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This Torah portion begins with a description of the requirements of the High Priest on Yom Kippur. Because of this, we also read it as the centerpiece of the Yom Kippur Torah service.
The Parsha tells us that, in addition to preparing carefully for his entering the holy sector of the Mishkan and later the Temple in Jerusalem, the Kohen Gadol would prepare just as carefully for his departure from the Holy of Holies. Why would this be? The current Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis offers an explanation. He quotes the sentence, “Bezot yavo Aharon el ha-kodesh”-with this, the Aharon, the High Priest, will enter the Holy of Holies. But the word ‘zot’- ‘this’ -, seems to be unnecessary to the meaning of the phrase. So what was it that Aaron came with as he entered the sanctuary? The Midrash explains that he took with him the merit of all the Shabbatot, the Shabbases, that the Jewish people had kept during the previous year. The tells us a bit about the power and significance of keeping the Shabbat. We know that the Kohen Gadol changed his garments five times during the course of Yom Kippur. And each time he immersed himself in the Mikvah. The question arises... We can understand why he needed to purify himself when he was coming from the outside and going to the inner sanctum. But why the purification when going from the holy place to the outside? Rabbi Mirvis answers that it’s a bit like being given the privilege of meeting a king. You would dress carefully for the meeting. But, would you be so fastidious about going back to your ordinary life afterwards? But that’s exactly what the High Priest did, and that’s the connection with Shabbat. Shabbat is so special for us, not only for the day itself but for the inspiration it provides for us throughout the following days of the week. That’s one reason we use spices to make Havdalah-to symbolize that the spirituality of Shabbat lingers on. So too with the High Priest. He didn’t want the experience of the Holy to be just one moment in time. He wanted it to inspire and empower him. He wanted it to provide the kedushah, the holiness, for the rest of the entire year! And that’s why he carefully dressed himself in holy garments and immersed himself in the mikvah before putting on his ordinary clothes and venturing out to the world again. From the High Priest’s experience we learn how important it is to savor every precious moment in life and how important it is to raise the mundane to the holy.
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The double parsha of Tazria-Metzorah is read this time of year every year. In it, we grapple with the overriding theme of these passages; that of lesions of the skin, clothing and houses.
One way to approach these Parshiyot is to look beyond the skin afflictions and to think about the reasons that such misfortune was visited on people. The rabbis tell us that it may be due to the commission of one of these seven sins:
The sentence about the Metzorah states, “if it became in the skin of his flesh the plague of leprosy, then he shall be brought to Aaron the Priest”. Since most people are oblivious to the hurt they have caused others, it is up to society to take him or her to the Priest. They are unlikely to go on their own. Part of the rehabilitation of the afflicted is to be put outside of the settlement for seven days. This period is established to allow the person to consider their misdeeds and to do teshuvah, part of the process that will cure the problem. Since they could not interact without sin among people, they are kept from society for this length of time. The sin most often associated with the Metzorah is one of the seven I listed: slander, Lashon HaRah. The proof text for this connection is the Torah narrative that tells us of Miriam’s comment to Aaron about Moshe’s living arrangements regarding his family. She put Moshe on the same level as herself in the realm of prophecy. So, she reasoned, if I can live with my family and interact with God, so should Moshe. She, of course, was wrong about Moshe’s spiritual status, and because of Moses’s great humility, God was forced to deal with Miriam’s sin. He struck her with Negah Tzora’at, thereby pairing the sin with the punishment for all ages. Many people think that if something someone says about another is true, it is not Lashon HaRah. This is patently wrong. Lashon Harah consists of speaking negatively about someone, whether it is true or false. In fact, the truth may be worse, because a lie would fall of its own weight anyway. Another erroneous defense that is raised is that one is speaking about family. This is the basis of most Lashon HaRah, for we speak about family more than we speak about outside people. It is fortuitous that Aaron would be the person to check on the afflicted during their exile from the camp. Aaron represents the ANTI-Lashon HaRah. Pirkay Avot says, “Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace.” What would Aaron do in the interest of peace? One thing he was known for was attempting to patch up feuds between people, usually members of the same family. He would go to the first person and say, “I just spoke to your brother. He deeply regrets saying those harsh words to you. He wants to apologize, but he is embarrassed and does not have the courage to approach you.” This was all a lie! He would then repeat the same thing to the other party. The next time the two would meet, each would assume the other was remorseful but embarrassed, and each would initiate a reconciliation. Peace would be restored. As we said, truth is not a valid defense against the charge of slander. But what of Aaron’s lies? An entity even greater than Aaron employed prevarication to keep the peace. Who? God himself!! When Sarah hears that she will give birth in a year, she laughs, thinking, how can my old husband give me a child? God hears her and reports her remarks back to Abraham, saying that Sarah said, “Shall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?” A lie! God bends the truth to keep the family intact. Therefore, the Metzorah was brought before Aaron, so that he or she could learn that the mitzvah of restoring peace among people is so great that it supersedes the restriction against lying. The afflicted has a chance to learn what a great sin Lashon HaRah is. May we all strive to keep ourselves from committing this sin, and seek to provide harmony with everyone in our lives. The profession of psychiatry is a very powerful profession. They label what’s normal and what’s not normal. They can offer comfort to clients who seek out their help and support.
