate this poem’s powerful message into our lives and souls, just as Sheryl did. One of Sheryl’s most oft-repeated lines was “my mouth is my biggest organ and I’m not afraid to use it”! Amein v’amein, friend. Rest in power.
Shabbat HaChodesh 5782
April 1, 2022 by
I wish to dedicate this dvar Torah to the memory of Sheryl Grossman. Her love of Torah and her steadfast, unapologetic commitment to justice for people with disabilities will remain with me always. She taught me that one could both be a lover of Torah and a fighter for justice for those most marginalized. Her legacy will continue. One of her oft-repeated sayings will never leave me. “My mouth is my biggest organ and I’m not afraid to use it.” May Sheryl’s memory always be for a blessing, amein v’amein.
This Shabbat has the dual distinction of being both Rosh Chodesh and the first of the month of Nisan, as well as Shabbat HaChodesh, the Shabbat on which the 12th chapter of the Book of Exodus is read. This chapter establishes Nisan as the first of the months of the year and describes the preparations the children of Israel made to leave Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim is understood in Jewish tradition as both a literal and metaphorical place. The Exodus narrative is so central to Jewish collective memory that we recall it every single day, multiple times a day. We recall our ancestors’ journey out of the Land of Egypt as a transformative moment in our becoming as a people. Simultaneous to this, Mitzrayim, which is derived from the Hebrew word meaning narrowness or narrow place is understood to be a spiritual location. When we journey out of the narrow place and are answered or met with a wide expanse, as we sing joyfully in Psalm 118, we experience liberation in multiple realms.
The command given to the children of Israel to establish the calendar, and particularly the month of Nisan as the beginning of the liturgical year may be surprising to those who think of the Jewish year as beginning with Rosh Hashanah. Judaism in fact has four new years. Rosh Hashanah, the 1st, and 2nd of Tishrei marks the calendrical new year. Nisan marks the new year for kings and for festivals. Liturgically, Pesach is the first holiday of the new year. I often like to think of the preparations for Pesach as spiritually paralleling the month of Elul and the cleansing that leads us to the Yamim Noraim.
Pesach is often thought of as a stressful period, focused on seder planning, food shopping and removal of chametz or leaven from our homes and other spaces. These tangible stressors can make it hard to set one’s heart and mind towards Pesach and its themes of justice, freedom, and liberation. It’s a deep irony that the preparation often leaves no energy for the deep celebration that this time calls us to do.
Many of us may also be grappling with difficult interpersonal dynamics this time of year. These are heightened in this liminal period. The pandemic is ongoing. Some of us joyfully anticipate our first in person sederim since 2019. Others of us may be feeling increasingly isolated and left behind, feeling like the world has moved on without us because we cannot yet be in person with others without tremendous risk to ourselves and our loved ones. We may feel like we don’t matter, are unimportant, are acceptable losses.
As we read this pivotal Torah portion, we may notice that the Pesach sacrifice was offered by every family. One can imagine the anticipation and anxiety. The bags are packed and metaphorically piled at the door, ready to go on a moment’s notice. And indeed, we left with such great haste that we didn’t have time for our dough to rise, hence why we eat matzah. Every household made an offering. Not just those with large families and circles of friends. Every single person was an integral part of this collective experience. The Torah even states that if a single household is too small for a sacrifice on its own, they should join together with neighboring households.
The rabbis, who crafted the Haggadah with great precision stipulated that recounting the story of the Exodus from Mitzrayim was so central that everyone is meant to take part, whether they are by themselves, or with just a few others, or in a larger group. The ways we observe communally can bring with them much joy, strength and blessing. They can also leave many feeling isolated, outside of the experience. Let us remember that praiseworthy is the one who recounts the story of the Exodus out of Mitzrayim in all the ways that we do so. May this Pesach be a liberating one for all.
