PARSHAT EMOR

(5768)

 

FAITH VS. FAMILY

 

“The Lord said to Moses, speak to the priests the sons of Aaron, and say to them, none shall defile himself for any dead person among his kin, except for relatives that are closest to him.”                  (Leviticus 21:1-2)

 

            A man spoke to me this week about a difficult dilemma.  He is a kohen, a direct descendent of Aaron, the brother of Moses and the first priest of the ancient Israelites.  According to Jewish law as spelled out in this week’s portion, a kohen cannot be in the same room as a dead body nor go onto the grounds of a cemetery.  The only exception is for the funeral of an immediate family member such as a parent, a sibling, a spouse, or God forbid, a child.  (Often at Jewish funerals you can see certain men standing outside or by the road, not coming near the deceased.  Such men are not being rude; they are kohenim following an ancient tradition.)

            The man who spoke with me was an observant Jew who took seriously these obligations of being a kohen.  He had gone to the funeral of a grandparent.  He planned to stand back by the roadway while the rest of his family said the mourners kaddish at the graveside.  But his family was upset by this decision.  To the family, it was important that everybody be together at graveside.  They believed it would be an affront to the memory of the grandparent for a grandson to stand back by the roadway.  The man tried to explain the traditional Jewish position to no avail.  Tradition or no tradition, his family wanted him there shoveling earth on the casket with everybody else. 

            He was torn between his faith and his family.  He made a decision and wanted my opinion as a rabbi; did he do the right thing?  It is a decision that many people must make who are torn between their religious practices and their family commitments.  Should a Jew who strictly observes the dietary laws of Passover go to a family seder that will not be kosher?   Should a Jew who will not drive on the Sabbath make an exception to go to a niece’s bat mitzvah?  When a Jew believes that intermarriage is wrong, should he or she attend such a wedding of a sibling?  How do we decide between faith and family?

            From a traditionalist point of view the answer is clear.  Faith trumps family.  Last week in the Torah reading we read one verse that taught a person should both revere their parents and keep the Sabbath.  The Rabbis interpret this verse to mean that if your parents tell you to break the Sabbath, you do not listen.  Observance is more important than family.  Or as the Talmud teaches, “Moses said let the law pierce the mountain.”   The law is the law and family needs to live with that law.

            From a secular point of view as practiced by most Jews today, the answer is also clear.  Family trumps faith. Religious observance is wonderful, but it is not of ultimate importance. Religion may add a certain spiritual dimension to life, but when it comes to matters of ultimate importance such as family, religion can be set aside. 

            On a personal level, I have struggled with this issue throughout my life.  In my earlier career I would have sided with the traditionalists.  If there is a contradiction between your Father in Heaven and your father on earth, you obey your Father in Heaven.  But my ideas have evolved.  More and more I am convinced that God has commanded us to make commitments to family.  And there are times when I need to set aside even God’s laws to be with my family at key moments.  When my son’s college graduation fell on a Friday night, and my attempts to get his college to change the date were ignored, I made a decision.  I would go to the graduation, even if it meant some compromises in my Sabbath observances.  I have no regrets (and I was not the only one wearing a yarmulke at the graduation.)

            Going back to the man in my story, he was truly torn between religious and family commitments.  He decided to break the traditional prohibitions regarding a kohen and stand by his family at graveside.  Did he do the right thing?  I believe so.  I believe that God was smiling on him that day.

 

 

PARSHAT EMOR

 (5767)

 

GOD OUTSIDE NATURE, GOD WITHIN NATURE

 

“Neither shall you profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the people of Israel; I am the Lord who hallows you.”

                                                                        (Leviticus 22:32)

 

            Forgive me if I wax philosophical this week.  There is an issue that intrigues me so much that I have already written two papers for two different graduate philosophy courses on it.  It may someday become my dissertation.   I believe this issue has profound consequences for the future of Judaism.     

            The issue - is God totally outside nature, as the Torah teaches and as philosophers such as Maimonides made a central part of his Guide for the Perplexed?  Or is God totally within nature, as the ancient pagans taught and as the Kabbalah continues to teach to this day?  Is God utterly transcendent?  Or is God utterly immanent?   I wrote in my recent paper that the history of Jewish (and Christian) thought is a dialectic between these two ideas.

