120512 – Parshat Emor – Lag B’Omer

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VORTIFY YOURSELF

Reb Yosil Rosenzweig

rebyosil@gmail.com

PARSHAT EMOR – LAG B’OMER

VaYikra (Leviticus) 21:1 – 24:23

Haftorah – Ezekiel 44:15-31

120512

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This past Thursday, May 10th, we celebrated Lag B’Omer, a minor holiday that is full of joy, charm and mystery. Lag B’Omer is the 33rd day of the Omer, about two thirds through a period of counting 49 days from the 2nd night of Pesach (Passover) through the eve of the Shavu’ot festival (Pentecost).

In this week’s Parsha we find the commandment of both the Omer offering (Vayikra 23:9-14) and the Omer counting: “You shall count for yourselves – from the morrow of the rest day [Pesach], from the day that you bring the Omer of the waving offering – they shall be seven complete weeks…” (VaYikra 23:15). Therefore we count each day and each week until the seven weeks are completed which leads immediately into the festival of Shavu’ot.

There is another aspect that is essential to the process of our counting. The Zohar Chadash (Kabalistic Midrash and part of the Zohar) teaches: “When the B’nei Yisra’el were in Egypt, they became defiled by all manner of impurity until they sank to the 49th level of spiritual impurity. The Holy One Blessed Be He, delivered them out of slavery and invested them with 49 degrees of purity.” Thus, on each of the 49 days between Pesach and Shavu’ot, the Children of Israel shed and ascended a level until they stood before Mt Sinai spiritually cleansed of the impurities of their Egyptian existence.

So too, we count and we simulate this experience into our own lives, striving to elevate ourselves each day of each week, for 49 days in order to become worthy of accepting the Torah from a position of increased purity. In many Siddurim (prayer books) within the prayers of the Omer counting, we find mention of 7 Kabbalistic Sefirot (qualities or powers), that in turn have 7 related elements, and that together (7 X 7) equal the 49 levels of purification. Every evening at the counting, we mention a particular part of these 49 elements and we strive to acknowledge and perfect that aspect within our personalities.

Another feature of the Omer period is also a 33 day mourning period associated with these 49 days. The Talmud relates a perplexing story: “Rebbi Akiva had 12,000 pairs of students [throughout Eretz Yisrael], and they all passed away [in a plague] because they did not show each other respect…they all passed away [during 33 days] between Pesach and Shavu’ot, and the world was barren until Rebbi Akiva approached [a new set of 5 students] and taught them Torah…” (Gemara Yevamot 62b).

A 33 day mourning period was rabbinically imposed forbidding certain forms of rejoicing, shaving, getting haircuts, listening to music and by association – getting married. But which 33 days are considered the days of mourning? Some Jews (mostly Sephardim [Jews from Spanish and Middle-Eastern descent]) hold that the first 33 days of the Omer is the mourning period. Other’s mostly Ashkenazim (Jews from German and European descent) hold from the new month of Iyar until the 3rd day of Sivan (3 days before Shavu’ot). I personally accept the theory of the MaHaRYL (acronym for Moreinu HaRav Yehoshua Leib [our teacher, the Rabbi Joshua Leib Diskin], Brisk, Lithuania and Jerusalem – 1818-1898) who claims: …”none died during the holiest 17 of the 50 days– the 7 Sabbaths, the 6 days of Pesach (minus one Sabbath), Isru Chag [the day after Pesach], and the 3 days of Rosh Chodesh [the new moons]! Therefore, only 33 days were set for mourning.”

One mystery that we still have is in the Talmud’s statement: “they all passed away because they did not show each other respect.” We must acknowledge that Rebbi Akiva’s 12,000 pairs of students were not just university students who were simply searching for themselves in his Yeshiva. Rebbi Akiva’s students were Tana’im (rabbis of the Mishnaic period) men of great stature and integrity and we must assume that they were not subject to whims of impropriety. These were men of great culture and refinement. So what does it mean when the Talmud says that “they did not show each other respect?”

