Tazria-Metzora: There's Nothing New Under the Sun...

Did you see my title for this blog post? Are you familiar with that quote? My good friend and congregant, Ruth Kaplan, and I like to quote this line back to one another.

It comes from the Book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, verse 9. I've written about Ecclesiastes before (and likely will again), but the main reason I'm mentioning it here is because Ecclesiastes basically says, "people think whatever they are going through is new, radical, amazing, unique, and wholly & completely one-of-a-kind." "No," responds Ecclesiastes; "everything has happened before, all of existence is cyclical... and there's nothing new under the sun." And this week's Torah portion reminds us that even the coronavirus and COVID-19, which we imagine(d) was SO unprecedented and unthinkable before now, has actually also been seen before. There really is nothing new taking place here on earth.

We get distracted though, don't we? The pattern of this virus, its origin, its scope, and the repercussions on our individual and collective lives feel so new TO US that we are tempted to say there has never been ANYTHING like this ever before.

And ok, our Torah doesn't know "coronavirus" per se, but this week we are reading about how diseases impact the individual AND how they impact the community. Our parashah talks about skin diseases, known as Tzara'at, and various discolorations on people's bodies, but also similar discolorations on their clothing and even on their homes. Sounds weird... until you think about our similar concerns about the virus "living" on clothing and surfaces, and these too then become sources of concern and contagion. The Torah also talks about periods of quarantine following illness, which - of course - feels a little too "on the nose" right now as well.

As if all of these "subtle" connections between ancient skin disease and modern-day pandemic weren't enough, I then found myself stuck on one particular (and truly eerie...) verse. The Torah informs us: "As for the person with a leprous affection, his clothes

shall be rent, his head shall be left bare, and he shall cover over his upper lip; and he shall call out, 'Impure! Impure!'" (13:45) You might have thought I wanted to comment on the last part, where the person needs to shout aloud "Impure! Impure!" No, that isn't actually what I wanted to focus on, but it IS interesting to note that the affected person is implored NOT to let shame take over, and allow it to silence them. We - the community - NEED to know who is affected; without judgment, without blame, and without accusations. For the good of the community, this information MUST be public... but that also requires us all to resist finger-pointing and public shaming. Diseases and positive tests simply ARE; we don't have to compound their damaging effects by adding humiliation on top.

No, that wasn't what I wanted to focus on, actually. I was curious about the phrase, "cover over his upper lip." What might that have meant?? I searched through a number of commentaries, and soon found this statement by the 12th Century Spanish rabbi, Abraham Ibn Ezra: "he shall cover with his garments. The point is that he should not infect others with his breath."

Ummm... does anyone else find it creepy that a rabbi writing 800 years ago seems to be describing using a cloth face mask to cover over one's mouth and nose... so as not to infect anyone else with his/her breath?? What I'm simply trying to say is, while this pandemic is indeed new to all of us, and feels earth-shatteringly novel and unimaginable; people living "under the sun" have dealt with plague and risk of transmission before. It may feel unsettling to acknowledge this, but I hope it is also oddly comforting, to know we've endured hardship and uncertainty before, and we can weather the storm yet again. The texts of our tradition, and the Sages who came before us, may indeed have thoughts to offer us on how to manage in these unfamiliar times. Admitting that this too fits into Ecclesiastes' broad statement can help us gain perspective and be a bit more level-headed. And then we keep on taking it one day at a time; all of us here toiling together... under the same sun.


CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. pexels.com
2. Colonel Warden on Wikipedia
3. Michael Hofner on Wikipedia
4. Mikayla Heineck on US Airforce Website "Team McChord"

Shemini: A Kosher Scroll, Waiting For Its Big Moment

Shabbat Shalom, everyone. I want to share with you a thought and a recent memory, not so much related to this week’s Torah portion, but to what WOULD HAVE been happening at Ohev Shalom this Shabbat. Many of you already knew this, but tomorrow morning, Saturday's service was going to be our annual Lostice Shabbat. This is the day we acknowledge and celebrate a Torah scroll that is in our ark, which is over 200 years old and survived the horrors of the Holocaust, despite the destruction of its home in the small town of Lostice, in Czechoslovakia. This year was going to be a most SPECIAL occasion, because we were recently able to have the entire scroll corrected, so that it is once again "Kosher," meaning usable for Torah reading in services. The Lostice Torah hasn't been used since World War II. It sat for two decades in a warehouse in Prague, followed by another decade-plus in storage in London, then it spent 40 years at Ohev Shalom, waiting to become Kosher once again. But, like everything else these days, the coronavirus dashed our plans.

Of course, we are disappointed. Well-over a hundred congregants came over two Sundays to hold the Sofer, the scribe's hand and thereby "write" a letter and fulfill the 613th commandment of the Torah. We've talked about it for years. We've learned about Lostice and taken on their story as our own. We've said their prayers; we've chanted Kaddish in their memory. This IS disappointing. And yet, I feel this is also a vital metaphor for our lives in quarantine right now, in another most powerful and crucial way. Some things simply do not die. The virus may postpone our plans, and we are genuinely afraid for our lives, our health, and our financial well-being at this time. But we WILL emerge on the other side. Community, ritual, tradition, and memory; these are immortal concepts, and the Lostice Torah embodies these. The correcting has been done. It IS a Kosher scroll. So even while we are disappointed, and won't be chanting from it this weekend, it is only a matter of time before we "leyn" from it again. Even in our disappointment; we can indeed be patient.