            The beginning of this dialectic within Judaism goes back to the opening verses of the Bible.  “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”  (Genesis 1:1)  Creation takes place outside of God.  Matter is mere material stuff which God created, presumably out of nothing  (creatio ex nihilo).  The Biblical God is utterly transcendent.  If God is outside nature, then paganism which sees God in every mountain and every tree must be rejected.  The Prophets fight paganism with all the passion of their rhetoric.

            Why does the Bible utterly reject paganism?  Why does it envision a total separation between God and nature?  The classical answer among rabbis is that the Bible is concerned with ethics, and we cannot learn ethics from nature.  As Rabbi Mark Gafni wrote in his book The Mystery of Love, “If God were in nature and not beyond nature, then nature would be our source of ethics.  …  The law of nature is nearly always that the strong kill the weak.  Certainly the helpless and the infirm have little chance of survival in the natural order other than as a dinner for a stronger adversary.  If we were to transpose natural law into the human world, we would certainly live the law of the jungle.  Social services, hospitals, and help for the disabled are all profoundly `unnatural,’ at least according to the law of nature in the nonhuman world.”  We humans need a God beyond nature in order to build an ethics which allows us to rise above our own nature.

            By seeing God as totally other, the Bible allowed ethics to develop.  But by seeing God outside of nature, our Biblical faith also created many of our contemporary ecological problems.  If nature is mere chemicals, material stuff which we can manipulate for human ends, then why not transform nature if we so desire?   What stops us from using our technology to destroy the very planet God created for us to live?  If nature is mere “stuff”, then we can understand the Talmudic teaching, “Rabbi Simon said, if one were walking by the way and is studying, and interrupts his study to say `how beautiful is this tree,’ `How beautiful is this field,’ Scripture regards him as if he were guilty against his own soul.”  (Avot 3:7)

            Today many are turning to a second view of God, more ancient than the Bible, which envisions God as imminent within nature.  This view manifested itself in the paganism of Biblical times, in the natural magic of Talmudic times through the Renaissance, and in the growth of Kabbalah from the Middle Ages until our own time.   It is a view that seems to reappear over and over throughout Jewish history.  In this view, nature emanates out of God’s very being.  God is everything and everything is God; to transform nature is to transform God.  And to destroy the environment is to destroy God.

            Why does the vision of God within nature arise over and over again in Jewish thought?   According to the great scholar of Jewish mysticism, Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah fulfills a deep psychology need which the classical view of God outside nature cannot fulfill.   According to Scholem, mysticism began as an attempt to bridge the abyss between humanity and God.  The Kabbalah attempted to re-introduce God’s presence into a world where humanity felt that God existed across an unbridgeable abyss.

            This week’s portion speaks of sanctifying God’s name in this world, bringing God into nature.  It is based on the idea that God is not within nature but needs us humans to bring God’s presence into the world.  It is based on a God outside of nature.  But what if God is already there as the kabbalists teach, and our job is merely to uncover God’s presence?  How do you sanctify a world which is already sanctified?

            Is God transcendent or is God imminent?  In the dialectic between two great ideas, we will discover the reality of God. 

 

 

 

PARSHAT EMOR

 (5766)

 

BLASPHEMY

 

“And you shall speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin.”                                       (Leviticus 24:15)

 

            This week’s portion ends with a very strange incident.  A man identified as the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father gets into a fight.  The man curses God and commits the sin of blasphemy.   God commands the Israelites to stone the man to death.  So the man is put to death for the crime of blasphemy.

            The Torah goes out of its way to explain that the perpetrator was the child of parents from two different nationalities and two different faiths.  In fact, they even give the name of the mother of the man – Shelomit the daughter of Dibri.  (The names of women are rarely mentioned in the Torah.)  The Torah must be making a point – perhaps this man raised in two faiths, or in no particular faith, has therefore shown a disrespect for God.  Perhaps a modern message is that even children from dual faith households need and deserve a religion, a connection with a higher spiritual purpose.   I often hear parents in dual faith households tell me that they will not raise their children with either parents’ faith, they will let the children choose.   I have always told such parents it is a mistake – children need the anchor and the spiritual grounding of a particular religion.