Thoughts For Yom Kippur 5782
September 15, 2021 by
Yom Kippur is often translated into English as the Jewish day of atonement, though I feel that this is a mistranslation. Yom Kippur’s awesomeness, in the literal sense of the word, is that the Jewish tradition provides us with a 25-hour period, Shabbat Shabbaton (the sabbath of sabbaths) to focus wholly on realigning with who we want to be in the new year. Part of that work is doing a soul accounting of the ways in which we missed the mark in this past year, including making amends with those we may have hurt. Doing teshuvah, returning/realigning (I don’t use the translation “repent” for teshuvah because of its punitive connotations) is a practice that is particularly encouraged this time of year, though it is a spiritual practice that we can engage in any time. There is a lot of emphasis in the Yom Kippur liturgy on confession–we recite the vidui or confessional prayer ten times. In addition to this there are beautiful piyyutim or liturgical poems throughout each of the five services of the day. If one arrives at synagogue without a lot of grounding in the liturgy of Yom Kippur, it often can feel like our holiest day is spent recounting again, again and again all of the wrongs we’ve done, in hopes that a new and better year will be granted us. This perception of the day saddens me tremendously, as it does not allow us to experience what the rabbis insisted was, in fact, one of the happiest days of the year in its fullness.
In his tremendous book, This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, Rabbi Alan Lew, of blessed memory invites us to reframe the High Holyday season is a season involving the very transformation of our souls. We are intimately aware as the year begins that we don’t know what the year will bring. Yom HaDin, Rosh Hashanah, is our opportunity to recommit ourselves to being in relationship with the Divine, that which is bigger than us. The imagery of the coronation of a king may work for you or it may not, and that’s just fine. The Jewish tradition offers us a wide array of names for the Divine. The call of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is intended to wake us up as we usher in a season of deep holiness and personal introspection, culminating with the opportunity to wholly immerse ourselves in community, sacredness and contemplation on Yom Kippur.
Rabbi Lew’s book helped me begin to reimagine my relationship to the machzor, the prayer book used on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I love liturgy and find myself wanting to know more about those rabbis, sages and seekers who composed our prayers, weaving together texts from the Tanakh (Bible), Talmud, Midrash and other sources, alongside the longings of their own hearts and their personal theologies. Some of that theology may resonate. Some of it may not. And that’s ok.
We are living at a time in which we are finally becoming better attuned to the myriad of life experiences that we all carry within, along with those of those we are in community with. Too many of us associate Yom Kippur with a feeling of punishment–I confess over and over again because I am somehow fundamentally flawed. Jewish tradition says precisely the opposite about human beings. Against all odds, and sometimes despite ourselves, we have hope that human beings are in fact capable of change. This capability does not mean that to forgive is to forget or reconcile. We can forgive to free ourselves of the resentment we hold, but that does not imply–nor should it–that forgiveness grants the other person an automatic invitation back into our lives. The two are distinct.
And it is precisely because we believe that human beings can change, if they/we choose to, that taking responsibility for our actions is of such paramount importance. Covenant is another important Jewish concept, the notion that relationship, to be genuine and lasting, must be mutual, based on obligation to each other. When we break trust with one another, we are given the opportunity to return and begin again. Yom Kippur is about doing that work with the Divine and ourselves. The days prior and indeed the entire year, really, is about doing that work with our fellow human beings–and all beings.
Yom Kippur is one of our happiest days because we know that we are granted a fresh start right from the very get-go. We proclaim as much just after we say Kol Nidre, the part of the service that Rabbi Lew refers to as our soul’s name being called. Why go through the next 25 hours then?
This time is set aside for us to do the work we need to do to realign with the Divine, that which is greater, and even more so, to come back into alignment with ourselves. The Machzor is a roadmap for helping us get there. Though the liturgy is profound and beautiful, it is not the be all end all of Yom Kippur. Give yourself permission to take whatever and however much time you need over this next day to do the soul work you need to do, the self-care you need. We come together in community in a year such as this one, with all of our sorrows, wounds and traumas, praying for a better world. May we all have a meaningful, transformative Yom Kippur.
Kedoshim 5781
April 23, 2021 by
Our double parsha this week, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim, as with so much of Torah, covers a lot of ground and is multi-faceted and multi-layered. These parshiyot contain verses that have provided considerable strength and inspiration to us throughout the centuries, as well as verses that have caused tremendous pain. I am going to be focusing in this dvar Torah on a verse found in the 19th chapter of Leviticus. “לֹא־תְקַלֵּ֣ל חֵרֵ֔שׁ וְלִפְנֵ֣י עִוֵּ֔ר לֹ֥א תִתֵּ֖ן מִכְשֹׁ֑ל וְיָרֵ֥אתָ מֵּאֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ אֲנִ֥י יְהוָֽה׃ You shall not insult the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God: I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19:14, JPS translation).
