And The Seeds That Were Silent All Burst Into Bloom And Decay (Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia - "Eyes Of The World")

          With the conclusion of Passover and the return of our house to normal, I find myself constantly referring to the Jewish Calendar.  Besides counting the Omer every evening since the second night of Pesach, I start checking the calendar because a new Jewish month begins shortly. I check the calendar because this week the Jewish people commemorated Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. Next week, Israel will observe Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) and Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Independence Day). I recently conducted a funeral for a Holocaust survivor. The woman died alone. She had no surviving family members. She never married, never had children. She lived with her sister and when the sister passed away she went into an old age home. The lawyer who looked after her estate explained this to me. Normally, I would meet with the family and ask all kinds of questions in order to get to know the story and the life of the deceased. The silence occurs after the family has shared numerous details about the life of their loved one and that silence is the silence of quiet peaceful pleasant memory. For the funeral of this Holocaust survivor, there was only the silence of an elderly woman’s life and an even more resounding silence in her death. There was no one to tell me about her life nor her death. Rather there was only silence.

          This morning we read from Parsha Shemini. The Parsha is comprised of chapters 9,10, and 11 of Sefer Vayikra. In the first chapter of the Parsha, Aaron has now been separated from the camp, and the people for 7 days. He has now become spiritually pure to make offerings on behalf of the people to God. He now makes the first public offering on behalf of the people and God accepts it. The second chapter is a narrative that tells us about Aaron’s two eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu. They want to approach godlike their father did, however, they are not spiritually ready. They offer “strange fire”, and are immediately killed.  Moshe instructs Aaron and his two surviving sons about the appropriate behavior that is necessary when making offerings on behalf of the people. The third chapter of the Parsha discusses all the animals that are permitted and prohibited under the laws of Kashrut.

        Upon the death of Nadav and Avihu, Moshe has to tell his brother Aaron of his son’s death.  Vayomer Moshe El Aharon Hu Asher Diber Adoshem Leimor Bikrovai Ekadesh V’Al P’nei Chol Ha’Am Ekaveid – Moshe said to Aaron: “Of this did God speak, I will be sanctified through those who are closest to me, thus I will be honored by this entire people.” (Lev. 10:3) In as touching and humane a manner as one will ever read, Moshe tells Aaron that his sons have gone to God. Aharon’s response is silence. Vayidom Aharon – and Aaron was silent (Lev. 10:3). He didn’t cry out, he didn’t protest, but rather remained silent. Ramban, the 13th century Spanish Torah commentator explains that prior to Moshe’s words of comfort, Aharon had been weeping loudly. Moshe’s words of consolation calmed Aharon and he became silent. Aharon’s weeping was not only because he discovered that two of his sons had died but he was unable to make sense of the senseless. Parents aren’t supposed to bury children.  Aharon’s silence was not the silence of indifference, nor the silence of emotional shock. Aharon’s silence was the silence of acceptance.  He accepted Moshe’s words and God’s actions. Aharon’s silence indicated that he was able to make sense out of something that seemed senseless. When his sons died, there was someone to weep for them and there was someone to give meaning to their lives and to their deaths. Only in the aftermath of ascribing meaning to his sons' lives and his sons' deaths were Aharon capable of silence. Only then could Aharon listen to Moshe speak to his remaining two sons as to the appropriate manner in which he and his sons, given their stature and role within the community, must conduct their lives.  

          For the funeral of the Holocaust survivor, there was only silence because no one was able to tell me about this woman’s life nor death. I couldn’t help but think about the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Jews whose deaths were greeted with silence because there was no one to talk about their lives, their deeds, their stories. This was not the silence of a pleasant memory after the memories have been shared. Nor the acceptance of death because that person’s life made sense.  Instead, there was only the silence of not accepting the unacceptable nor trying to make sense out of the senseless. 

Peace,

Rav Yitz

The Dark Side Hires Another Soul ( Gerrit Graham & Bob Weir - "Victim Or The Crime")

One of the unique things about the shul for which I serve is the fact that it is a spiritual home to many Holocaust survivors and their children. Survivors essentially built the synagogue and placing it in a Toronto neighborhood that had been known as a neighbor populated by survivors. Earlier this week, the Jewish People commemorated Yom Hashoa (Holocaust Memorial Day) with a simple candle light vigil in the Synagogue’s memorial garden dedicated to the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust. As my children and I held our own flickering candles with approximately 100 other congregants, as memorial prayers were recited and the mourner’s Kaddish was said, I found myself looking at my children and thinking about what was happening in Europe. Throughout the day, the French people were going to the polls and voting. Normally, I don’t pay such close attention to European elections. However, in France, one of the candidates Marine Le Pen, who will now be in a run off later in June gave me pause to think about the rise of Nazi Germany, the rise of fear, populism and hatred.  Marine Le Pen is the leader of the National Front Party. It is highly nationalistic, highly populist, it is anti-immigrant, and it is extremely right wing. It is also reminiscent of the rise of a similar political party during difficult economic and political times in post WWI Germany. Despite being so many decades removed from the Shoah, the seeds of hate, ignorance, and intolerance infect so many souls in Europe and North America.