            Nonetheless, should the death penalty be the punishment for blasphemy?   It certainly seems unduly harsh.  Later Jewish law teaches seven commandments giving to all humanity, called the “Seven Commandments of the Children of Noah.”  One of these is the prohibition against blasphemy.  To show disrespect for God is considered a fundamental law not just for Jews but for all humanity.

            Today no one would advocate any kind of punishment for blasphemy.  But asking people to respect God, or avoid publicly cursing God, is certainly a fundamental ethical expectation in our contemporary lives.  Does this include a basic respect for the various faiths which speak in the name of God?  Is insulting a particular religion blasphemy?

            In 1988 Salman Rushdie published his novel The Satanic Verses.  It was declared blasphemous by Moslem authorities and the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a decree calling for Rushdie’s death.  Rushdie’s fatwa was made permanent a few years later.  Rushdie continues his writing career today but still lives with the knowledge that at any moment he may be assassinated in the name of God.  The notion of death for blasphemy is still part of our contemporary life.

            Christians today would not condemn someone to death for insulting their religion.  But the term blasphemy still is thrown around by Christians.  The novel The Da Vinci Code was a mega-best seller for its author Dan Brown.  Now it is about to be released as a movie directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks.  I am sure it will be a major success.  Yet many Christians consider the book and the movie to be blasphemy.  Its portrayal of Jesus as married and of the Catholic Church as keeping it secret has upset many Christians.  Sandra Miesel contends that the book is “blasphemy delivered in a soft voice.” 

            Should Rushdie and Brown’s novels been censured because of the threat of blasphemy.  We believe in free speech.  On a personal level, I enjoyed Brown’s novel; I could not get through Rushdie’s.  And yet I understand why religious people feel deeply offended when their faiths are trampled upon. 

            As a Jew, I remember my anger when Louis Farrakhan called Judaism “a gutter religion.”  I have been deeply upset by how rich Jewish traditions from a circumcision to a wedding to a Passover seder have often been portrayed in the media.  Fortunately, in Judaism there is a long tradition of humor, and the ability to laugh at our own foibles.  Perhaps a little humor is a cure for blasphemy.

            There are many people who would insult Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and all the other great faiths of the world.  We can call such insults blasphemy.  But there is a world of difference between insulting God and insulting a particular faith.  Religion is not God.  Religion is a human interpretation, a way a group of people reach towards God.  Religions are precious and are worthy of respect.  But there is a difference between a particular religion and God.  It may be wrong to insult a religion.  But it is not blasphemy.   

 

PARSHAT EMOR

(5764)

 

AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE

 

“He [the High Priest] shall not go in where there is any dead body; he shall not defile himself even for his father or mother.”                       (Leviticus 21:11)

 

            Sometimes we learn as much from the exception as from the rule.

            The rule – A kohen (priest) is not allowed to go to a cemetery or be present near a dead body.  This symbolizes the Biblical view that life and death are to be totally separated.

            In ancient Egypt, the priesthood was a cult of death.  Mummies were made from sophisticated attempts to preserve the body as long as possible; pyramids were built as giant tombs for the rulers.  The wealthy were buried with large amounts of possessions to be used in the next world.  And the priests, the religious functionaries, were mostly concerned with the preparations of the dead.

            When the Israelites fled from Egypt, their priesthood was commanded to stay away from death.  The major concern was life - how to live in this world, not how to prepare the way for the next.  A kohen (priest) could only go into a cemetery for an immediate relative, and then only for the burial.   Priests were concerned with life, not death.

            The laws were even stricter for the High Priest, the priest anointed to bring the various offerings in the ancient Temple.  He could not be near a dead body or go to a cemetery, even for his own mother and father.  As the chief religious functionary, he had to practice total separation from death.  This was true at all times, with one powerful exception.