This verse contains two distinct, yet simultaneously interconnected mitzvot. Leviticus 19 is often referred to by scholars as the holiness code of Torah, as it contains a variety of interpersonal and agricultural mitzvot whose intent is to create a world in which we are aware that we, like G-d, are holy and must live lives of sanctity. The mitzvot the Torah presents us with here—do not curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind—you should fear Hashem I am Hashem—have been classically understood in a variety of ways. Ibn Ezra holds that we should not curse the deaf because we have the power to do so and if we do, G-d will punish us by making us deaf and blind. Rashi interprets the verse metaphorically, understanding the prohibition against putting a stumbling block before the blind to be about not deceiving someone or misleading them. The logic of the metaphorical read, which has been widely adopted, is that no decent person, upon seeing a blind person approaching would think to put a boulder in their path. Lifnei Ivir or before the blind has henceforth become an expansive halakhic category, whose application is manifold. We aren’t to mislead someone by giving poor advice, or in business deals, etc., as to do so is to place a stumbling block in their path.
I have argued for years that there is tremendous power in the Torah’s words here. As a blind woman and someone committed to Torah and to remaining in relationship with this holy tradition, even and especially when doing so is very painful, when I read these two prohibitions against cursing the deaf and placing a stumbling block before the blind, I experience The Divine affirming the very real, complex lived experiences of deaf folks, blind folks, and those who are deafblind. Our experiences are as varied as we are and the circumstances of our lives as diverse as anyone’s. Yet, on a very literal level, I have navigated more than my fair share of obstacles, tripping hazards and the like. G-d isn’t simply prohibiting boulders placed in people’s way deliberately or maliciously. Rather, what would the world be experienced and felt like if we took great care to create accessible paths for all of us, so that we could navigate with ease and freedom? These prohibitions also recognize the power dynamics that are inherent in human relationships. I say that without moral judgement but simply by way of naming a truth. As a hearing person, I could choose not to provide accurate renderings of what I’m saying to folks who sign. Blind folks’ access to visual information, while improving, is still highly limited, leaving many feeling increasingly separate from others. As an educator, I experience this on Zoom in numerous ways, at the same time as I am grateful that important work is being done to remedy these disparities.
The impulse to assume that the Torah’s prohibitions here cannot be literal is a natural one—it is hard to fathom a scenario in which an individual would intentionally place a stumbling block before a blind person or curse a deaf person. Yet, as with so much in Torah, we are, I believe, being divinely encouraged to look within and take an accounting of our actions and working assumptions. When we are not in relationship with individuals about or to whom particular verses apply, it is easy to narrow their scope. Put another way, without meaningful, authentic and mutual relationships with a diverse group of individuals, I might not think that something like refraining from placing a stumbling block in the path of a blind person means all that much. When I get curious about the lived experiences of those I hold close and those who are not in my circle but are in my society, I am able to expand the palace of my own understanding and thereby to expand the palace of Torah in all of its fullness.
I hold that Torah is eternally relevant, speaking to us in every generation. Or, put another way, the Torah speaks in the language of human beings so that we can understand and live it out fully in the world. The Torah, as we learn in Deuteronomy, is close to us, it is not far away, in the heavens or beyond the sea, but in our mouths to do it. Hashem has revealed Hashem’s Torah to us so that we might internalize it and live in right relationship. We are also given the opportunity to bring our interpretations and applications to bear on the lengthy and ongoing conversation across time, geography and circumstance. Mine is the perspective of one blind woman. I certainly do not speak for the blind community, nor could I, even if that was my desire. There is room for many reads, many challenges, many pathways in.
