Our youngest daughter will turn 19 this Shabbat. On this particular year, her secular birthday and her Hebrew birthday fall on the same day. However, this year, because she is in Israel, we won’t be able to celebrate her birthday with her. However, I am willing to bet that we will miss celebrating her birthday with her more than she will miss celebrating her birthday with her parents. Of our four children, she is the most blonde, the most artistic, and appreciates the creative process that art embodies. Her Jerusalem apartment is adorned with her paintings. When we packed her year in Israel, she insisted on bringing paint, brushes and small canvases. She finds the creative process of painting cathartic and soothing. She is the daughter who could spend hours looking at fashion and home design magazines, appreciating the colors, lines, and shapes. Certainly, she has an affinity for the physical realm. Ironically, she is not at all superficial nor is she mesmerized and awed by physical beauty and “perfection”. On the contrary, her eye is drawn to that which is interesting: the juxtaposition of color, shade, light, lines, and shapes. When her two older sisters and younger brother comment that my white beard makes me look much older; our 19-year-old notices my white beard in the context of the wrinkles around my eyes when smiling or squinting. She is the daughter that sees the wrinkles and the “youthfulness” in my eyes and comments on that juxtaposition. Because of her artistic eye, she is able to find beauty everywhere. Interestingly enough, my grandmother for whom our daughter is named also had a similar “artistic” eye.
This Shabbat we read from Parshat Emor. The four chapters that comprise Parsha Emor focus on the various aspects of Perfection. First, the Torah focuses upon the importance of the spiritual perfection and purity of the Kohen. He must remain in a perpetual state of purity. He is restricted in terms of whom he can marry. He is restricted for whom he can mourn. He cannot go to a cemetery. He cannot make sacrificial offerings if he has physical abnormalities. The second of the four chapters reminds B’nai Yisroel that when approaching God with an offering, the individual must be spiritually pure and perfect and so must the offering. These offerings must come directly from the individual making them and not from “the hand of a stranger” (Lev.22:25). The third chapter of the Parsha deals with the perfection and the purity of time. Time is perfect; each season follows another in order, the holidays such as Shabbat, Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur are designated to come in a particular order. That order is both pure and perfect since time and the designation of “Sacred” time comes from God. The fourth chapter speaks about maintaining purity and the perfection of physical space in this case the Mishkan, and all that is in the Mishkan. The Torah even deals with the perfection and purity of human relationships and the punishments meted out when that perfection, purity, and holiness are violated. In a sense, this last chapter reminds us of God’s charge to B’nai Yisroel.
The Torah places an emphasis upon the physical appearance of the Kohen as it relates to his spiritual purity and eligibility of serving as the Kohen Gadol. The last eight verses (21:16-24) explain all the physical abnormalities that exclude the Kohen from assuming the position of Kohen Gadol. Blemishes, blindness, being lame, having any broken bones, bad skin, abnormally long eyebrows, a blemish in his eyed, are but a few of the physical attributes that make a Kohen ineligible for the position of Kohen Gadol. How can the Torah, with its primary focus upon Mitzvot (commandments) and the importance of deeds and the Kavanah, the intentionality behind those deeds, now focus upon something as superficial as appearance? Sefer HaChinuch, a 13th-century halachic texts that lists and comments on each of the 613 commandments in the order in which they appear in the Torah, comments: “At the root of the precept lies the reason that most actions of people are acceptable, appealing to the heart of those who see them, in accordance with the eminence of those who do them. For when a man is distinguished in his appearance and good in his actions, he will find grace and good understanding (Prov. 3:4). With all that he does in the eyes of all who observe him. Should he be, however the opposite of this- inferior in his form, or peculiar in his limbs then even if he is correct in his ways, his activities will not be so attractive to the heart…” (Emor 275). As upsetting and politically incorrect as that sounds, the comment and the Torah text infer a keen understanding of human nature. While watching the physically flawed Kohen conducting the ritual slaughtering in a perfectly correct manner; our attention would be upon a perceived flaw in appearance or perceived imperfection. As a result, our Kavanah - our intention concerning our sacrificial offering would be lacking and the sacrificial process would fail.
We are now thousands of years removed from a Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple), the institutions of sacrificial offerings, and a Priestly class. The Beit HaMikdash has been replaced by Synagogues, shteibles, or wherever a community gathers to pray. Sacrificial offerings have been replaced by the words and music of prayer. The community no longer relies upon the Kohanim to serve as a conduit between it and God. Rather, the person leading the community in prayer and the community itself connects to God. Over thousands of years, there has been a spiritual maturing of God’s children. While the physical characteristic of a person may have once appeared like a flaw or an imperfection to spiritually immature eyes, now those perceived flaws and perceived imperfections are sources for interest and wonderment as we recognize that we are created in God’s image. As a result of mankind’s spiritual maturation, what had once been a physical “imperfection” is now viewed as part of the panoramic display of God’s presence. So as my wife and I look at pictures of our daughter on her birthday, I think about how our daughter sees the world, sees colors, light, lines, and shapes. May she continue maturing into a confident, thoughtful, intelligent free spirit who can still see the youthfulness in my eyes despite my white beard and wrinkles around my eyes. May she continue to find beauty in the world.
Rav Yitz
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