Like much of Leviticus, Parashat Emor opens with yet more of these rules. But now the Torah needs to acknowledge that even when everything is in the right place, there is still death. What’s a priest to do when tragedy strikes? “Speak [Emor] to the priests, the sons of Aaron,” God tells Moses, “and say to them: None shall defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin, except for the relatives that are closest to him” (Lev. 21:1). In order to stay pure, priests are limited in terms of when they can come near a dead body; even though they may mourn the death of another, the Torah says that they can only be near the corpse of a close relative. After a few terse verses about mourning practices, the Torah enumerates further rules that are meant to keep the priests and High Priest pure, with the upshot being that a priest is “holy to their God” (21:7).

As anyone following along in Leviticus until now knows—the priests are special. And in a ritual system in which impurity abounds and priests must remain on call to serve God, it is unsurprising to see the Torah set extra strictures to keep them pure. But what do we make of such passages today? While many of the practices listed at the opening of this week’s parashah are still observed by Jews who maintain priestly lineage, they can feel remote to the rest of us—rules for a religious elite in a Temple-era world that no longer exists.

R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner (1801–1854), the founder of the Izhbitza-Radzyn line of Hasidic rabbis, read this passage in a way that allows it to speak not only to the priests, but to anyone. In his book the, “the Izbicer” reads this passage allegorically. First, the word “priest” can be understood—based on —not merely as a descendant of Aaron, but as anyone “who seeks to serve God,” an Oved Hashem.

Having made this first move, the Izbicer then reads the passage at the start of this week’s parashah as speaking not just about the specifics of corpse impurities, but about the challenges that face a religious person when they encounter death or other tragedies. “A person like this,” the Izbicer says of the Oved Hashem, “can become angry with God’s actions.” By contrast, someone who “thinks the world operates by chance” cannot be truly angry with God, “because they can say,” when dealing with a tragedy, that “it’s just happenstance.”

The Mei ha-Shiloach explains that this capacity for anger—for frustration with the way things are—is not a failure of faith but is actually an expression of faith. This is a striking inversion of how religious anger is often perceived. We tend to think of protest as a sign of weakened faith. The Izbicer suggests the opposite: that the person who cannot be angry with God has simply stopped believing that God is responsible for anything.

The frustration of the Oved Hashem comes from a place of care. To challenge the order of things is to believe not only that they can be different but that they should be, because ultimately there is an overarching ethics according to which the world should operate, that even God should be held to. Only someone who takes God seriously, who believes the world is ordered with intention and purpose, can be genuinely outraged when that order seems to fail. Indifference is the luxury of those who expect nothing.

As an educator teaching in a world full of ever more injustices, my greatest fear is not that my students will be upset with the order of things, but that they will stop caring at all. True faith carries with it the burden of expectation, and with expectation comes the possibility of disappointment. The Izbicer reminds us that we should hold on to that disappointment. Our disappointment—our own and that of our students—should inspire us to do good: to remain invested enough in the world to be troubled by it, and to fight and strive for something better.

Leviticus imagines a perfectly ordered world—one in which everything is in its right place. The Izbicer would say that the person of faith has internalized that vision. They know what the world should look like, and so when it doesn’t, they cannot simply shrug. To be frustrated with the world as it is, is to believe in the world as it ought to be.

At the end of Emor, the Torah tells the story of the blasphemer, the man who curses God. On its surface, this story is not especially complex. A man curses the name of God, so he is held until God can communicate a punishment for him. God tells the people that everyone who heard his blasphemy is to take the man outside of the camp and stone him to death (). This becomes the paradigm for executing people who commit capital crimes in general, both in the Torah and in the rabbinic tradition.

However, a closer look at the story shows that it is more complicated than it might originally seem. The Torah points to a number of curious details. In verse 10, the Torah says, “And the son of an Israelite woman, who was the son of an Egyptian, went out among the children and Israel, and the son of the Israelite woman and a Israelite man fought in the camp.” There is nothing in the Torah to tell us why this fight began, nor is it clear how the fight lead to the son of the Israelite woman blaspheming. We do not know why the man’s mother is identified in the following verse, but he himself is never identified. And finally, the question I continue to return to is, why does it matter that this man is half Egyptian?