This week we combine two Parshiot: Tazriah and Metzorah. God tells Moshe the laws of purity and impurity as it relates to birth. God instructs Moshe about the appropriate korbanot (sacrifices) that a mother should make as she re-enters the camp. God also instructs Moshe about Tza'arat, or for lack of a good translation; leprosy. Throughout the rest of Tazria and Metzora, we are told all about Tzaarat. We are told what it is. We are told how it is diagnosed. We are told how it is treated. We are told how it spreads. We are told what to do in case it spreads.

 Basically, Tazriah is a type of Tza'arat, a type of skin ailment which is commonly thought of as leprosy. However this skin ailment is not treated by the resident dermatologist. Even if they had dermatologists in the Torah, we would not bring someone suffering from Tazriah to the dermatologists. Why? The skin ailment was not a symptom of any type of physical malady. Since the person with the skin ailment appears before the Priest, the Kohen, we know that the skin condition must be spiritual malady and not a physical one. Adam Ki Yiheyeh V'Or B'Saro S'Eit O Sapachat O Va'Heret V'Hayah V; Or B'Saroh L'Negah Tzara'at V'Huvah El Aharon H'Kohen O el Achad Mi'Banav Ha'Kohanim - If a person will have on the sin of his flesh a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration and it will become a scaly affliction on the skin of his flesh; he shall be brought to Aaron the Kohen, or to one of his sons the Kohanim (Lev. 13:2-3). The rest of the Parsha teaches us the appropriate protocol for treatment. The Kohen checks again to determine if that person has become ritually impure. If so, they must be sent out of the camp in order to avoid the risk of the skin ailment spreading to others. The quarantine would last for seven days. Afterwards, the Priest would check again, if there was no contamination the person was brought back into the camp, However if the contamination remained, then the quarantine would continue for another seven days. Then the process would begin all over again. We also learn that if this contamination spread to the clothes or vessels; then everything would be burned and destroyed.

In the Talmudic Tractate of Arichin, which primarily focuses upon the laws of valuations; we learn that the skin ailment is a punishment for the sins of bloodshed, false oaths, sexual immorality, pride, robbery, and selfishness (Arichin 16a). All of these physical occurrences are accompanied by a spiritual component. These occurrences all demonstrate the offender's failure to empathize with the needs of others. It is fascinating to think that in an ideal community, we are not only concerned with our own well-being. We should also be concerned about others as well. Our failure to do so leads to a spiritual sickness including: petty jealousy, alienation, and a further erosion of community and society. All of which diminish the holiness within the individual and the holiness within the community. By removing the contaminated offender from the community two positive results occur. First the welfare, integrity and holiness of the community is spared from spiritual sickness. This is the primary concern since we fear that God will cease dwelling in a community that becomes spiritually sickened or spiritually dysfunctional. The second positive result is that the contaminated offender has experienced the isolation and concern from others. This is exactly what he/she wrought upon the community with such behavior.

            Certainly we can understand how emotions can affect ones physical well-being. The Torah reminds us that our spiritual shortcomings can also affect our physical well-being.  Our psychological well-being, our spiritual well-being, and our physical well-being, according to Tazriah/Metzorah must reflect life. Just as important, we need to have life affirming rituals that we can engage in when we are confronted with things that threat our life affirming existence. So watching my children, hold flickering candles, commemorating the Holocaust, standing with a hundred other people in a garden dedicated to children reaffirmed my faith in humanity. It reaffirmed my belief that the human soul desires light, goodness and purity, as opposed to darkness, evil and impurity. Each act of kindness, each Jewish ritual, each act of remembering reminds me and my children who ultimately won the War and who will ultimately not only survive but thrive in the future; those that strive towards Kedusha (holiness) and Chesed (kindness).