Most answers that I have heard over the years have not satisfied me. A few years back I participated in a study session in Cleveland, Ohio during Pesach and heard a Rabbi Margereten deliver a talk on the subject. He said in the name of Rav Aharon Kotler ZT”L (dean of the famous Lakewood, New Jersey Yeshiva [1892-1962]) that the 12,000 pairs of students actually loved each very much but at times allowed that love to become too familiar. If they were agitated or excited, they would take out their frustrations on their study partner, similar to what we do to our spouses and children. They disrespected each other in the name of love, which made their Torah worthless.

At that time in our history, the Roman occupation of Israel had all but destroyed our Jewish heritage. Rebbi Akiva, through clandestine means and great sacrifice continued to teach Torah with a death penalty looming overhead. Yet, because of their lack of respect (what ever that means), their Torah was considered unworthy of transmission to future generations and they died of a plague that was Divinely rooted (If you consider this incomprehensible, review the Parshi’ot of TAZRIYA-METZORAH which discusses a disease similar to leprosy that was caused by Lashon HaRa – gossip).

After the death of the 24 thousand students, Rebbi Akiva chose 5 new students: R’ Meir; R’ Yehuda bar Ilai; R’ Shimon bar Yochai (who died on Lag B’Omer and who is buried in Meron the site of the great Lag B’Omer celebration in Israel); R’ Yosi ben Chalafta; and R’ Elazar ben Shamu’a. Practically all of the oral Torah that has been transmitted to us today, which includes Mishnah, Zohar, Midrash, Sifrei, Sifra, etc. are the products of these five students of Rebbi Akiva. Can you imagine how much more Torah knowledge we would have if the 12,000 pairs of students had lived?

I find it strange that during the time of the writing of the Talmud, when massive information and Jewish trivia were being transmitted for future generations, the question of which 33 days of mourning (among the 49 days) is left a mystery. Halachically, problems could arise when there is a conflict between Jews of differing Minhagim (customs). Let us say that I held that the latter 33 days were the days of mourning and I was marrying off a child during the first few days of the Omer. Among my guests to the wedding are Jews who held that the first 33 days are the days of mourning. Are they allowed to attend the wedding?

I heard from one Rabbi (I can’t remember his name) that while a Jew is not allowed make a wedding during the mourning period, yet they would be required to attend the wedding of another’s out of respect, clearly, as a Tikkun (repair) of the shortcomings of Rebbi Akiva’s students.

We obviously learn that while required to observe the Torah and its Halacha, more importantly we must always demonstrate respect for one another in order to make our Torah and our Halacha worthy of continuing for generations to come.

Shabbat Shalom,

Reb Yosil

110507 – Parshat Emor

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VORTIFY YOURSELF

Rabbi Yosil Rosenzweig

rebyosil@gmail.com

PARSHAT EMOR

VaYikra (Leviticus) 21:1 – 24:23

Haftarah – Ezekiel 44:15-31

110507

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Perhaps you recall the experience from your childhood. You get all dressed up for a holiday or a family Simcha – a wedding, for instance, or a special birthday party. As you wait for the rest of the family to get ready, your mother or father warns, “Don’t go outside; you’ll get your clothes dirty.”

The fear of dirt runs deep within us, and dirt need not be physical. There are dirty jokes and dirty tricks; people can have foul mouths and filthy minds. We speak even of sin as moral pollution – picture Lady Macbeth frantically scrubbing herself free of the “damned [cursed] spot” that has come from her many crimes.

Spiritually, too, the Torah speaks of purity and pollution. What mud puddles are to brand new clothes, and murder to moral virtue, ritual impurity is to spiritual sanctity. The problem is that the realm of the spiritual is a lot harder to imagine. But it is real nonetheless. Just from its exposure to the air, silverware collects tarnish, and if you leave it long enough, you will forget that there is anything shiny underneath. So, too, the part of us that is spiritual requires periodic shining from the tarnish of daily life.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the oxygen that tarnishes silver. Indeed, without oxygen, life itself would end. So, too, there is nothing evil about the morass of unspiritual details that consume the bulk of every waking day. Office work, house cleaning, cooking, shopping, eating and relaxing in front of the television set are all part of what it is to be human. These also are elements in G-d’s world, a slice of G-d’s plan for us who were put here, to work and watch over His earthly enterprise.