The midrashim explore the man’s lineage in detail, explaining how his parents’ history helps us understand his crime. Vayikra Rabbah explains that this man’s father was actually the Egyptian that Moshe killed in Egypt, before he ran away and ultimately encountered the burning bush. Because the blasphemer’s father was not an Israelite, he had no share in the Land, and no set place in the camp. Despite having reasonable cause for feeling alienated from the Israelite community, Ramban (quoting the Sifra), claims that he chose to convert by immersing in the mikveh and having a brit milah. However, he still finds himself outside of the community. Thus, the Sifra locates the origin of the dispute between the blasphemer and the Israelite as being about whether the blasphemer has a place with the tribe of Dan, his mother’s tribe.

These midrashim are striking because, whether intentionally or not, they turn the blasphemer into a more sympathetic character. Although there is no attempt to condone the choice to blaspheme, the more the blasphemer’s back story is offered, the easier it is to understand what might have caused him to ultimately curse God. His father was killed by the leader of his community. He is rejected by the tribe where he tries to find a place. He is known as the son of the Egyptian father, rather than simply another Israelite. Is it any wonder that he eventually lashes out and curses the deity that rules over the people who shunned him?

Surely, the blasphemer is most responsible for his actions. However, the community is forced to grapple with its culpability as well. In verse 14, God commands that all of the people who heard the man curse God are to lay their hands on his head, mirroring the process that one goes through with an animal that will be sacrificed on their behalf. In part, the laying of the hands signifies their rejection of his actions; the fact that they were present does not mean they condoned their actions. However, it also forces them to admit that they were there, and thus that they have a small part in what caused this man to be executed. Perhaps if they had treated this man differently, the situation would not have escalated, God would not have been cursed, and nobody would need to be put to death.

Although we no longer execute people for blasphemy, the lessons of this story are strikingly relevant today. When we divide our communities—in whatever forms they take—into insiders and outsiders, we are breeding seeds of pain and rejection that could have unknown consequences. Many of us see ourselves more as the Israelites than as the blasphemer in this story, but that means that we must do better than the Israelites did. We must learn from what they did, and find a way to open our doors, rather than pushing people out. Where around us are people feeling rejected as they try to enter in? Where are we dividing when we could unite? When are we othering people who are really more like us than we might want to admit?

ויאמר י־הוה אל־משה אמר

Forty years ago, I first encountered Haydn’s famous oratorio, , while singing in a choir in elementary school. I was genuinely puzzled.  In one section, based on verses from Psalm 19 where the celestial bodies praise God as creator, the text reads like something generated by an unfortunate adventure with Google Translate: “To day that is coming speaks it the day; the night that is gone to following night.” Later that afternoon, I jumped in the car and burst out to my father (who generally supplied answers to my endless questions), “What is ‘to day that is coming speaks it the day’ supposed to mean?!” He replied calmly, “Mmm, Haydn, yes,” and recited a more familiar translation of the psalm’s opening verses by way of response. It quieted me at the time, but I’ll admit I’ve secretly never been satisfied, so when Midrash Vayikra Rabbah offered an insight connecting this verse to the opening of our parashah this week, I was intrigued.

Peppered throughout the books of Vayikra and Bamidbar is a phrase so common as to be ignored. In a section of the Torah offering few stories, this little phrase stitches the seams of disparate material together like decorative thread on a patchwork quilt. In this week’s portion it occurs so frequently, in fact, that it has one of the highest counts of any parashah for its appearance:

וידבר י־הוה אל משה לאמר דבר. . .ואמרת. . .

&�Բ�����;“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak…and say...’�ĝ.

It is this phrase that introduces most of the themes in the parashah: from priestly purity injunctions to observance of major festivals, and ultimately the avoidance of blasphemy—nearly a dozen times in all. It’s surprising, then, that the parashah would open with an anomaly in the expected formula, resulting in its name, Emor:

ויאמר י־הוה אל משה אמר אל הכהנים בני אהרן ואמרת אלהם

“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to the priests, the sons of Aaron ,and say to them’”

(Lev. 21:1)

In Hebrew, the established formula has been vayedaber . . . ����’e���ǰ� . . . daber . . . butthis verse uses emor three times: vayomer . . . emor . . . ve’amarta. Why is it different here?

