May Day!!

Today is May 1st! Do you remember May Day celebrations growing up? When I was in college there was a tradition to dance around the May Pole. We celebrated spring and the upcoming graduating class, with talk about labor rights woven in somehow. Oh, and it was also part of the tradition to eat strawberry shortcake. I went to a small women’s college – don’t ask

According to Wikipedia, “May Day is a public holiday usually celebrated on 1 May or the first Monday of May. It is an ancient festival of Spring and a current traditional spring holiday in many European cultures. Dances, singing, and cake are usually part of the festivities. In the late 19th century, May Day was chosen as the date for International Workers' Day.”   

Ok, granted May Day is grounded in pagan origins, but any excuse to party about now is a good one  – be it May Day and the advent of spring and good weather;  alternative celebrations for all the graduates whose hopes and plans for a regular graduation have been dashed; a family lifecycle event like birthday or anniversary; or even the fact that we are trekking our way through the wilderness to receive the Torah and become a people.

We are currently observing the Omer, the 7 weeks between Passover and Shavout. It is a serious time, it is also a time of joy. Joy of survival, of going from slavery to freedom, of recognizing our relationship with God, of being able to form sustainable relationships with others.

Our Torah portions for this week (Acharei Mot-Kedoshim, Lev 16:1-20:27) and the weeks ahead are in a portion of the book of Leviticus that is all about being holy. What does it mean to be holy? It means to emulate God’s attributes in this world: to be kind, gracious, caring, thoughtful, creative, in relationship, among other things.

We need that reminder of God’s attributes right about now. We need to remember that God’s attributes, godliness, can be found within each of us. It’s in times like this that we have to dig deep and get creative as we try to remember what it means to be normal in times that are anything but.

So make a phone call, take a walk and wave at strangers, write poetry or a song, find and feel joy as often as you are able. For gam zeh ya’avor – this too shall pass.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbah Arlene

Why Holiness Isn't Boring

Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim  

      

         I used to think that reading about holiness in Leviticus was rather boring. That changed when I was able to reframe my relationship with the text after an in depth study of the first few sentences of chapter 19, also known as the holiness code.  

In Leviticus19:2 God tells Moshe: “Speak to the whole  Israelite community (kol adat) and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, your God am holy.” 

So what’s unusual here? We’re used to God telling Moshe to speak to the people of Israel but not to the whole Israelite community. That’s new. That’s inclusive – men, women, and children– everyone is included in the term community. 

Biblical scholar Jacob Milgrom writes that this is the only place in Leviticus where the term eda occurs in what he called a commission speech - a speech with instructions that are to be heard by every responsible Israelite – and that’s enough to show its importance. 

Other commission speeches containing eda (another form of adat) occur in two places in Exodus: one regarding the preparation of the paschal sacrifice (Exodus 12:3) and another for assembling the building materials for the tabernacle (Exodus 35:1).

Milgrom goes on to say that the word eda “unambiguously means the entire people Israel … Its unique placement here underscores the importance of the prescriptions that follow: they are quintessentially the means by which Israel can become a holy nation.”

         The verse continues: “...and you, Moshe, will say to them, you [second person plural] shall be holy, for I, Adonai Your God, am holy.” 

         So why are we to be holy? Because God is holy. Yes, but what does that mean? We already know that the command to holiness for the people Israel is an inclusive one because it is being given to everyone. And the commandments that come after, commandments that tell us how to behave in order to be holy – to keep Shabbat, to honor one’s parent, tonnot worship idols– are given to us as a group.  The verbs that are used are in the plural.

One might think that such important commandments would be addressed in the singular to one person at a time, or if in the plural, than to small groups of people, not to everyone all at once.  Research suggests that the commandments are written this way to show that any Jew can attain the highest principles of Judaism, can observe the mitzvot and strive for daily holiness – that’s nicely egalitarian.               

         There are commandments that do use singualar verbs. One should note that those with singular verbs are specifically actions between people (bein adam l’chavero) whereas the actions with the plural verbs are related to actions that reflect on God (bein adam l’makom).

         In the commandment to be holy because our God is holy, the verb used is t’hiyu, which means, “you [in the plural] will be.”

         One way to emulate God is to be holy like God. How? We act in holy ways by fulfilling mitzvot that encourage godliness to the world. Our parasha brings us a little closer to figuring out how to do that – through inclusion and equality and the equal opportunity commission of mitzvot.