As a lover of Torah and as someone who believes passionately in the ability of people with disabilities to thrive and live lives of meaning, when I approach classical interpretations of this verse, I am being asked to stretch myself to accommodate multiple truths. On the one hand, Ibn Ezra’s interpretation hurts at first read. I do not hold for a moment that blindness or deafness are punishments from G-d, G-d-forbid. Blindness and deafness are normal, natural parts of the human condition that people across all lines of social difference live with. Many people live lives of incredible meaning and depth and think of their deafness or blindness as inherent parts of who they are, as integral to their individual and spiritual identities as anything else about them. It is also true that discrimination and truly abhorrent behavior from others are things that many of us have to contend with. And that is a hard reality, but a necessary one to name. Ibn Ezra’s comment, read radically differently, is a reminder to all of us that the energy we put out into the world, how we view others, has a tremendous impact upon them and even more, on us.
A story from the Talmud (Taanit 20AB) illustrates this quite aptly. A rabbi is riding on his donkey home after a day of Torah study, feeling quite proud of his learning. He encounters a man who has some sort of apparent disfigurement or is in the eyes of the rabbi very unattractive. The man offers a deferential greeting, to which the rabbi responds by disparaging him and asking if all of the people who come from his city are as ugly as he is. The man replies, without missing a beat that he doesn’t know, but that perhaps the rabbi needs to go and ask the Craftsman who made him, telling the Craftsman, “how ugly is the vessel you made”. By insulting another human being, created in the image of G-d, we are insulting the Divine.
A theological foundation of mine is that Genesis 1:27, which teaches us that every human being is created in G-d’s image is perhaps one of the Torah’s most radical teachings. As my teacher and noted rabbi, scholar and disability activist Rabbi Dr. Julia Watts Belser notes, believing that we are all created in the image of G-d is beautiful and essential theology, and it calls us to act on our radical commitments. Referencing this idea, in other words, carries little weight if I’m not actively living it out and embodying it in all that I am. Noted sociologist and shame researcher, Dr. Brene Brown noted in a podcast released shortly after the attack on the United States Capital that dehumanization fuels hate, urging her listeners to take great care not to dehumanize others in action, speech or thought, even as we do the crucial work of doing all we can to eradicate hate and prejudice from our midst.
So, too, our Torah is calling us to not ignore what might feel like a simplistic couple of mitzvot. Rather, G-d is reminding us that if we want to create a holy society, to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, that it is upon all of us to create a barrier-free society.
Memory and Moving Forward: A Reflection on Purim 5781
February 26, 2021 by
A version of this piece was originally published by SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva.
Today, I remember. I remember vividly the all-consuming sadness I felt last Purim, as the sun was setting and my celebratory seudah was ending, the last event I attended with a large Jewish community. I remember feeling overcome with the intuitive sense that it would be a long, long time before I would daven with a minyan, learn in a physical bet midrash, and otherwise gather to sing, celebrate, learn, mourn and grieve with others outside of my small pod. I also distinctly recall not knowing how to explain my sorrow. Last Purim, we knew there was a deadly, dangerous virus looming. I remember the conversation surrounding the question of whether one could attend a virtual Megillah reading. Were the circumstances really that grave that a virtual reading could be sufficient for those for whom in person gatherings took religious precedence? Surely this outbreak will be a few months at most—we’ll be back to “normal” by Shavuot.
As I think back over this turbulent year, I am humbled by my own sense of assumed knowing, on a holiday that is all about not knowing. Purim is, after all, many things. It is a holiday about opposites, reversals, revelations and concealments. It is also understood to be about knowing and not knowing. Traditionally, one is supposed to drink until they cannot tell the difference between blessed is Mordechai and cursed is Haman. It should go without saying but I feel absolutely obligated to say that this knowing and not knowing is not only achieved through the use of intoxicating substances. Our sages also teach that the knowing and not knowing is about achieving a mystical union with all that is. For those of us who are spiritually inclined but for whom achieving mystical union with all that exists feels a bit too abstract or out there, we can also think of this idea of knowing and not knowing as related to the Gemara’s famous teaching on Shabbat 88A concerning our acceptance of the Torah at Sinai.