Perhaps the breaking of the formula for our parashah’s irregular emor is about more than just words. Using its characteristic wordplay, the Midrash connects the parashah’s emor here to omer in Psalm 19:3 (spelled the same way, but as a poetic noun): “day to day utters speech (omer), and night to night reveals knowledge.”  It explains that the day and the night are negotiating the giving and borrowing of time from each other to create the cycles of the year between the equinoxes. Reading the next verse in the psalm, we see “there is no speech (omer) . . .” Or as the Midrash puts it, “they pay each other back harmoniously, without a contract.”

But this is a contradiction. How could day and night speak without speaking, and how is any of this related to the parashah? An answer might lie in the differences between ledaber and ����’e���ǰ�. Daber is generally translated as “speak” and emor as “say” or “tell”; in Hebrew their same spellings can function as nouns: “words” and “speech,” respectively. While daber is used for speaking aloud, emor might also take on the meaning of “communication.” And as any parent or teacher knows all too well, communication does not always require speaking, and speaking does not always result in communication. The day and night are communicating or telling (emor) without using speech (omer). Our parashah’s opening verse then, might be translated, “And God said to Moses, ‘Communicate . . . tell . . . ’” because the material to come requires more than mere words.

It is no wonder, then, that speech and its importance echo across the parashah. The seasons produced by heavenly wordless discourse in the Midrash are reflected in the annual cycle of Israel’s major feasts discussed in the middle. Interestingly, while we use a visual word in English (to observe a ritual or holy day), here it is a verbal one: cried out or proclaimed (mikra):

 וידבר י־הוה אל־משה לאמר דבר אל בני ישראל ואמרת אלהם מועדי י־הוה אשר תקראו אתם מקראי קדש אלה הם מועדי   

Everett Fox’s translation brings this out most clearly: YHWH spoke to Moshe, saying: Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them:  The appointed-times of YHWH, which you are to proclaim to them [as] proclamations of holiness—these are they, my appointed-times (Lev. 23:1–2).

The theme of the importance of speech and communication continues with the strict admonitions surrounding the speaking of the divine name at the parashah’s close. Both the proclaiming of festivals and the avoidance of blasphemy carry the thread of the opening emor throughout the fabric of the entire portion.

In Eichah Rabbah(1:41), the Midrash offers an opposing example of a vayomer . . . vayomer redundancy from Esther 7:4, where the text attributes “he said” to Ahashverosh twice in a row. Here, the Midrash tells us, it is because at his first vayomer, he didn’t know Esther was Jewish and spoke to her directly, but later he only spoke to her through a translator.  As in our verse, the Midrash interprets emor through the problem of words, meaning, and reception, but the second emor serves in this instance to distance the speaker instead of communicating effectively. It highlights difference, deliberately obfuscates, and creates barriers where there had previously been none.

In our world, there are protests and counter-protests; speaking, often at high volume, is part of it.  Sometimes not much actual communication is happening in these exchanges. I didn’t know it back in elementary school, but I’d stumbled onto an important truth in Haydn’s awkward libretto: every act of speech requires a kind of translation on the part of the recipient, and communication is not guaranteed. And after all, if even day and night can communicate wordlessly, is language sufficient?

From its first verse, Parashat Emor presents us with challenges to our voices. In our cultural and political moment, we are faced with vayomer . . . emor . . . ve’amarta choices every day. What are we truly saying when we speak? How might we move from just saying words to truly communicating?

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

Loraine Enlow is a is a doctoral candidate in the Bible Department at 91�첥, and winner of the Fannie and Robert Gordis Prize in Bible. Her work focuses on Christian exegetical use of Jewish commentaries in the Middle Ages in England and France. Her new exhibit, The Burke’s Medieval Bibles: Influence, Innovation, & Impact, featuring materials from across Columbia University’s collection, is on display in the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary through early fall 2024. In addition to her doctoral work, Loraine heads Admissions for graduate programs at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music and is working toward 91�첥’s Judaica & Hebraica Librarianship Certification.

Parashat Emor (Leviticus 21–24) opens with a passage describing limitations placed on individuals whom a kohen (priest) may mourn or marry, as well as limiting sacrificial service in the Mishkan to those who are able-bodied. We learn in Leviticus 21:17 that any kohen who has a mum—blemish or defect—is explicitly forbidden from “offering the food of his God” (21:17). Kohanim thus disqualified include those who are blind, lame, have a limb length discrepancy, are hunchbacked, have a broken limb, and many others. They are forbidden from ritual leadership throughout the ages; though not stripped of their priestly status and are permitted to eat sacrificial meat. They are not permitted to come behind the curtain or approach the altar. They mustn’t profane these places which God has sanctified (21:22–23).