          

 Note: 

This dvar appears in the May 4, 2017 edition of the Washington Jewish Week. But it's based on a dvar I wrote years ago in Rabbinical School about holiness. I was prompted to revisit that dvar because of all the turmoil going on in the world today. Particularly in our country, in our government. 

I think it's important for us all to remember that we are put here to emulate the Awesome One Above through bringing acts of holiness into the world. Particularly in the face of insanity. And hopelessness. And craziness. It's the only way we can keep our own sanity and hope and integrity. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbah Arlene

     

       

        

Maybe a friend, maybe a stranger, or maybe both?

TORAH PARSHIOT ACHAREI MOT (Leviticus 16:1-18:30)  AND EMOR  (Leviticus 21:1-24:23)

Maybe a friend, maybe a stranger, maybe both?

         We are in the middle of a section of the Torah known as the Holiness Code (Lev. 17-26), so-called because the word holy in its many forms is repeated with great frequency.  These chapters delineate in often excruciating detail codes of behavior, for the Israelite, for the priests, and for the community as a whole. The behavior encompasses not only how we physically act but also our speech and thought patterns.

         There are two verses, however, that I would like to highlight. The first is from last week’s parsha Leviticus 19:18b. V’ahavta et re’acha kamocha, ani Adonai.   ...but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am Adonai.

         The second is from this week’s parsha, Emor Lev 24:22: Mishpat echad yihiyeh lachem, ka-ger ka-ezrach yihiyeh. Ki, Ani Adonai Elohehem

You shall have one law for the stranger or native alike. I am the Lord your G-d.

         Together they provide a framework to guide our days, our behaviors and even our thoughts. Who is this “re’acha” mentioned in Lev 19:18? According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, Re’ah (the root resh-ayin) is defined as friend, companion, or fellow. The friend can be either an intimate friend or another person with whom one stands in reciprocal relations. Many meanings for a simple two-letter word! But it is exactly these contradictory meanings that give our verse so much depth. Loving  your re’ah as yourself is a very easy directive to understand if we hold that re’ah means someone who is close to us. But what if we interpret re’ah differently? Are we to love someone who, in the grand scheme of things, really doesn’t mean anything to us in a deep emotional way?

         That’s where the verse in Emor comes in. There is only one law for the stranger and native alike, there is no differentiation. The principle of fair and equal treatment of the stranger (ger) is mentioned over 36 times in the Torah, more than keeping Shabbat! Today’s news as well as ancient history provide ample examples of the chaos and disorder that occurs when one group of people is discriminated against in any given society.

         So who is our re’ah and who is our ger? If we are to love our re’ah as ourselves and, at the same time, treat the stranger and citizen alike – how do we define our terms?, How do we know who is our friend and who is to be considered a stranger?     Some define stranger as the other, but for many, the word stranger means someone who looks or acts differently than ourselves.

         The beautiful thing about our ability to interpret Torah anew in each and every generation is that the Torah stays alive with any individual who reads it. We refresh and renew the Torah each time we grapple with its words and apply them to our daily lives.

         Today, I choose to interpret the word Re’ah as both intimate and casual friend, as both a fellow-citizen with whom one has a cordial relationship and as the stranger who lives among us.  Why? The answer is in the end to both verses – Ani Adonai, I am Adonai. I am your God. 

         Then our first verse, and the verse from Emor admonishing us to have one law for stranger and native alike, both end by reminding us that we are doing this because Adonai is our God. To me this reminds us that we are all  –  friend, native, stranger – created in God’s image and therefore all are alike. It doesn’t matter what color we are, where we are from or if we speak with an accent. We are all created equally and viewed equally by God. Therefore, how we treat each other matters. How we judge each other matters. How we conduct the business of living in community matters a great deal. We are all God’s children and must act accordingly.

Torah Talk: 

1. The full verse in Lev. 19 reads: “Do not judge and do not hold onto a grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love [your] “re’acha” as yourself.” How do you interpret the first part of this verse in relation to the second?

2. Can you think of examples in your daily life to which this verse as well as the one from Emor “You shall have one law for the stranger or native alike. I am the Lord your G-d,” apply to your daily life?

A similar version of this post was originally published in The Washington Jewish Week, May 7, 2015.