But at times we yearn to escape the mundane. Every once in a while, from deep within, we feel the need to be touched by the Divine, to be transformed by a burst of beauty, to be moved by the presence of love, to suspend our list of “things to do” and put on hold the harsh pace that drives us relentlessly, even as we pursue the good and happy things that we enjoy.

Those moments when we see beyond the hassle of the day by day, and stare instead into a shining moment of eternity, the Torah calls this sacred. Sacred moments then are times when we are relieved from having to worry about what there is to do, or whether something works. That explains why Shabbat is sacred: it is a day for doing nothing related to our weekday schedule. Similarly, one of our prayers describes Chanukah lights as sacred, because “we may not put them to any other use.” If you read by them, for instance, they are not sacred anymore.

Even the sacred music of our prayers is not performed the way concert music is. The music of our worship should be music for our souls, music that speaks to the deepest part of our being, getting beyond our normally critical selves. In the moments of the sacred, we thus strip ourselves free from worldly pursuits, so that we do not allow ourselves to become overwhelmed by those pursuits.

To a great extent, the entire book of Leviticus is a grand metaphor for the need to nurture our spiritual selves. So our Parsha this week speaks of the Kohen Gadol – the high priest, who is told not to go out of the sanctuary where he is ministering. Our commentators explain that we worry lest the priest be polluted. Not that the priest may remain forever indoors, of course. In fact, the Ibn Ezra says he is required to leave in order to perform Mitzvot, even though, like a child in new clothes, he may well meet up with impurities there.

In fact, this is implied in a verse from last week’s Parsha of Kedoshim, where it details the Yom Kippur atonement ritual. While the Kohen Gadol ministered in the Holy of Holies on that one special, sacred day, and had the sole distinction of entry into that inner sanctum, the Torah also enjoins him, and in the case of the Biblical narrative, it refers to himself saying “that he may not come at all times into the holy place” (Lev. 16:2). Some see this as an important injunction and reminder that the Kohen Gadol leads not only in the pristine purity and ivory tower environment of the Temple, but his true leadership is in the street, in the marketplace among the common folk, and amid the challenges of ordinary, mundane life.

In that regard we are all high priests, commanded to leave the sanctuaries of our lives in order to spend our time in the busy world where impurities abound. Physical filth galore inundates our urban areas, and moral obscenities abound in society. But there is spiritual sludge as well, the film that gathers on our souls if we never retreat from the world of work and worry, and enter instead into the sanctuaries of the spirit that we call our sacred places. There are sacred times, too, our portion calls them: Shabbat and Mo’adim (sacred times), for instance.

Comes Shabbat, and we are bidden to remember the high priest within each of us. It is our time to unwind from the struggle of daily life; to find our way to a synagogue and then to a quiet spot and to lose one’s in one’s own secret place of serenity. Turn off your inner ticking clock that reminds you always of what is not yet done. Look deeply into the eyes of someone you love. Take a deep breath and marvel at the fact that you are still alive.

How do we honor time in our lives? Do we take advantage of Shabbat and our holidays to explore the many facets of our spiritual lives? Holidays provide a “time out” to reflect on values that give meaning and purpose to our “ordinary time.” Without “sacred time,” our lives lack distinctions. I suspect that the feelings expressed in the phrases “our lives are out of control” and “I just can’t get off this treadmill” come about because we ignore opportunities to give meaning and holiness to our lives, to our possessions and to our time.

Like the priest called out of the Sanctuary to do the Mitzvot, we, too, are summoned to be active in the world. But on occasion we have the right, even the need, to retreat far away from pedestrian pursuits and revive our soul with the freshness of the sacred. The mundane certainly matters, but at times a helping of holiness, a dash of the Divine, provides the necessary corrective and restorative quality to a life that otherwise could and would be overrun by ordinary activity. Life demands a mixture of the mundane with the sublime. Together they represent the recipe for life and meaningful living.

As a final thought, when the Torah beseeches us to: “become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” Shemot (Exodus) 19:6, we might consider taking this suggestion literally.

Shabbat Shalom,

Reb Yosil Rosenzweig