Kedoshim: purified

Kedoshim: Purified

What does it mean to be kadosh?  Is the parsha offering instructions for the atainment of this undefined state? 

 There seem to be two versions.  One begins in chapter 19:2 Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them: Ye shall be holy.  and ends at 20:7 Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy.  Immediately thereafter, the second edition begins: 20:8: 8 And keep ye My statutes, and do them: I am the LORD who sanctify you.

In both editions, the first rule of the holy concerns relationship to parents.  The first time: (19:3)Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and ye shall keep My sabbaths

The second time:  20:9: For whatsoever man there be that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.

A few days ago I said Yizkor, the memorial prayer, for my parents. Honoring parents does not end when they die.  Sometimes, that is when it begins, sometimes that is when it improves.  When we say kaddish we become holy through honoring our parents. 

What holiness I have devolves from my parents.  There is a sense of kadosh, quoted by Chazal, as tokad aish: burnt in fire. When I said Yizkor, I was reminded of that polluting, purifying, unforgiving and unforgivable fire.  The fire that consumed all my granparents, uncles , aunts, etc Everyone whose closeness and kinship is reinforced at the end of parshath Kedoshim

Holiness, sanctity: you know it when you see it. 

Acharei Moth: Relationships

Acharei Moth: Relationships

 In every relationship  there are things that are off limits. That is a theme of this parsha.

Not everyone can enter the inner sanctum.  Even those who may enter, Aaron and his sons, may only do so  once a year,  and only  in the  prescribed way : With blazing incense, with animal blood.  The caporeth, the  ark cover, must be covered. with the cloud of smoke. There  is something special about being told how to approach, how to beg and how to love.

The end of the parsha ( read on Yom Kippur), tells us of the forbidden sexual relationships. Many of these taboos involve people with whom we have family relationships.  The addition of the sexual is an unwanted element, like the fire that Nadav and Avihu brought in their unauthorized, fatal entry into the inner sanctum.

The Haftorah for Shabbath Hagadol emphasizes the prerequisites for the Messiah:  Peace between the (wired) young and the (fading) old.  I think it implies that the Messianic assumption is also like the unwanted fire.  One may only enter the holy when invited and properly dressed and with the proper gifts

Metzorah: Purification

Thazriah, last weeks parsha, dealt primarily with diagnoses of various forms of tzoraath.  This week's parsha deals  with the post cure ritual: birds, blood, string, wood, water and animal sacrifices. This ritual does not cure the physical problem. The ritual attaches meaning to the emergence from the state of  sick pariah, reintroduction to normal life.

After the tragedy of the illness, after the  questions of theo - decency, after the vindication, there is the question of what happened? Why the tzoraath, why the isolation, the (temporary) death? In that time of isolation, when a person reviews his life, she certainly found a misspoken word, an inappropriate glance, a thought that should have been banished. Now, despite the culpability he is cured!

The ritual make sense of it all because the ritual is nonsense. It does not work on a rational level and its actions in the metaphysical realm are inexplicable.  The ritual evokes, it does not state. Like music or perfume, it has no words.

The dipping of the live bird in the mixture of water and blood of the dead bird is the most odd and moving part of the ritual.  The Haftorah of the desperate lepers who find the invading army conquered by hoof-beats and save their people ( who banished them) from the famine, parallels the liberation of the living bird after its immersion in the blood of the dead.  Is this the story of the  modern state of Israels?