This is a deeply problematic and profoundly painful passage. It is easy to ignore this passage, given that kohanim no longer enjoy the privileged status once afforded them in the aftermath of the Temple’s destruction. We might be horrified by this passage, but we might also comfort ourselves with the knowledge that no longer are individuals with disabilities explicitly forbidden from ritual or communal leadership, as evidenced by the tiny but steadily growing cohort of rabbis, rabbinical students, cantors, and others who are bravely and boldly exercising spiritual leadership that is so desperately needed. We might think to ourselves that we are working ceaselessly for change, that in the aftermath of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) life has improved for individuals with disabilities in our society. We can look at this passage as a mere relic of its day, congratulate ourselves for moving past it, and find a more spiritually compelling theme in our parashah. But can we really?

I wish to boldly wrestle with Leviticus 21, and I do so from my perspective as a blind rabbi for whom this passage is at once profoundly painful and a call for change. I do not claim to know the experiences of anyone for whom the above categories are relevant other than my own and speak only for myself.

When I think about the tradition I love, the community I love, and the beloved teachers, friends, and mentors from whom I have learned incredible Torah and from whom, with God’s help, I will continue to do so, I feel I receive incredible strength to keep going on this journey of a lot of trailblazing firsts, this journey which has been both immensely painful and an incredible privilege. When I think about the great work that rabbinic trailblazers of all kinds have done, I know, in the deepest part of my being, that I am standing on the shoulders of giants for whom I have nothing but incredible gratitude and overflowing respect. They have boldly wrestled with Torah that is painful or exclusionary, be it with regards to the status of women, people with disabilities, or those in the LGBTQIA community, and with incredible intellectual honesty and integrity offered up hiddushim—new interpretations and understandings that unapologetically assert that we can be accepted for who we are in our spiritual communities, and that there are leaders we can turn to who understand our experiences on a deep level; that we, too, can take hold of Torah and bring our full selves to its study, and that those who misuse religious texts as a means of hiding behind their bigotry cause incredible harm and shouldn’t enjoy the unchallenged authority they so often do. It is my prayer that I humbly continue in that tradition.

Our sacred texts continue to be used as weapons of exclusion. Those of us who are seeking to carry the mantle of sacred leadership forward have the responsibility to wrestle authentically with this text, teach it with immense sensitivity, and be there with and for those in our communities who are grappling with the pain of it in the most visceral of ways. We are losing so much Torah when we fail to do so.

Though it is easy to claim that individuals with disabilities are no longer impacted by Leviticus 21 because our society has evolved, I am going to problematize that. When you look at your communities, how often do you see individuals with disabilities exercising leadership? Though I find this passage immensely painful, I am in a very uniquely privileged position. I am at once an insider and an outsider, in the rabbinate and simultaneously acutely aware of the ways in which marginality impacts my ability to make my voice heard. I am able to study Gemara while painfully aware of what a privilege that is for someone with my disability due to the ableist assumptions that preclude access to text for the vast majority of blind Jews. And I am deeply grateful for the ways in which I am able to teach Torah as I wonder how I will be received by the wider community, regardless of how hard I work.

Leviticus 21’s list of kohanim who are forbidden from sacrificial service points toward a desire that only socially normative bodies be the representatives of the people to the Holy One. But if we are all made in the image of God, as Genesis 1:27 teaches us, isn’t that a bit of a contradiction? Are we so concerned with supposed physical imperfection—I see nothing in this text about spiritual sensitivity or emotional maturity—that we assume that a supposed broken body equals a broken person? What does that say about the ways in which we subconsciously or otherwise dehumanize those without a perfectly normative presentation?

We live in a world in which those of us who find ourselves on the social margins are not seen as equally trustworthy, equally competent. The converse of this is that far too many religious leaders feel that they must hide an essential aspect of themselves for fear of losing the position they have worked so hard for or because they fear stigma. And though it is often unintentional and subconscious, we still place immense barriers in the way of so many who have such enriching Torah to teach due to our collective inability to get over our own ingrained prejudices.

And these obstacles don’t only affect those in explicit leadership positions, but also the ability of those on the margins to find a home at the center of our community. How often do we fail to talk about difficult subject matter because either we feel it isn’t applicable to us or because “people like that” aren’t here? When we privilege supposed physical perfection—a deeply problematic term, one which disability rights activists and others have problematized and deconstructed—we send a painful message about the value of those who can’t meet that impossible standard.