They also have their own Torah - it’s called the DSM: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. That "Manual" is now in its fifth edition, and each addition typically makes really significant changes in what counts as a “mental disorder.” In some cases, an assignment of a mental disorder is dropped. In 1973, the DSM-3, after much contentious debate, dropped ‘homosexuality’ as a mental disorder. More recently, the DSM-5 has added a mental disorder. This decision was also very controversial, with some hailing it as an important step in recognizing a genuine human condition, while others have argued that the addition will now make something normal into something pathological. I hope that, by now, I have your interest. What is this new mental disorder added to the DSM? It's called PGD: Prolonged Grief Disorder. In the case of prolonged grief disorder, a person is unable psychologically to move beyond the death of a loved one - this is typically a spouse or, even more often, a child. Dr. Kenneth Kendler has called this decision “the bar mitzvah of diagnosis,” meaning that the diagnosis now officially blesses this disorder, a kind of welcoming into the tribe. Apparently, about 10% of people dealing with grief suffer from the inability to get past it. You might be asking “at what point in time does grief become prolonged?” The answer, according to the DSM, is one year. Maybe you agree, or perhaps you think it’s not enough time to grieve. Or you may think that it’s situational - that it depends on your closeness to the person, the age at which they died, and perhaps even how they died. I read one story about a woman whose five-year-old daughter died from strep, and this mother couldn’t even enter her child’s bedroom until a year after she died. After three years, she was able not only to enter the room but also to go through her daughter’s toys and clothing and sort them in order to give them away. That mother would qualify as having prolonged grief disorder. A line from our Lecha Dodi, Friday night’s consummate prayer, reads, “Too long have you dwelled in the valley of tears.” You might also be asking “why does it matter?” OR: “who cares whether what’s wrong with me is listed in some psychiatric bible?” Well, the answer is that, if the DSM lists your disorder - if it makes it ‘official’ - then medical insurance will pay for your treatment. So, there could potentially be a lot at stake. Unfortunately, almost all of us have had reason to grieve in our lives. How long did you grieve? How long did it take you to ‘move on’? I won’t say ‘get over it,’ because that’s insulting. And I’m not sure anyone truly gets over a deep loss. Perhaps you had friends and other family members who urged you to move on with your life, and perhaps you found that advice helpful, perhaps you resented it as lacking in compassion and understanding. But, when I heard about this new diagnosis, I couldn’t help but think about this week’s parsha, Parshat Shemini. And I couldn’t help but wonder whether there’s such a thing as an “inadequate grief response.” Is it possible for someone to mourn too little? Of course, I’m thinking here about Aaron and the deaths of his two sons. There are all sorts of interpretations and suggestions as to the reason of their of their fatal punishment from God. Aaron is silent in the face of what must have been a catastrophic loss. Those issues are not what I want to focus on here. Instead, I want to ask the question whether expressing grief is a sign of mental health, and whether the DSM should add yet another mental condition, maybe something called failure to grieve. Maybe Aaron’s problem is gender-related. I know that, for many men, expressing grief might look like a sign of weakness. Or men like Aaron might believe that they have to carry on so as to be a role model to others. Failure to grieve might also be connected to deep trauma - perhaps the experience has been so devastating that we shut down, afraid that if we let in the sadness, we will never be able to recover from it. There’s also the possibility that grief gets masked as anger; how could God have done this to me? How could God have let this happen? Rabbi Yissocher Frand tells the story of a Rabbi Hollander, who spoke with hundreds of Jews after they had survived the Holocaust. These survivors felt there was no reason to go on. They felt there was no point in living any longer and there was certainly no point to being a Jew. They had lost any sense of purpose, any reason to live. Rabbi Hollander uses this week’s parsha, Shemini, to give them hope. He quotes the words of Moshe: “This is what God spoke when saying ‘through those who are near to Me I will be sanctified’ (B’Krovai E’Kadesh).” Moshe is urging Aaron to recognize that, no matter what one is facing or has faced, being near to God can always give on meaning. Even in the midst of grief, we can be - we need to be - close to God. We have seen that grief can also occur as the result of other kinds of losses - we might grieve, for example, the loss of a job. Or we might grieve a divorce, or a life-changing mistake we’ve made. There is no one who has not experienced tragedy in their lives. There is no one who is exempt from grief. Judaism teaches us that it is kiddush hashem to continue to worship God, even in the face of losses that we have experienced. Or, perhaps, especially in the face of losses that we have experienced. Judaism also teaches us that balance is so vital to a life well lived. Too much grief holds us back, and keeps us from God; too little grief stunts us and denies us the ability to grow from our experiences. I could never tell you what that balance is - it’s not anything we can know in advance, and it probably varies from person to person. But I do know that we can find it, with God’s help. I pray that we do. |
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