Peace,

Rav Yitz

But when things go wrong, wrong with you; It hurts me too (Elmore James -" It Hurts Me Too)

Each night, when family sits down to dinner, I insist that we listen to the news. I insist on this for several reasons. First, I want my children to be aware of what is going on in the world around them. Second, I want my kids to be intellectually stimulated to ask questions about what is going on in the world. Finally I hope they will find relevance between what they learn in school with what they hear on the news. With the news on, we get to discuss all kinds of issues including the events that continue to embroil the Middle East. So the other evening, as we are listening to the news  and heard about six young men from Minnesota, all of Somali descent were charged with terrorism as they were caught trying to leave the U.S. and join ISIS. Each of our children wondered how anyone could become so filled with hate that they would join ISIS. As our kids watched the news and heard about the verdict in the case of the Boston Marathon Bomber, again, they wondered how someone could become filled with so much hate that they behave like that. Then our children attended the community Yom HaShoah commemoration. One of our daughters was asked to escort one of the survivors to light one of the 6 candles that symbolize the six million Jews. The woman along with the other 5 honorees, shared their stories. Again my kids wondered how people could become so filled with hate that six million Jews were systematically wiped out. This time they were able to answer themselves. People can become infected with hate and evil in a variety of ways: including ignorance, prejudice, alienation, and numerous other reasons for hate and evil to infect one’s soul.

This week we combine two Parshiot: Tazriah and Metzorah. God tells Moshe the laws of purity and impurity as it relates to birth. God instructs Moshe about the appropriate korbanot (sacrifices) that a mother should make as she re-enters the camp. God also instructs Moshe about Tza'arat, or for lack of a good translation; leprosy. Throughout the rest of Tazria and Metzora, we are told all about Tzaarat. We are told what it is. We are told how it is diagnosed. We are told how it is treated. We are told how it spreads. We are told what to do in case it spreads.

 Basically, Tazriah is a type of Tza'arat, a type of skin ailment which is commonly thought of as leprosy. However this skin ailment is not treated by the resident dermatologist. Even if they had dermatologists in the Torah, we would not bring someone suffering from Tazriah to the dermatologists. Why? The skin ailment was not a symptom of any type of physical malady. Since the person with the skin ailment appears before the Priest, the Kohen, we know that the skin condition must be spiritual malady and not a physical one. Adam Ki Yiheyeh V'Or B'Saro S'Eit O Sapachat O Va'Heret V'Hayah V;Or B'Saroh L'Negah Tzara'at V'Huvah El Aharon H'Kohen O el Achad Mi'Banav Ha'Kohanim - If a person will have on the skin of his flesh a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration and it will become a scaly affliction on the skin of his flesh; he shall be brought to Aaron the Kohen, or to one of his sons the Kohanim (Lev. 13:2-3). The rest of the Parsha teaches us the appropriate protocol for treatment. The Kohen checks again to determine if that person has become ritually impure. If so, they must be sent out of the camp in order to avoid the risk of the skin ailment spreading to others. The quarantine would last for seven days. Afterwards, the Priest would check again, if there was no contamination the person was brought back into the camp, However if the contamination remained, then the quarantine would continue for another seven days. Then the process would begin all over again. We also learn that if this contamination spread to the clothes or vessels; then everything would be burned and destroyed.

While we know that this skin ailment is caused by a spiritual malady, and we learned how to treat the malady, Torah does not tell us the cause of the spiritual malady. For anyone who has ever suffered from an ulcer understands that emotional stress causes physical ailments. Anyone who has suffered from depression understands that emotional stress causes physical ailments such as low energy, lack of sleep etc. So what spiritual sickness that exhibits physical ailments do we learn from the Book of Leviticus? On one hand the Book of Leviticus concerns with the ritual slaughter and laws of the Tabernacle. On the other hand, these laws are based upon the ethical behavior which must exists within human relationships and in our relationship with God. In the Talmudic Tractate of Arichin, which primarily focuses upon the laws of valuations; we learn that the skin ailment is a punishment for the sins of bloodshed, false oaths, sexual immorality, pride, robbery, and selfishness (Talmudic Tractate Arichin 16a). All of these physical occurrences have a spiritual aspect. These occurrences all demonstrate the offender's failure to empathize with the needs of others. It is fascinating to think that in an ideal community, we are not only concerned with our own well-being. We should also be concerned about others as well. Our failure to do so leads to a spiritual sickness. It leads to an artificial sense of self-importance, it leads to a sense of entitlement, it leads to a petty jealousy, it leads to the alienation of others and it eventually leads to erosion of community and society. By removing the contaminated offender from the community two positive results occur. First the welfare, integrity and holiness of the community is spared from spiritual sickness. This is the primary concern since we fear that God will cease dwelling in a community that becomes spiritually sickened or spiritually dysfunctional. The second positive result is that the contaminated offender has experienced the isolation and concern from others. This is exactly what he/she wrought upon the community with such behavior.

            Certainly we can understand how emotions can affect ones physical well-being. The Torah reminds us that our spiritual shortcomings can also affect our physical well-being.  Our psychological well-being, our spiritual well-being, and our physical well-being, according to Tazriah/Metzorah must reflect life. Just as important, we need to have life affirming rituals that we can engage in when we are confronted with things that threat our life affirming existence. We eliminated impurity. We don’t eliminate the person.

Peace,

Rav Yitz