When reading or teaching Leviticus 21, don’t shirk it off and pat yourself on the back for the fact that times have changed. Ask hard questions. In what ways is this text still so relevant to our current society? Do we truly value the divine spark that is within each of us, as Genesis teaches us, or do we seek perfection in those who lead us? How do we silence those who are different, subtly and explicitly, because their stories and experiences, their truths, make us uncomfortable? May we continue the ceaseless process of undoing the barriers that preclude so many from being their authentic selves. May the day soon come speedily in which the inherent dignity and worth of everyone is sacrosanct.

To learn more about Rabbi Tuchman and her work, visit rabbituchman.com

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

The episode raised a question: To what extent should we be flexible in our adherence to religious precepts, and to what extent can we remain steadfast in our commitment to certain principles, even if they exclude others? With this dilemma in mind, I want to consider the opening lines of this week’s parashah, which discuss cases where a priest may allow himself to receive tumat met (impurity from a corpse), something he is not usually permitted to do.

וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֱמֹר אֶל־הַכֹּהֲנִים בְּנֵי אַהֲרֹן וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם לְנֶפֶשׁ לֹא־יִטַּמָּא בְּעַמָּיו׃

The LORD said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: None shall defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin . . .

The Torah bars a priest from coming into close contact with a corpse, except (as it continues to delineate) under certain conditions, e.g., the death of a loved one. But when I read the opening verse, I was immediately reminded of a baraita (early rabbinic text) I had encountered in my Introduction to Talmud class during my first year at 91�첥 that seemed to say otherwise!

תָּא שְׁמַע דְּאָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בַּר צָדוֹק: מְדַלְּגִין הָיִינוּ עַל גַּבֵּי אֲרוֹנוֹת שֶׁל מֵתִים, לִקְרַאת מַלְכֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל. וְלֹא לִקְרַאת מַלְכֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בִּלְבַד אָמְרוּ אֶלָּא אֲפִילּוּ לִקְרַאת מַלְכֵי אוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁאִם יִזְכֶּה, יַבְחִין בֵּין מַלְכֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְמַלְכֵי אוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם.

Come and hear that which Rabbi Elazar son of Zadok said: We would skip over coffins to greet the kings of Israel. And they did not say this only regarding the kings of Israel, but even gentile kings, that if he will merit, he will be able to distinguish between Jewish and gentile kings.

Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 19b

Rabbi Elazar son of Zadok is a priest living in the first century CE who is prohibited by the verse presented above from becoming impure by coming into contact with a corpse. This would presumably happen if he were jumping over coffins! The verse, however, does not mention a king as an exception to the rule. How can it be that he is saying he became impure to greet a king—and not just any king, but even a gentile king? Enter the principle of kevod habriyot (human dignity). The baraita cited above is part of a broader Talmudic discussion on the question of when human dignity trumps law. That is, are there certain cases in which the dignity of the person supersedes whatever halakhic rules the situation requires? Rabbi Elazar son of Zadok answers in the positive: he, a priest who must respect the strictures of Jewish purity law, may become impure to greet the kings of Israel.

The two sources (Torah and baraita) present different rules. According to the Torah, a priest may not defile himself unless the corpse is that of his immediate family. Yet, according to the baraita, a priest may even become impure for a non-Jewish king. It isn’t that for the rabbis purity laws were less important; on the contrary, proper observance of purity was a fundamental concern for Jews in the ancient world. I read this not as a shift away from purity but rather as an example of how the rabbis struggled to balance observance with the value of kevod habriyot.

In approaching these texts, I cannot help but think of how the question of priests and defilement is emblematic of a larger, still-relevant question modern Jews face: How do we navigate competing values that may require us to be lenient or make exceptions in certain situations?

For an answer to this question, it would do us well to look to Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah, wherein he prescribes that one should seek a middle path, the derekh beinonit, between two extremes:

שְׁתֵּי קְצָווֹת הָרְחוֹקוֹת זוֹ מִזּוֹ שֶׁבְּכָל דֵּעָה וְדֵעָה אֵינָן דֶּרֶךְ טוֹבָה וְאֵין רָאוּי לוֹ לָאָדָם לָלֶכֶת בָּהֶן… וְיֵלֵךְ בְּדֶרֶךְ הַטּוֹבִים וְהִיא הַדֶּרֶךְ הַיְשָׁרָה. הַדֶּרֶךְ הַיְשָׁרָה הִיא מִדָּה בֵּינוֹנִית שֶׁבְּכָל דֵּעָה וְדֵעָה. [1]

The two extremes opposite from one another for every trait are not the right path and are not fitting for a person to walk by their way . . . A person should walk in the path of the good ones—and this is the straight path. The straight path is the middle measure in every trait.