״וַיִּתְיַצְּבוּ בְּתַחְתִּית הָהָר״, אָמַר רַב אַבְדִּימִי בַּר חָמָא בַּר חַסָּא: מְלַמֵּד שֶׁכָּפָה הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא עֲלֵיהֶם אֶת הָהָר כְּגִיגִית, וְאָמַר לָהֶם: אִם אַתֶּם מְקַבְּלִים הַתּוֹרָה מוּטָב, וְאִם לָאו — שָׁם תְּהֵא קְבוּרַתְכֶם. אָמַר רַב אַחָא בַּר יַעֲקֹב: מִכָּאן מוֹדָעָא רַבָּה לְאוֹרָיְיתָא. אָמַר רָבָא: אַף עַל פִּי כֵן הֲדוּר קַבְּלוּהָ בִּימֵי אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ, דִּכְתִיב: ״קִיְּמוּ וְקִבְּלוּ הַיְּהוּדִים״ — קִיְּימוּ מַה שֶּׁקִּיבְּלוּ כְּבָר.
The Gemara cites additional homiletic interpretations on the topic of the revelation at Sinai. The Torah says, “And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the lowermost part of the mount” (Exodus 19:17). Rabbi Avdimi bar Ḥama bar Ḥasa said: the Jewish people actually stood beneath the mountain, and the verse teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, overturned the mountain above the Jews like a tub, and said to them: If you accept the Torah, excellent, and if not, there will be your burial. Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: From here there is a substantial caveat to the obligation to fulfill the Torah. The Jewish people can claim that they were coerced into accepting the Torah, and it is therefore not binding. Rava said: Even so, they again accepted it willingly in the time of Ahasuerus, as it is written: “The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them” (Esther 9:27), and he taught: The Jews ordained what they had already taken upon themselves through coercion at Sinai. (Steinsaltz translation).
We encounter here the famous idea that our acceptance of the covenant through our declaration of we will do, and we will hear, or we will listen was not, in the rabbi’s read done willingly. We were coerced. It was not until the days of Purim that we in fact willingly accepted the Torah upon ourselves. During this time of knowing and not knowing, we are provided here with an interesting juxtaposition. On a day when we tend to be consumed by physical delights and pleasures, we also celebrate our fullest acceptance of Torah.
Admittedly, as someone for whom Purim has, at the best of times, been incredibly alienating, this shift in emphasis is comforting. I can immerse myself in my love of learning Torah and skip the parties. No more need I attend a Megillah reading feeling utterly miserable on the happiest of days because the room is loud and I cannot hear anything going on, knowing all the while that this holiday is so visual as it is with everyone showing off their costumes and laughing at comedic sketches I miss because I cannot see them. Learning all Purim night? Now that I can get behind!
If I’m being honest with myself and if we are being honest with ourselves, what does that shift in emphasis actually mean for us? Isn’t everything Torah ultimately? We are not a people known for our asceticism. In fact, our tradition requires us to take pleasure from the physical world and thereby elevate and make it sacred. Purim is deeply a part of that. I have to remind myself that just because the loud and chaotic Megillah readings of years past left me feeling deeply alienated, that in no way means that Purim is not mine to take hold of, just as we each take hold of all of the festivals.
Which brings me back to the somber character of this Purim and I imagine all Purims subsequent to this year. We are both marking the one year anniversary of this terrible pandemic and celebrating a tremendous moment of redemption for the Jewish people. The Gemara’s teaching above and our celebrations of Purim are both experienced collectively. We celebrate our deliverance together and our acceptance of Torah together as one people. We know from this past year that we need community to remain resilient and to hold us and that community is and can be experienced in so many ways. I remain humbled and deeply moved by how SVARA has pivoted and how so many of us have pivoted to navigate this crumble and crash. Even and especially as we mourn the tremendous losses of this time, we are unearthing new possibilities for connection which I pray stay with us long after COVID is eradicated and we are all vaccinated, speedily and in our days, amein!
And yet, the yearning to find individual expression within a communal framework is with me deeply. I bring that juxtaposition with me as I prepare to celebrate and receive all that Purim holds for me. This Purim, as I prepare to hear Megillah in an environment that will better meet my needs, I allow myself to open to the expansive possibilities of this holiday, knowing that my own not knowing prevented me from showing up most authentically in my own life as a Jew and as a lover of Torah. May this holiday with all of its layers of possibility, struggle and promise allow us to get even a taste of the world we are co-creating into being.