            The exception – If the High Priest were going to the ancient Temple to perform the daily sacrifices and he encountered a dead body, with nobody around to handle the burial, he stopped what he was doing to deal with the body.  (See Nazir 47b).  As important as the public ritual was, the proper treatment of the dead was considered even more important.  According to tradition, even God handled the burial of Moses.  Burying the dead is considered hesed shel emet (“true kindness”), a kindness for which there can be no favor in return.

            It is surprising to read that the High Priest delays or foregoes the public ritual of sacrifice to handle the private matter of burying the dead.  Public religion gives way to private kindness.  Perhaps the tradition is trying to teach that, if religion and public worship are important, private kindness is even more important.

            A more modern example is a story told about the great Rabbi Israel Salanter, founder of the Musar Movement, a movement in Judaism concerned with constant self-assessments about one’s ethical behavior.  It is told that Rabbi Salanter had not arrived for the kol nidre service, the holiest service of the year which begins the fast of Yom Kippur.  The congregation waited and waited, and then unable to wait any longer, they conducted services without the rabbi.  Everybody was frightened; why would the rabbi disappear on the holiest of nights?

            When services were over, members of the congregation finally found the rabbi.  He was holding a young toddler, rocking her to sleep.  He explained, “I was on my way to kol nidre services when I heard this child crying.  Her mother must have left her alone to go to synagogue.  I could not walk away and leave a child crying.  So I sat here rocking her and comforting her until the services were over and her mother returned.”  Services are important, but kindness is more important.

            Religion is about public worship.  But even more important, religion is about private acts of loving kindness.   The great lesson of this week’s portion is that, given a choice between public worship and private kindness, the kindness takes priority.   In a world where so many faiths compete for our attention, so many houses of worship want our attendance and our membership, how do we judge which is better?  There is only one answer – which faith makes us kinder?  

 

 

PARSHAT EMOR

(5763)

 

PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

 

"The Lord spoke further to Moses: Speak to Aaron and say, No man of your offspring throughout the ages who has a defect shall be qualified to offer the food of his God."

(Leviticus 21:16-17)

 

Sometimes we learn from difficult, even painful laws.  This week=s portion speaks of the kohenim, the descendants of Aaron, who served as priests and brought the offerings in the ancient Temple.  No priest was allowed to bring an offering if he were disabled in any way.  A priest who was blind or lame or with a misshapen limb, no man with a broken leg or arm, no hunchback or dwarf or anyone with a growth on his body, was forbidden from bringing the offerings.  Just as the sacrifice had to be without blemish, so the person bringing the offering had to be without blemish.

This must be troubling to anyone with disabilities.  It seems blatantly unfair to be a Priest and be disqualified from doing what priests do because of a disability that is beyond control.  Why would the Torah teach such a law?

Perhaps the answer is that the sacrificial offerings were meant to inculcate in the people a sense of holiness, of God's presence and God's perfection.  To watch a Priest with a disability bring the offering would have the opposite effect.  People would say, "Look, the priest is blind," or "Look, the priest is hunchback," and never even sense God's presence in the moment.  Perhaps the disabilities would detract from a sense of God's presence in the moment.  The Torah knew a fundamental truth about human nature, we have difficulty seeing beyond the disability to actually see the real person.

What was true in ancient times is still true today.  Too often we are distracted by the physical.  People in wheelchairs have told me how, when they go into a restaurant, often the waiter or waitress does not speak to them.  They will ask a companion, "What does he or she want to order?"  The disabled person may speak up, "Because I am in a wheelchair does not mean I am incapable of speaking and ordering for myself."  Like the community that flocked to the ancient Temple, today we often cannot see past the wheelchair to the human being.

People who are blind or deaf, people who are in wheelchairs or have some other physical disability, people who have had a stroke or are battling cancer, are still people.  People with a physical deformity are still human beings, created in the image of God.  When Christopher Reeve wrote his book following his horse riding accident that left him a quadriplegic, he called it Still Me.  He was still the same human being he had always been. Part of our challenge as humans is to look past the physical to see the real person who is there.