Mishneh Torah

While Maimonides discusses how one should always act according to the middle path—for example, not being too quick to anger, but also not being numb to all feeling—his teaching presents a useful paradigm for many aspects of our lives, religious observance included. For example, on a scale of strict purity (represented by the Torah) to abandoning the concept of purity entirely, the baraita might actually represent a derekh beinonit, a middle path. It does not reject purity but expands on the Torah’s narrow conditions.

We, too, should be able to balance holding fast to traditional observance—allowing it to inform our lives—while being able to accommodate practice, in certain situations, when values conflict. There should be a derekh beinonit, for example, where one neither needs to isolate from sharing a meal with others, nor abandon kashrut entirely. The student who refused to eat with my community would have done well to heed this teaching. Nearing graduation, I hope to take this lesson into the future—crafting for myself a life full of derakhim beinoniyot, middle paths, as an effective and meaningful compromise in the world in which we live.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

[1] Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot De’ot 1:3-4.

Six of the seven holidays mentioned in the Torah are referenced in Leviticus chapter 23 (Shabbat, Pesah, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot; only Rosh Hodesh is absent in this passage.)

Verses that open and close this discussion of the holidays appear in the holiday liturgy, including as insertions in the Ma’ariv service and before the kiddush preceding lunch: “These are the set times of Adonai, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed times” (Lev. 23:4) and “So Moses declared to the Israelites the set times of the Lord” (Lev. 23:44).

Parashat Emor begins with instructions designated for the kohanim, the dynastic religious leadership, with God instructing Moses to speak with “the priests, the sons of Aaron” (Lev. 21:1). The parashah shifts to God directing Moses to engage all of the Israelites regarding religious responsibilities and activities for the entire community. Rabbinic commentaries find significance in Adonai instructing Moses to tell the people “These are My fixed times, the fixed times of Adonai, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasion” (Lev. 23:2).

The authors of the Mishnah (edited around 200 CE) gave thought to the lived experience of people coming to the Temple during the pilgrimage holidays of Pesah, Sukkot, and Shavuot. They imagined that individuals would reenter the larger Israelite community after periods of time apart. They specifically wondered about interpersonal dynamics when encountering one another during emotionally charged times in their lives.

A passage from the Mishnah, (Middot 2:2, and a parallel passage in one of the Talmud’s minor tractates, Semahot 6:11) imagines a variety of difficult circumstances a person might be experiencing when coming to the Temple, and proposes a choreography and script for the encounter. Typically, most people who would enter the Temple precincts would move from the entrance to the right; however, some people would enter to the left, based on recent experiences: people would enter to the left if they were experiencing a hardship, including a person in mourning; a person who had been shunned by their family or community; the caregiver of an ill family member; or one who is preoccupied because of the loss of an important object.

The passage goes on to provide guidance to typical pilgrims when they would encounter those circling in the other direction. They should ask, “Why are you circling to the left?”

If the person responded, “Because I am in mourning,” one should offer the prayer, “May the One who dwells in this house comfort you.”

When encountering a person who says, “I have an ill family member,” one should respond with the prayer, “May the One who dwells in this house have compassion upon your relative.”

Perhaps most surprisingly, the Mishnah specifies that one who was in nidui—a form of excommunication in which someone was shunned by their family or community—should also circle to the left, so that so that those encountering such a person could offer a blessing. The Rabbis debated what blessing to offer this person so that they did not feel judged; the consensus blessing is, “May the One who dwells in this house grant in the hearts of your family or community members to draw you near.”

Underpinning the Mishnah is a care and concern for the affective experience of the observance of the holiday. Though the scripting of exchanges has the resonance of a call and response liturgy, the ultimate goal is human engagement during significant and often difficult times. The cases provided are invitations for future innovation. The person moving to the right who is not experiencing hardship is instructed to begin the encounter not with a gesture of help but with a question—“Why are you circling to the left?” The encounter begins with the caregiver not knowing, and with deference to the one who is literally walking a different path against the mainstream.