Tazria Metsora 5781
Tazria-Metsora 5781
Lauren Tuchman
This week’s parsha, Tazria-Metsora is both incredibly timely and deeply complex. Now that the Kohenim have been ordained, their functions are beginning to be outlined. The Book of Leviticus is arguably the Torah’s most complex and least understood book, given that it is largely concerned with ritual actions and the functions of the priests.
We are introduced this week to one of the central concerns in Leviticus—issues of tuma’ah and taharah. Tuma’ah and tahara are ritual concepts that are not easily translatable. They are most often translated as pure (tahara) and impure (tuma’ah). The connotations of ideas of purity in the English language, combined with how those notions have continued to evolve culturally in deeply harmful, marginalizing ways makes understanding this ancient idea quite difficult. We are introduced to this idea in two distinct ways in our parshiyot—through the ritual process after a woman gives birth, and through the process that occurs if a person or house has contracted Tzara’at, a skin condition inaccurately but all too commonly translated as leprosy. We don’t know what Tzara’at was. Many traditional commentators have taught that a person contracted tzara’at owing to gossip, which lead to a significant conversation about lashon harah, or negative speech. One of the most prominent teachers in this arena was the Chofetz Chaim. In recent years, a discussion in Jewish Feminist circles has arisen around lashon harah and how the traditional ideas of what is considered negative speech are at best incomplete and ought to be open for continued evolution.
Our parshiyot this week also point to the challenges that we have all become intimately familiar with—issues of quarantining, diagnosis, treatment, isolation and reentry. How long does a person who has contracted tzara’at need to remain outside the camp in the Torah’s words? Though the Torah’s language is dry and technical at best, the text is grappling with an issue our world has been facing for the better part of a year, with all of the inequities and challenges present. The priest was, in a sense, the ritual/medical expert, and it was he who determined whether a given individual was infected or had recovered.
For many years reading these parshiyot, I would gloss over the minutia, taking comfort in the spiritual explanations. Tzara’at occurs when we are out of alignment with The Divine, it is a matter of spiritual significance and not necessarily one of physical and tangible stigma. In light of COVID-19 and the trauma we are all holding, those readings ring hollow at best and feel utterly out of touch with the raw human experience of this year at worst. This is yet another example of what I have come to internalize this year—there is just so much of human experience we do not fully understand until we’ve lived it. This is not to say that we shouldn’t always strengthen and stretch our empathy muscles and strive to understand what is beyond our own spheres. What it does mean is that there is a difference between understanding something intellectually and knowing it viscerally. It becomes part of our embodied experiences and lives within us always.
It is easy to read a text like this and feel that it is yet another example of the ways in which the Torah is not aligned with our experiences and lives today. That was then, this is now. The very idea of priests assuming any degree of medical expertise, for example, feels absolutely absurd. Yet, as was mentioned in a recent article on clergy burnout, the spiritual toll of this year is intense, multifaceted and long-term. Today’s rabbis, priests, ministers, cantors and others aren’t making ritual or medical determinations, but are bearing the burdens of conducting multiple funerals a week, holding the needs of traumatized communities all the while their primary and secondary trauma goes unacknowledged and increases, and are making painfully difficult decisions about reopening, capacity and who can enter the sacred sanctuary of the synagogue or other house of worship and for what purpose.
We are not calling out “unclean, unclean!” to our neighborhoods as is noted in the Torah. Yet, we are taking necessary and crucially important safety precautions to ensure that we don’t spread this terrible, deadly virus. And too many of us are not heeding these precautions, which is making the pandemic that much harder to come out of. Some of us are experiencing increasing freedom, able to safely gather. Others have yet to gain access to the vaccine. Some of us are podded with people who hold stricter interpretations of safety than we do. Others of us are struggling to communicate how important, how real this virus is, even after a year of deadly pandemic. We are all faced with the very ancient problem of plague and how to contain and stop it.
Our Torah’s context is quite removed from our contemporary one. Yet, the multifaceted ethical and ritual challenges it presents are utterly contemporaneous with our lived experience. We can take much from this—about what to do, about what not to do, about how to mitigate risk and cause the least amount of harm, and also how to call the tradition into a richer understanding of equity, safety and holiness.