My nine-year-old daughter and I decided to go for a walk in the woods today. Specifically, we decided to follow the path in Concord, Massachusetts, that wraps around Walden Pond. For someone with the head and heart of a New Englander, that is a sacred journey. 

Walden Pond, of course, is the place where Henry David Thoreau built a 10' x 15' cabin and spent two years, from 1845 to 1847, living a simple life. He recorded his experience in his book, Walden: or, Life in the Woods, a classic of American literature and philosophy. At the site of the cabin today, there is a plaque with Thoreau's words: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." 

That sentiment is resonating with me this week as I think about Tazria, this week's very challenging Torah portion. The portion deals with the ritual impurity of women who have given birth and with the strange laws regarding a skin disease called tzara'at in the text (and often mistakenly translated as "leprosy"). As Torah portions go, there are few that are more deeply moored in the "essential facts of life" – childbirth, disease and the specter of death. 

One of the most mystifying aspects of this Torah portion is the declaration that the ritual impurity of giving birth to a male child lasts 33 days, but the impurity following the birth of a female child lasts twice as long, 66 days. The text itself offers no explanation for the discrepancy. It is left as a mystery.

I have written about this subject before, offering my own understanding of the ritual impurity that follows a woman giving birth. Some readers, while appreciating the interpretation, have wondered why a contemporary Jew would even bother to find meaning in a passage from the Torah that seems so blatantly misogynistic, so obviously disrespectful of women. I have been asked, "At what point does looking for spiritual meaning turn into justification for something that simply is wrong?" 

It is a good question, one that I take seriously. There are things in the Torah – slavery, killing, racism and sexism – that cannot just be "drashed away." I believe that we do need to confront those texts and be willing to say that those ancient writings do not always represent the values we cherish and by which we wish to live. 

However, I also will say that Torah's gifts do not always lie upon the easy surface. Even the texts that are most difficult for us can open our eyes to moments of wonder. I had one of those today.

The path around Walden Pond was not really made for hikers at this time of year, especially after the snowy winter that New England has had. The ground was covered with ice and my daughter and I had to struggle just to keep on our feet. We went through long stretches of slow careful slipping and sliding along the ice, but my little girl is more hardy and persistent than she looks. She did marvelously.

At one point, I asked her to take the lead, so I could keep an eye on her and to encourage her to keep up a good pace. She surprised me with her determination to be a good leader. When I tried to pass her, she shouted, "You told me to take the lead!" I had to defer to her and let her lead on.

I only have girls. I often have wondered what it would be like to have a son – a child who, like me as a child, would be more excited by sports than by dolls, more motivated by competition than by relationship-building. My girls sometimes seem like a mystery to me, but they also surprise me in moments like this when – in their own decidedly female way – they can be every bit as tough and determined as any boy.

I will not say that the Torah is not patriarchal and that it does not have passages that are misogynistic. But, I will say that the Torah speaks a truth when it notices that boys and girls are not the same. The Torah teaches something of value in reminding us that there is a mystery beyond our ken in the way that gender forms us. A little girl can be such a surprising and awe-inspiring creature, even to a man who has known her since the moment she was miraculously born. 

It is a secret held in the woods and in "the essential facts of life." Today, it was a moment in which I felt that the world had something to teach me.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Tazria: Newborn Spirituality
Pinchas: Five Sisters Who Turned the Key to Unlock the Torah

Mary Douglas wrote a book that changed the way we think about religion. Purity and Danger (1966) is an anthropological study that examines the way human societies simultaneously fear and venerate the things that don't fit our preconceived categories.

Douglas wrote that societies divide the world up into classifications: clean and dirty, fit and unfit, etc. Invariably, some objects and experiences do not fit the scheme. Is the soil in which plants grow a source of life, or is it dirt that is seen as a source of contamination and death? Wherever there are things that don't match the pigeon holes – or have an ambiguous relationship to the categories – society tends to push them into two realms: the sacred and the taboo. 

If you think this just sounds like the primitive thinking of pre-modern people who instinctively fear or venerate anything they don't understand – if you think it is far from the scientific approach of our society – think about the way our modern, science-based world thinks about things that are on the boundaries of our categories. Doesn't our culture treat sexuality as being simultaneously "dirty" and sublime? Don't we venerate the violence we love to watch on the football field or in the movies, while we cringe in horror at the thought of violence in our neighborhoods? We, too, are caught in the love-hate response to things that do not comfortably fit into our social scheme.

