The Process of Being Alive: Tazria-Metzora

The Process of Being Alive

D’var Torah for Parashat Tazria-Metzora

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

April 24, 2015

As some of you know, I’m an avid Facebook fan.  In fact, just a few days ago, one of my friends—both on Facebook and personally—posted a comment that I’ve been quite the “FB posting madman lately.”

I replied with a “like,” thinking how in fact that was only the tip of the iceberg. No matter how hard I tried to, I couldn’t possibly share everything that has been on my mind lately.  Not that I would want to, of course; Facebook isn’t necessarily the right forum for that.  But nevertheless, there it was—the sheer number and importance of topics that have been occupying my mind as of late.

Aside from personal issues, of course.   Rabbis are entitled to those too, you know.

So there’s been, for example, the matter of Yom Hashoah V’hagvura, Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Day.  The magic of the Internet is in its connectivity, and I used that this year to connect to Israel and witness the official ceremonies at Yad Vashem, followed by some of the other programs on Israel’s state television.  This year, more than ever, almost outnumbering first-hand accounts were the interviews with second- and third-generation survivors—children and even grandchildren of survivors.

I was most affected by the power of the two-minute siren at 7 pm that signals the start of Yom Hashoah in Israel, and then again at 10 the next morning.  On both of those occasions, everybody stops whatever they are doing—walking, working, running, biking or driving.  They stop in mid-flow; drivers pull to the side or just stop in their lane and get out of their cars.  All stand still for the full two minutes, uniting with painful memories, with sorrowful stories, with unexpected follow-ups.  It’s a serious and sad 24 hours for all Jews, all over the world.

Then, less than a week later, it’s that all over again, with Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers of Israel’s wars.  Again 24 hours, again the sirens, again the ceremonies, the flame lighting, the tearful chanting of El Maleh Rachamim.  This year the commemoration was especially sad in light of the most recent war—the Gaza War of Summer 2014 with its 72 losses.  All together, Israel has lost to Arab violence 23,320 of its finest, most promising youth.  There is hardly a family in the whole country that hasn’t been touched, and that has made the Israeli nation more of a family than anything else in its history.

The 24 hours of Memorial Day come and go, marked, like Yom Hashoah, by the two-minute sirens we have come to know so well.  Only now, something quite new and joyous begins, with no transition to speak of.  The sadness turns instantly into rejoicing as Israel begins to celebrate—with fireworks, campfires and all-night dancing—its Independence Day.  This year marked 67 years since the day when David Ben Gurion announced the creation of the new State of Israel, an announcement that was recorded in sound and video and can still be watched today, sending shivers down our backs and tears coursing down our faces.

But that wasn’t all for me these past few days.  Not by a long shot.  There was also the issue of justice—justice deliberated, justice carried out.  In Boston courthouses, Tsarnaev was found guilty; Aaron Hernandez was found guilty.

And in Germany, an Auschwitz guard came on trial a few days ago for the role he played in the Holocaust.  Yes, back to the Holocaust.  It seems we just can’t escape its hold, its moral, emotional or physical clutches on us.  Oskar Groening, the accused guard, didn’t actually kill anyone; his duty was merely to watch the suitcases of the deported, to take their money, count it and then send it on to Berlin.  “After all,” he stated coolly, “they weren’t going to need any of it again.”

70 years after the liberation of the camps, this guard came forth as witness.  He did so, he said, because there were so many Holocaust deniers, and he was there.  He saw what was happening.  He could give witness to the atrocities he saw.  He felt a moral responsibility to do so now, before it was too late.

It wasn’t only his accounts that chilled my soul.  It was the feelings and thoughts that he said he had at the time, his recollections of how he truly believed then—as did all his partners in the genocide—that it was a necessary thing to do.  Necessary.  Necessary to kill men, women and children even after all their possessions, all their money, their clothes, their hair, their shoes, their very identity, were taken away from them.

Still, justice was being carried out.   70 years later, his testimony keeps it going even to this day.

