Category: Torah

For his military service, a man served on a submarine that regularly used Morse code. He became a respected expert able to quickly send and decipher messages.

Sadly, after completing his navy service, away from strict military protocols, he fared less well. He was let go from a good job in civilian life because of a gross misunderstanding.

Not sure what to do next, he saw the army was looking for a Morse code specialist, and he decided to apply. He was told to come anytime between 10:00 a.m. and 12 noon and he arrived at 11:50 a.m.

At the office, he saw a waiting room full of applicants and a secretary at a desk in front of an inner room that was empty except for an interviewer quietly reading to herself. The man sat down and listened to the music playing in the background for a few minutes. Then he got up and approached the inner office door. The secretary stopped him, “Sir, there are many people waiting in line ahead of you,” he said. “Wait your turn.” The man hesitated, remembering how he had just lost a job through a misunderstanding, but then he continued onward into the inner room.

The interviewer in that room immediately got up, went out to the waiting room and told everyone, “Thank you all for coming. You can go home, we have chosen someone.” Those in the waiting room called out in unison, “It isn’t fair. This man came in last. Why did you interview him before us?” The interviewer replied, “Did you not pay attention to the music? It was in Morse code, and it was saying: “if you’ve come for the interview, just walk through the door and come in. Even if the secretary tells you to wait, just go straight to the inner room.” [1]

Read the full article on The Times of Israel

Faking it. A “vague sense of dislocation,” a “recognition of a split” between our “true selves” and the roles we play. You know what I’m talking about.

Faking it[1]. It’s a human inclination, for better or for worse, and when it comes to the commandment of being happy on festivals (“You shall rejoice in your festival…you shall be that happy,”[2]…וְשָׂמַחְתָּ בְּחַגֶּךָ וְהָיִיתָ אַךְ שָׂמֵחַ), the injunction can smart. I mean, really, do you enjoy faking it?

For those who adhere to authenticity and the very same joy that external and internal synchrony can bring to integrity of being, Pesach — or even the canter from Purim to Pesach — is an interesting time.

Pesach invites us to bring our inside to the fore. Where Purim allowed us to conceive of the masks we wear or want to wear or want to shed, Pesach permits us — facilitates us — in giving birth to our inside experience, creating ourselves anew. Pesach takes “faking it” to a whole new generative level.

This Shabbat, experiencing Parshat Metzora, combined with Shabbat HaGadol, the shabbat before Pesach, offers us a perspective on this inside/outside interplay and readies us to delve into this form of recreation.

Read the full article on The Times of Israel

Leviticus (Vayikra) is a God-infused book. The kohanim (priests) direct the cultic service of God, who resides at the center of the camp. The divine sanctuary is the focal point of the Israelite society, whose sacred status must be safeguarded from regular human contact with life and death.  And yet, God is largely absent — in an immediate sense — from the book. God is impersonal and removed, in whose presence the only proper response is silence. No one, not even Moses, speaks to God in Leviticus, although God speaks to humans. The high priest, who gains access to the holiest depths of the sanctuary on the holiest day of the year, does not even confront God directly. In Leviticus, the average person achieves forgiveness just by performing the required ritual acts. Atonement does not depend on the will of God.

Contrast this divine detachment with the intimate portrait of God which emerges in the Midrash on Leviticus, chapter 12, Parshat Tazria. In response to the opening verse, “When a woman conceives and bears a male child,” Vayikra Rabbah highlights the missing character in that verse: God. Throughout the Bible, God is explicitly present and involved in human beings’ birth. How many stories in Genesis alone revolve around God’s hand in bringing children into the world? In its plain sense, God does not belong in Tazria, for the verse introduces purity legislation for a postpartum woman — the sole subject of the verse! And yet, the rabbis of Vayikra Rabbah respond to God’s absence in Leviticus 12:1 by rewriting the verse, in a manner of speaking, and bringing God into a front and center position.

Read the full article on The Times of Israel