This week's Torah portion (Shmini) describes in loving detail the practices of the offerings the Israelite's made to God in the Tabernacle as they wandered in the wilderness, and which they later would offer in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Torah describes how the sacrifices brought blessing on the people and how they caused the Presence of God to "appear to all the people" (Leviticus 9:23). The Tabernacle offerings helped to purify the people and made them worthy to have God dwell among them.

But the sacrifices also were a source of danger and death. In the only extended narrative story in the book of Leviticus, we read how Aaron's two eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu, made a fire offering on the altar that was, in some unspecified way, inappropriate and improper. The text tells us that, "Fire came from before Adonai and consumed them, and they died before Adonai" (Leviticus 10:2). Even more confounding and enigmatic, Moses tells his brother Aaron after the death of his two sons, "This is what Adonai has said, 'Through those who come close to Me am I made holy. Before all the people shall I be glorified'" (Leviticus 10:3). 

What, we wonder, is so sanctifying about death of two men who made a mistake? How is God glorified by incinerating them? Jewish tradition has many – often contradictory – explanations for the death of Nadav and Avihu. I think that Mary Douglas would have seen it as an example of the convergence of purity and danger. 

The sacrificial altars of ancient Israel were the place where the contradictions were resolved. The Israelites saw newly born domestic animals and harvested crops as being miraculous (and so, I add, should we). To whom did they belong? To the farmer who cultivated them? How could any human being take credit for such a miracle? Did they belong to God? If so, how could human beings have the audacity to use them for food? 

By offering a portion of God's miracles back up to God, things with no clear categories were made comprehensible. Food was made suitable for eating through a rite that purified both the food and the consumers of the food.

The story of the death of Nadav and Avihu reminds us of the flip side of purification. Wherever categories are violated, there is also danger. In the ether-world where categories are blurred, one false step can end in death. The immolation of Nadav and Avihu is another kind of sacrifice – one in which the consumer becomes the consumed. As we – body and soul – are also miracles of God, we also are liable to become the offering.

I am thinking about all of this because, this week, I visited my doctor because some of the pieces of my miraculous body (specifically, the C5 and C6 vertebrae) are not working correctly. While I stood in the x-ray room, I tingled slightly with fear as the technician walked out of the room to zap me with a tiny bit of radiation. It's hard to keep that experience from feeling slightly dangerous. But, of course, it is a "sacred danger" – a moment to recognize that healing and destruction go hand in hand. Life and death are not opposites – they are playmates. 

The doctor pointed out the areas of the image that show the problem. (Without the guidance of this latter-day priest, the image would make no more sense to me than the entrails of a sacrificial goat.) The experience launched me into the mindset of Mary Douglas and the ambivalent world of things that are outside of the usual categories. Am I well or am I unwell? Is the doctor who irradiates me a healer or a destroyer? Will the sacred rites of the examination room lead to purification and wellness, or is it a prelude to further danger and deterioration?

Before you send me your sympathy and prayers for healing, please know that my condition is not serious. I am in no mortal peril. I am just going through one of those moments that we all know about – that time when you have to pass through the uncomfortable place of being "a patient" – a person who is somewhere along the journey between illness and health. You've been there, too.

It is an experience that can bring us close to God. It reminds us of our frailty and vulnerability. It puts us in touch with our mortality and our dreams of being touched by Eternity – even though we know the danger of "meeting your Maker." We gain new insights into why Moses would tell his brother that God is made holy by those who come close to God, both in purity and in danger.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Shemini: The Thing
Nadav and Avihu

I ended Shabbat last night with a group of teenagers on a small spoil Island in the Indian River Lagoon on the east coast of southern Florida. We kayaked here for a Confirmation retreat that included paddling on the shining water, preparing meals, camping overnight, planting fruit trees, and studying texts about Judaism and the environment.

After dinner last night, we made the havdalah blessings over wine and spices. We lit and extinguished the braided candle as we heard the water ripple, the crickets chirp, and the manatees and dolphins breathe. Then we assembled sticks, pine needles and palm fronds to make a small, intimate fire to keep us warm through the evening.

We sat around the campfire for two hours, sometimes chatting, sometimes putting more wood on the fire, and often just sitting in silence. To me, it seemed like a precious moment — a group of teenagers with no cellphones or laptops to stare at, no lessons or sport practices to run off to, nothing better to do than just stare into the red, orange, yellow and blue flames of our modest fire.

There is something captivating and intoxicating about a fire. Staring at it, feeling its warmth, feeding it and tending it, lulls us into quiet appreciation. We are fascinated by the way fire transforms things. It turns scraps of wood into energy. It dances and breathes and shines out where there was darkness. Fire also has that hint of danger to it. Fire reminds us of our physical vulnerabilities and the way that, if we are not careful, we can be consumed by forces beyond our control.