The model of caring that the Mishnah describes resonates with the insight from psychiatrist Jonathan Shay that “[h]ealing from trauma depends upon communalization of the trauma” (Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, 4). Assuming that people going through hardship will go on pilgrimage, will convene with the larger community, and will give voice to their suffering, the Mishnah paves the way for a relational approach to healing.

According to Dr. Shay, “Categories and classifications play a large role in the institutions of mental health care [ . . . ], in the education of mental health professionals, and as tentative guides to perception.” Similarly, categories and classifications also play a large role in religious systems of guiding people through major life events. Dr. Shay continues and warns of the dangers of reifying a care system:

All too often, however, our mode of listening deteriorates into intellectual sorting, with the professional grabbing at the veteran’s words from the air and sticking them into mental bins. To some degree that is institutionally and educationally necessary, but listening this way destroys trust.

In the same way that the Mishnah instructs that the caring encounter should begin with compassion and deference, Dr. Shay advises that “before analyzing, before classifying, before thinking, before trying to do anything—we should listen.” Listening to others establishes the foundation for building trust. However, fully open-ended approaches can be daunting and anxiety-provoking. For this the Mishnah provides us with a mechanism to reconnect after a difficult time apart.

I have heard of contemporary Jewish congregations that have enacted this mode of compassionate listening, inviting those who have come to the synagogue after experiencing a crisis to literally circle the sanctuary to the left, with other congregants extending greetings and prayers to them. But whether or not this ritual is enacted literally, we can take inspiration in how our ancient Sages urged the entire community to communalize the life challenges of individuals, especially at times of festive gathering.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

In many ways, this is one of the key messages of Parashat Emor.

Emor falls in the midst of the Holiness Code, the section in Vayikra that describes the ways in which B’nei Yisrael are to sanctify themselves and live holy lives. Among its many discussions, Emor details the contours of the Jewish calendar. “Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: These are My fixed times, the fixed times of the LORD, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions” (Lev. 23:2). What follows is a list of key dates in the Jewish year: Shabbat every week and festivals throughout the months.

It is only now, in these uncertain times with countless anxieties and unknowns, that I have come to fully appreciate this structure that Judaism imposes. The rhythms and rituals of Emor pull us away from the “normalcy” of our everyday and mandate that we, consciously and constructively, create holiness in time. It is deceptively easy to get consumed by the happenings, both significant and trivial, of our individual lives. Emor, however, reminds us that we are part of something greater—an unfolding story, an historical past, and a religious tradition that extends to our current moment and far into the future. As we are all pushing a collective pause button, these messages certainly have new resonance: How will we be in this moment? How will we infuse these times with the holiness described in Sefer Vayikra? How will the lessons learned promote a more just and promising future?

Also discussed in our parashah is the counting the Omer (of which we are currently in the midst), the daily marking of the seven weeks between the holidays of Pesah and Shavuot. The Torah outlines,

“Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving to you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the first sheaf [Heb: omer] of your harvest to the priest. . . . And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete.” (Lev. 23:10, 15)

This year, the ritual of counting and charting a journey from oppression to freedom feels particularly appropriate, and the Jewish practice, here too, has powerful tools and traditions upon which we can draw. The Omer is a strange time: In the rabbinic period, it is described as a time of tremendous grief when scores of Rabbi Akiva’s students died (BT Yevamot 62b). In turn, the Omer period is observed by enacting a number of semi-mourning practices: no haircuts, no shaving, no musical performances, and no weddings. Still, despite these observances, Shavuot is on the horizon. There is a hopefulness to our counting. How, though, do we do this? How do we manage to safely and meaningfully travel between Pesah and Shavuot? How do we navigate the difficulties of the journey and arrive at our destination not only intact but better? Changed?

In her , Emily Esfahani Smith offers Viktor Frankl’s theory of “tragic optimism” as a possible path forward. Tragic optimism is the “ability to maintain hope and find meaning in life despite its inescapable pain, loss and suffering.” Individuals who embrace this “experience despair and stress, and acknowledge the horror of what’s happening. But even in the darkest of places, they see glimmers of light, and this ultimately sustains them.” She continues to explain that “even more than helping them cope, adopting the spirit of tragic optimism enables people to actually grow through adversity.” This is no easy task, and some of us are wired to do this better than others. Still, the Omer offers an opportunity to embrace this stance and cultivate this disposition: In the midst of it all, can we hold onto the hope that Shavuot is coming? In addition to the suffering, can this time also serve as a “time of redemptive meaning and hope?”