My reactions to these happenings have been intensified by studying Torah.  I’ve come to see them as part of a long process, illuminated by the sacred process that Torah is.  Contrary to popular perception, the Torah isn’t simply a codex of laws, any of which can be taken out of context and quoted as God’s unchangeable word. Torah is a continuous process; it teaches and describes the path that we must follow if civilization is to survive.  Torah teaches justice—but not as vengeance.  Vengeance, teaches the Torah, isn’t justice. Vengeance is instinct, a momentary response that rises from some murky depth within us.  For the Torah, justice is the process we must follow.  It’s a process that begins with an act—premeditated or not (that makes a difference in the path of the process)—that then goes on to a court trial, replete with judges and witnesses, and concludes with verdict and sentence.  Through the process of justice the Torah has us undergo a gradual rise from animalistic instinct to divine justice.  This is how we can best fulfill the commandment tzedek, tzedek tirdof—“justice, justice shall you pursue.” Justice is a process that brings us closer to the Divine.

But it isn’t the only one.  This week’s Torah portion and its haftarah describe a similar process.  Only the subject matter changes.  Before, it was justice.  This week, it is health.  In this week’s readings we get a glimpse of medicine as it was commonly practiced 3000 years ago—not a time I would want to be sick in.  In this haftarah, from II Kings 7, the general of the Aramean army, Na’aman, suffers from a serious skin condition and comes to the Israelite prophet Elisha, for a cure.  Elisha tells him to go dip in the Jordan River 7 times.  Hearing this, Na’aman is incensed.  He was hoping, he says, that the man of God would wave his arms about, say a magic incantation and—lo and behold—the psoriasis would be gone.  What’s this dipping in some puny, stony stream? Still, Na’aman’s servants manage to convince him to do as he was told, and of course, no sooner does he do that than he is cured.

This is the process:  Back in the year 1000 BCE, they resorted to voodoo and magical incantations to bring healing.  That was the belief, that was the practice.  Spiritual healers abounded, but aside from sprinkling some magic waters and burning fragrant branches and leaves, they usually managed to bring very little improvement to the person’s health.

Yet among the Jews, even as early as 3000 years ago, there was a process working.  It was the beginning of the scientific method.  In Tazria-Metzora, this week’s Torah portion (Lev. 12:1—15:33), we learn that the Jewish priest must not only diagnose an illness; he also has to check periodically on its progress.  He has to provide caring, food and compassion—but most of all he had to observe the ongoing course of the illness:  So many days for the symptoms to appear or conversely, to go away; so many days for convalescence, and so many for return to full health and readmission into society.

It isn’t only about justice and health, of course.  Life itself, the Torah teaches us, is a process.  It’s a journey that takes us from basic instinct to something a bit more God-like.  A journey from taking to sharing.  From casting out, to caring.  There is no magic.  Life is real.  There is no room for voodoo in survival. 

The process that the Torah prescribes is more than isolated deeds.  It’s a progression, an evolution, that we go through with open eyes, ears, minds and hearts.  It’s a course of mindful, soulful, living.  By following it step by step, we get better.  Little by little, we get closer to our ultimate goal.

So there you have it—that’s what I’ve had on my mind lately, and possibly why I’ve been posting on Facebook like a madman.  I’ve been watching, thinking, learning—living through the process of justice, through the process of health and care-giving, living through the process of loss and rebirth, of Holocaust and Independence, of failure and redemption.

It’s a lot.  But if that’s what it means to say that I am a human being, then I am glad.  Because although we are all animal-kind, we can be, above and beyond all that, human-kind; what the rabbis describe as “just less than angels;” or perhaps, just a bit more than angels, since angels don’t get to choose what they do, and we do.  They simply obey.  We learn.  We choose.  We find our own path, sometimes by falling, always by rising again.  It’s a process.

It’s the process of being alive. 

Thank God. 

© 2015 by Boaz D. Heilman