We watch a fire and feel that we are, somehow, a bit closer to the eternal source of creation and change in the universe — a power that can seem, sometimes, to overwhelm us. Watching a fire, we are transfixed by a world that is always, right before our eyes, becoming something new.

In this week's Torah portion, Tzav, we read about how the ancent Israelites kept a fire burning before the Temple: "A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out" (Leviticus 6:6). The Israelites burned offerings on that fire to express their gratitude for their blessings, to find forgiveness of their faults, and to come close to their God. 

Nowadays, when we talk about the sacrifices described in the book of Leviticus, we often say things like, "These ancient practices seem very strange to us," or we talk about how we are lucky that we now worship God with words, not with burning animal carcasses on an altar. But I think the old, abandoned practices of the Temple and its sacred fire are not as strange to as we like to say they are. They are not so irrelevant. 

We, too, stare into the fire of the Shabbat candles, the havdalah flame, or just a friendly campfire on a cool Florida night, and we discover a bit of eternity in the sparks and the shifting, living light. We are fascinated by it and we are reminded of our fragility in a universe filled with wonder and change. 

Today, as we get back into our kayaks, we will feel the swells and currents of the lagoon's waters under us — another reminder of transforming power that is not fully under our control. We will paddle our way back to the mainland and back to the usual rhythms of our lives. We will carry with us, though, some memories of a Shabbat spent looking into the light, feeling ourselves warmed by sacred flames, peering out of the darkness into the transforming fire of eternity. 


Other Posts on This Topic:
And After the Fire — a Still, Small Voice
Tzav: Find the Sacred in Every Little Thing

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812) is mostly remembered today as the founder of Chabad, the chasidic movement that — long after his death — became associated with aggressive outreach to non-orthodox Jews. 

(Sorry, there is no quiz here, just a little Torah. I hope you're not disappointed.)

Shneur Zalman also was the author of the Tanya, the great chasidic philosophical work that describes the Chabad approach of applying rigorous intellectual scrutiny to Jewish mysticism. His aim was to create a system that would appeal to and stimulate the intellect as a way of gaining deeper spiritual connection to God. 

An example of Shneur Zalman's approach can be seen in this week's Torah portion, Vayikra. The first portion of the book of Leviticus focusses on the offerings of animal and grain sacrifices that were brought to the Temple in Jerusalem in ancient times. In typical chasidic fashion, Schneur Zalman had no interest in the actual mechanics of sacrificing animals. He saw the sacrifices as symbolic of our inner spiritual life. 

He commentary notes an odd construction of a verse at the beginning of this week's portion:

Schneur Zalman wondered why the verse says, "When a person offers from you a sacrifice…," instead of, "When a person from you (i.e., an Israelite) offers a sacrifice…" To the ear of a person familiar with the usual syntax of biblical Hebrew, the phrase does seems a bit odd.

Schneur Zalman explained that the unexpected word order conveys meaning. The sacrificial offering, he wrote, truly is from you. That is, it is composed of an aspect of your being. 

Schneur Zalman brings us more than clever word play, and more than an emotional appeal to be more attached to God. He wants you to be intellectually and introspectively engaged in the way you worship God. He wants you to think about your animal nature — the part of your mind that is impulsive, frightened, easily angered, and the part of your mind that chases after things that are not good for you. He does want your fervor and devotion, but he also wants your ability to analyze and to consider yourself.

Notice that the commentary does not call upon you to reject or to deny your "animal soul." That would be an impossibility and an exercise in self-loathing. Rather, he asks that you offer that part of yourself up to God. Identify it, know it, accept it, and tame it so that it will be transformed from a personal stumbling block into a symbol of a new relationship with God — one in which you know yourself more deeply and, thereby, come to know God more deeply.

This is not easy work. The teaching calls on you to be a spiritual warrior and to fight a long battle to know your own nature. It wants you, through the abilities of your mind, to improve and elevate yourself to a higher plane of being. 

In a way, it is ironic that Chabad today often is identified with a hyper-observant Judaism that seems to ask people to turn their minds off rather than to engage their intellect to gain greater connection to God. Schneur Zalman asked his students two hundred years ago to do something quite different. He wanted them to cling to God through deep, skeptical inquiry. 

We grow closer to God when we use our intellect to probe who we are and what our life's meaning is. God has given us minds to understand ourselves and our world more deeply — including our evolving approach to gender inclusion, understanding of history and science, and our tolerance and respect for people of different cultures and traditions. By facing the challenge, we elevate our animal nature into something that allows us to reach toward our highest selves.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Terumah: What to Give the God Who Has Everything
The Problem with Certainty