There is a blessing formulated by the rabbis upon seeing someone who looks different or unusual. "Praised art Thou, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who varies His creation." The blessing indicates that God makes us in all shapes and sizes, with all kind of bodies, with all kinds of abilities and disabilities. I can testify after performing hundreds of weddings that people with all kinds of bodies are able to find and share true love. People of all shapes and sizes, including people with disabilities, can be sexually attractive.

The Talmud tells this story:  A rabbi came across an extremely ugly man. The rabbi said, "Are all the people of your town as ugly as you?" The man answered, "Go tell the workman how ugly is the vessel he created." Suddenly the rabbi felt terrible and begged the man for forgiveness (Taanit 20a-b). 

We need to look past the physical to the spiritual, to the real human being created in the image of God.  In ancient Temple times, people would look at a kohen with a disability and only see the disability.  I believe we can do better today.

PARSHAT EMOR

(5762)

 

FREEDOM AND OBLIGATION

 

"From the day on which you bring the sheaf of wave offering, the day after the Sabbath [Passover according to Rabbinic tradition], you shall count off seven weeks, they must be complete."                                           (Leviticus 23:15)

 

Often our young people go off to the university treasuring their new found freedom.  They are young adults with no parents around to tell them what to do.  They have cars, they have a little money, and they have the ability to do what they want.

A short time passes and many of them move back home considerably sobered.  They have dropped out, or they flunked out, or they realized they were not ready for the responsibility.  Freedom is not enough.  Obligations and responsibilities are also vital.  To put it differently, freedom not linked to obligation quickly leads to anarchy. 

This is the idea behind an important Biblical observance, the counting of the Omer.  From the second night of Passover (Pesach) until the festival of Weeks (Shavuot), we count seven weeks of seven days, forty nine days altogether.  Pesach is our festival of freedom.  Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Ten Commandments, our festival of responsibility and commitment.  Seven weeks after leaving the slavery of Egypt, the Israelites arrived at Mt. Sinai and received the Ten Commandments.  The counting of the Omer links freedom to obligation.

Among the Biblical festivals, the most observed by the Jewish people is the festival of Pesach.  Even Jews with a minimal commitment to Jewish living somehow find time to celebrate freedom, whether by attending a family seder, eating matza, or just avoiding bagels for the week.

Among the Biblical festivals, the least observed by the Jewish people is the festival of Shavuot.  Unless one has made a commitment to Jewish observance, or one has a youngster celebrating confirmation (usually held on Shavuot), the festival passes unnoticed.  In late May and early June, our minds are on graduations, weddings, summer plans, not on eating cheese blintzes and reading the book of Ruth (traditional Shavuot observances), and certainly not on obligations and commandments.  It is a joy to celebrate freedom; it is far more difficult to celebrate commitment and responsibility.

Nonetheless, when the Israelites left the slavery of Egypt, they did not go off to party and celebrate.  They marched to a mountain and heard the words of God's commandments.  Similarly, the young people who are most successful in college are those able to balance the joy of freedom with the responsibility of study.

We are in middle of the counting of the Omer.  Shavuot is coming in a few weeks.  We are deeply fortunate to live in freedom, open to world's of opportunities.  With that freedom comes commitment and obligation.  The counting of the Omer symbolizes a march from freedom to obligation.  This is the key to a successful life.

 

PARSHAT EMOR

(5761)

 

SACRED TIMES

 

AThese are My fixed times, the fixed times of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions.@     (Leviticus 23:2)

 

A Buddhist Temple opened next door to our synagogue.  The monk came by on a courtesy visit and invited me to join them for their biggest annual celebration, Buddha=s birthday.  Last Sunday I joined hundred=s of their members, including countless children and teens, for the festivities.  Most were Chinese but some were American, and more than a few were Jewish by birth. 

I watched people line up to bow down and pour water over small statues of Buddha as mysterious music played.  I enjoyed some very talented teens perform the dragon dance.  I watched the karate exhibition and lined up for the large vegetarian lunch.  I did not understand the theology (although plenty of literature was out in both English and Chinese.)  But the sense of celebration was universal.