And now, my memory: Another group that is pretty disappointed right now is my Adult Bat Mitzvah class. Their celebration wasn't taking place until May 2nd, and will now be held as a Zoom service, but they were also hoping to take the Lostice Scroll out of the ark and include it in our celebration. And now, we cannot. But in those last couple of weeks before COVID-19 separated us all from one another, our Bat Mitzvah class was practicing reading Torah in the Main Sanctuary. And everyone got a chance to do their aliyah from the Lostice Scroll. Even in an empty sanctuary, during a "dry run," it was meaningful to everyone to read from it. Standing on that bimah, crowded together around the Lostice Torah with these amazing women, I didn't just feel THEIR excitement about the Bat Mitzvah and reading from this scroll... I felt ITS excitement too.

I know that sounds ridiculous. The Lostice Scroll doesn't feel emotion, and certainly doesn't express them to me. But nevertheless, I stood there, holding one of its rollers, with a whole group of Jews preparing to chant from this FULLY-Kosher scroll - possibly for the first time in 70 years, and who knows how much longer since it was last checked, cleaned, and corrected?? Someone tried to destroy it once. Someone else neglected it in Prague, then someone else tried to triage its wounds in London, and someone else gave it a place of honor - but isolation - at Ohev. I felt SOMETHING that night. The excitement and sheer joy of a scroll that only ever wanted to be read from, to be holy again. To have people crowd around it, hold its rollers, point (gently...) into it with a yad, and read aloud its ancient text. So yeah, we ALL are disappointed it won't happen tomorrow morning. But you know what? It has waited 70 years for this moment, and even the Lostice Scroll can be a little more patient. Quarantine or no quarantine; it - and we - are still Kosher and eager to get back to celebrating our traditions!

Shabbat Shalom

Tzav: To Thine Own (REAL) Self Be True

"To thine own self be true." I imagine you're already familiar with this famous expression, coined by William Shakespeare, in his play, "Hamlet." And, like any good Biblical quote or other concept worth pondering, it can be interpreted in many, many
ways. Take a moment and decide for yourself what YOU believe it to mean. Maybe even write it down, so you can compare it to my definition, and perhaps to anyone else's, if they choose to share in the comment section below. I will say this: I think it's sometimes used to justify behaviors that prioritize one's own needs over others. "Hey, Shakespeare told me - I gotta take care of 'Numero Uno' before worrying about others!" I doubt this will surprise you, but I don't agree with that reading of it. And I think our Haftarah this week - meant specifically to prepare us for Passover, which is beginning in just a few days - has something to say about all this as well.

It is tempting to embrace individualism. You can quote the ancient Jewish sage, Hillel (out of context, mind you...), and say: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?"

That is to say: "It is a harsh world out there; everyone ELSE is focusing on themselves and their own needs, so I'd be a sap NOT TO take care of myself first and foremost!" But then, every once in a while, we get a rude awakening, and realize our lives are indeed interconnected with all others around us. We need THEM to be healthy to keep ourselves and our families healthy. We need the grocery store workers, trash collectors, and mail carriers to keep doing their jobs, or our lives would grind (even more!) to a halt. One interpretation of Polonius' quote from Hamlet that I really like suggested that you have to be secure financially FIRST, but then you also need to turn and help others. Yes, you need to be safe and stable, but the very fact of your having enough, that actually directly OBLIGATES you to assist others in receiving those same (or similar) benefits. Hmmm... I'm not sure everyone agrees with that idea.

Enter the Haftarah for this Shabbat. The prophet Malachi challenges the people to examine their own actions and priorities. Yes, you have told yourself that what you're doing is right and good. And you've convinced yourselves that your behavior is fine; after all, you are being "true" to yourself and your own needs. But, says Malachi, it is

a lie: You can tell yourself whatever story you want, but God isn't fooled... and frankly, it's time you stop fooling yourselves. I'm paraphrasing, yes, but here is Malachi's fabulously sharp indictment of the people: "Turn back to Me, and I will turn back to you—said the LORD of Hosts. But you ask, 'How shall we turn back?' Ought man to defraud God? Yet you are defrauding Me! And you ask, 'How have we been defrauding You?' In tithe and contribution." (3:7-8) I love Malachi's use of the Socratic method here! You, treacherous people, you say to yourselves, "But we don't know how to turn back! We don't know how to repent!" When you absolutely, absolutely do. God isn't buying it; you're not being honest!

And this is kind of where I wanted to end up. We all need to examine how honest we are being with ourselves. We may believe in the maxim of "To thine own self be true," and we are *just* doing what is best for ourselves and our families.

But it simply isn't correct! We also ask these kinds of *innocent* questions of God, "why are we being plagued with this terrible virus?" Yet we continue to prioritize certain countries and certain groups of people for care, and we demand that grocery workers stay on the job, because we *need* them, even while paying them minimum wage and allowing CEOs to earn millions and millions. Is our predicament not a wake up call? A moment for us all to reconsider what "matters" and what is "necessary"? We are, in fact, not being *true* to ourselves when we only care about our own needs. That is a narcissistic and isolationist way of understanding Shakespeare's words. In reality, being TRUE to ourselves means making the world a better place. Expressing gratitude for the benefits we've received in life, for having enough to fall back on in a global crisis, for being able to distance from one another while millions of people in overcrowded cities could never do the same. Malachi is urging us to wake up. We're telling ourselves a story about why things are the way they are, why we're powerless to change anything, and why society demands that we look out for ourselves before ANYONE else. And it's just not true. It's false, and it's doing us a lot of damage. And it's time to turn back.


CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. needpix.com
2. needpix.com
3. Wally Gobetz on Flickr
4. ElizaC3 on Flickr