Preceding our parashah is further support for this understanding of Jewish time. In Sefer Shemot, Parashat Bo, the very first mitzvah is given to B’nei Yisrael: the mitzvah of Rosh Hodesh (Exod. 12:1-2). Setting Rosh Hodesh and the Jewish calendar becomes the first mitzvah of a free people. This required that they be in tune to the natural rhythms of the world around them, notice shifts in nature, and in the waxing and waning of the moon. With that mitzvah, they embraced both the world in which they lived and elevated it to a sacred purpose. Similarly, in the unprecedented moment through which we are living, how can the structure and spirit of our calendar allow us to find hope, comfort, and meaning?

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

As a child I remember the peculiar way some of my teachers would count our class after recess or a field trip. “Not one, not two, not three . . .” That is how I learned there is a longstanding Jewish discomfort with enumerating human beings. While God may request a census, the method by which the counting is conducted matters. So, we use coins, lambs, Biblical verses, or other tricks to allow for an ambivalent counting.

This ambivalence acknowledges that, on the one hand, counting people may be necessary for some core communal functions and, simultaneously, that such an effort carries real dangers. Motivations and methods matter because acts of counting people are never neutral. Who counts? For what purpose? By what measures? Who is authorized to do the counting? The authority to count people is one of the critical responsibilities and powers exercised by the modern state. Counting can sketch a portrait of who we are at one moment in time, inform the allocation of resources to where they are needed most, and reveal important patterns that can help us align our reality with our values. But counting can also shape the narrative of who is worthy of inclusion.

We see these questions of motivation and method play out both in Jewish communal concerns and in the United States. The Supreme Court will soon decide whether the 2020 census will include a citizenship question. These kinds of choices about who we count, how, and why have very real stakes.

This ambivalence about counting comes to mind in the story of the blasphemer, which we encounter toward the end of this week’s parashah (Lev. 24:10–23). The text introduces us to the unnamed son of an Israelite woman (ben ishah yisraelit) who is also, we learn, the son of an Egyptian man. A fight breaks out between the son of the Israelite woman and an Israelite man. The son of the Israelite woman then invokes the name of God in an impious way. He is brought to Moses for judgment and ultimately God decrees that he should be put to death.

It’s a story that doesn’t sit well. On the one hand it reminds us of the power of words and the importance of social norms that recognize the harm words can do. But it’s difficult to read this text and not be alert to how marginal the son of the Israelite woman is in this newly forming desert society. According to Rashi (on v.10), the fight itself is triggered by a question of his status and whether there is literally any place for him in this newly forming society. We certainly know that in contemporary times the status of the speaker often determines who will be heard, who will be held accountable, and who will be allowed to slide past norms.

In comparing the NJPS translation to the text I was surprised to see a choice to translate the Hebrew phrase ben hayisraelit which literally means “son of an Israelite woman” as “half-Israelite.” I found the choice jarring and also enlightening. The son of the Israelite woman is made smaller. Less than a whole. The choice to split this person into fractions reveals an essential danger with counting people at all.

Today it is somewhat fashionable to divide oneself up. Popular DNA tests offer the promise of an identity calculated in narrow slivers. But in communal projects people should be counted as wholes. Concepts of hybridity, adopted from Mendelian genetics, should not apply to human identity. In counting people, in turning lives into numbers for analysis, we can uncover important patterns that allow us to better understand ourselves and serve populations of interest. But there is also a danger that this process will lead to taking liberties with people’s core humanity.

We can’t make fractions out of people. Our own country has a terrible legacy of that crime. The three-fifths compromise, embedded in the United States’ founding document, is one way in which African-Americans have been denied the dignity of wholeness in this country.

The story of the blasphemer is an uncomfortable story and one for which I offer no resolution. Only to say that it centers how some forms of counting people diminish everyone and the holiness of our entire community. That’s different from saying that we always operate as fully integrated selves. Settings and circumstances may bring particular elements of our own heritage and experience to the fore. But those of us with hyphenated identities are whole people. In terms of our dignity and worth we should always be allowed to be our full selves, each person recognized as a whole. To neglect this unleashes ugliness all around.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).