The mood was the same one I see in my Syrian Moslem next-door-neighbors on Id-al-Fitr, which ends the month long fast of Ramadan.  It is the mood I see among my Christian neighbors as they gather with families on Christmas.  I see it among Americans of all faiths on the family celebration of Thanksgiving.  And of course, I feel that mood of joy most directly on the cycle of Jewish festivals from Passover to Rosh Hashana.

This week=s portion contains the cycle of festivals.  These include the three pilgrimage festivals - Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.  It also includes the High Holy Days, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.  Each of these festivals contains a powerful message in and of itself. What stands out is the very idea of festivals, times on the annual calendar for celebration, feasting, family togetherness, and worship.

There is something deeply human and universal about the need for festivals throughout the year.  We humans need regular occasions for anticipation.  In Florida, unfortunately, I perform too many funerals.  The number of funerals seems to diminish immediately before the major Jewish festivals.  It is as if people will themselves to survive through the holiday.

On the other hand, depression also seems to increase during the festivals.  There is nothing harder than being alone, disconnected from loved ones on festivals.  I meet people who live in our neighborhood and love our synagogue, who would love to worship with us on the High Holidays.  Yet it is more important that they leave our synagogue to spend time with their families.  I also meet people who have no families, or whose families are far away.  It is important that we invite these people to join us when festivals arrive.

Every society and every culture has annual festivals.  They add a rhythm to our lives and an excuse for joyous celebration.  In ancient Egypt, when we were slaves, I imagine that every day was like every other, with no special days marking the calendar. Part of the joy of freedom is the opportunity to stop and celebrate.

There is a local restaurant near the synagogue that is very popular.  (Unfortunately it is not kosher, but it does have wonderful salads.)  The restaurant is closed twice a year - Christmas Eve and Superbowl Sunday.  The former I understand, but why Superbowl Sunday?  The manager told me that he could not find employees to work that evening.  They wanted to be with their family.

Is a football game an excuse for a new American festival?  Passover it is not.  But it has become an excuse for people to gather together and celebrate.  Such occasions meet a fundamental human need.

PARSHAT EMOR

(5760)

 

SEPARATE LIFE AND DEATH

 

"The Lord said to Moses, Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, None shall defile himself for any dead person."

(Leviticus 21:1)

 

Sometimes at a Jewish funeral, there are men who will stand outside the cemetery on the road.  They will not enter the funeral parlor while the body is present, nor will they set foot in the cemetery.  Such men are not being rude.  On the contrary, they are kohanim (descendants of Aaron the High Priest) who are following one of the oldest Biblical laws.  A priest cannot be in the presence of a dead body.

Why would the Torah include such a law and what relevance could it have today?  We must remember that we were slaves in Egypt, a country whose religion was a cult of death.  The pyramids which tourists flock to see were really ancient tombs.  Egyptian priests concerned themselves with the needs of the dead.

The Torah was reacting to this cult of death.  The new Israelite religion became obsessed with life.  Those who were the religious leaders (the role of the priests) had to separate themselves from death.  Religion was for the living.  Afterall, as the Psalmist taught "The dead cannot praise God."  (Psalms 115:17)  The dead can no longer keep God's commandments.  By keeping the priesthood away from a dead body or a cemetery, the Torah is trying to inculcate a separation of life and death.

There are two great forces at work in the universe, each having its source in God the Creator.  First, there is the world of material things.  According to the laws of entropy, all material things must eventually fall apart and die.  Humans and animals, planets and stars, someday even the material universe itself must die.  Death is an inevitable part of living in a material world.  We have material bodies, and therefore must die.

The second great force in the universe is a spiritual force, the force of life.  This is the force that caused life to emerge from dead matter.  It is the force the Torah speaks of when it says that God "breathed into the man He made and made him into a living soul."  (Genesis 2:7)  It is the force Ezekiel spoke of when he described his image of a valley of dry bones, with God's wind bringing the bones to life.  (Ezekiel chapter 37)  It is the force that we Jews speak of on our High Holidays when we say "Remember us to life, O God of Life."