Parashat Emor, May 11th

Folks, this is a rough one. It's hard not to read some of this parsha as ableist, so we're not going to pretend otherwise. But we will follow the lead of the 16th century rabbi Kli Yakar by flipping this teaching on its head, updating tradition for our own times. How's your soul looking?

Today's episode is sponsored by Broadway In Chicago. Tickets are available now to Fiddler on the Roof at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, from May 17th - 22nd. Use Mishkan's special offer code ROOF45 for $45 Middle Balcony tickets.

Produced by Mishkan Chicago.  Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss. See our upcoming Shabbat services and programs here, and follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates. Check out Shabbat Replay on Contact Chai for more from Rabbi Deena.

Transcript

Transcript

Welcome to The Morning Scroll! I'm Rabbi Deena Cowans from Mishkan Chicago and you're listening to what will be a quick dive into this week's parsha. If you’ve been meaning to brush up on your Jewish literacy, or you’re looking for some inspiration, you’ve come to the right place. This week, we read Parashat Emor, “speak”, and I’ll let you guess who’s speaking to who. We’ll start with a brief recap: 

God tells Moshe to talk to the priests and teach them about their special laws of purity, concerning things like marriage and bodies of the deceased. The laws also specify rules around bodily traits and certain disabilities, and explain who is and is not allowed to eat the priests’ portion of sacrifices. We also learn that blemished animals may not be offered for a sacrifice, nor can we castrate animals, offer them as sacrifices before they are 8 days old, or slaughter a mother and child on the same day. Finally, we learn which laws we can transgress if our lives are endangered, and which ones we must allow ourselves to be killed. Then, the parsha changes subject and discusses laws for many holidays, such as eating matzah on Passover and bringing an omer barley offering, counting the omer for the next 7 weeks and then celebrating Shavuot, afflicting ourselves on Yom Kippur and sounding the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. We get a brief interlude to tell us to leave parts of our field untouched so the poor can come harvest what they need, then we learn about the laws of Sukkot, which includes sitting in booths for 7 days, taking the four species of etrog, palm, myrtle and willow, and being joyful. Finally, we get laws about the kinds of oil we can use in the Temple, the laws of the showbread that must be displayed, a story about a person who was put to death for blasphemy and the penalties for murder, property damage and personal injury. 

Real wild ending there, huh? I want to rewind, though, to the beginning of the parsha, where once again we have to face some laws that feel almost impenetrably difficult for 2022. The Torah disqualifies any priest with a moom, literally translated as a blemish, though the Torah uses it to describe a physical disability, or any kind of physical trait that seems different. The fact that the Torah calls disability a blemish or defect, and excludes people from positions of power if they have any kind of visible difference, hurts. It’s ableist and exclusionary of people with disabilities, without any reason given. I want to echo R’ Steven’s explanation from last week that sometimes, the Torah lets us down, and that confronting parts of the tradition that are imperfect or even hurtful reminds us that we can and should be improving on the tradition and working towards a more just world. I don’t have any excuses for this text, just love for people who are, or have been, hurt by this part of the text. 

But I also want to share a commentary by the Kli Yakar, a late 16th century Polish rabbi who often defends the rights and experiences of the oppressed. He notes that this part of the Torah is only concerned with external appearances, and asks nothing of the spirit of the priests. He claims that these priests who are excluded because of their disability have souls that are unblemished, perfect, which is why they are still allowed to eat sacrificial meat even if they are barred from Temple service. To me, this says that while it is unfair for the Torah to use physical differences to exclude, our access to holiness, and to Jewish ritual, should be judged on the basis of our spirit, not our body. The Kli Yakar then takes it a step further. He notes that the Torah bars anyone of the priestly line who is, to quote, “asher bo moom”, who has on him a blemish (again, we can and should take issue with this word when it is applied to disability). But the Kli Yakar then says that those asher bo moom, who have an external difference of appearance, are fundamentally different from those asher moom bo, who are internally blemished. These are the people we should be concerned about, in our post-Temple world, these people who think themselves perfect because of how they look and who don’t care what kind of person they are. I love this commentary because it doesn’t excuse the Torah’s verses, or try to explain them away, but it also helps us reframe the Torah in a way that is relevant, and instructive to us. We should not be talking about excluding people on the basis of ability, we should be looking at people deeply, to see what their soul reflects about who they are. 

So I want to offer a blessing for those priests, regardless of their physical appearance, who strove to bring their whole soul to their life in the Temple, and who did the hard work of maintaining emotional and spiritual integrity. And, to all of you, who feel more seen for what you look like than who you are, I hope you will be blessed to find community and loved ones who value your spirit, and who see you as whole and perfect just the way you are.