Leviticus | Vayikra
A few years ago I watched the Disney version of Pocahontas with my then 3 1/2 year old grandson. In this Disney version, the white man came from Britain to ruthlessly claim the land of the native peoples for the purpose of mining gold. The natives were called “savages” and any one of them who got in the way of this enterprise would be freely slaughtered.
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This week’s Torah portion envisions a society and world that gives space for integrating strong experiences and transitions. Sadly, historical conditions have led to the original Hebrew words often being translated into dualistic misogynist interpretations. We can reclaim that and imagine a world that provides space to process anger and vulnerable states. A world where shocking and disturbing events are attended to so they don’t become trauma and violence. So they actually become doors to understanding and communicating our inner experiences and how external circumstances affect us.
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Silence is like fire. It can burn or comfort. It can be the mark of empowerment or enslavement.
In a week of witnessing much pain and suffering in the world, the Torah portion suggests that silence can be the foundation of empowered action. The traditions show us ways to be present with unspeakable suffering and infuriating actions so we can open doors to new solutions.
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This week’s Torah portion takes place on “the eighth day.” What is an eighth day in Torah, where there are six days of creation and then the seventh day, Shabbat?
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The gap between how we imagine the beauty of the world before humans took dominion and how it is looms large today. … In this week’s Torah portion, Eternally Present is in the midst of the Israelite’s camp, offering centering and elevation practices for a shared human destiny. The first is a collective ritual to get the people fired up, to keep alive the flames that inspire earthlings to make of our lives offerings that elevate human hearts.
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This week we enter the third book of Torah, Vayikra, the book of Leviticus. Vayikra, the first word in the book, is usually translated as “now he called.”
The final letter of the word, aleph, is written smaller than the others. Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is always silent and signifies Oneness. Here, opening Vayikra, it is small and contracted. Perhaps intimate. Perhaps adjusted to fit our ear, so we hear our call. It is a still small voice calling just to us. It is an exhale from formless Presence that brings us to life. Something is letting us in.
Viktor Frankl wrote that hearing the life sustaining call means asking the question “what does life want from me?” Frankl’s insight calls us to meditate and listen deeply to hear how we are called to show up, to be engaged in the world, in the way we are needed, how we can bring our particular gifts.
May this week’s Torah provide comfort and inspiration to you.
READ MOREA video talk offered as part of the “A Shtickele Toyrah” (a “small piece” of Torah) with the Woodstock Jewish Congregation.
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The book of Vayikra/Leviticus begins and ends with the Great Animating Spirit calling out to us: Do this, so I can animate and sustain all life. Stay close to me, so my vitality animates earth and the heavens to support life.
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When my friend Sulieman Khatib, one of the Palestinian leaders of Combatants for Peace, came to speak at the synagogue I belong to in Asheville, he said, “When we Israelis and Palestinians look at the land we share, do we think, the land belongs to us, or do we think, we belong to the land?”
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This week’ s Torah portion, Behar, begins with a beautiful vision. Earth experiences a rest when people enter her. How we long for this relationship, rather than the development and exploitation that accompanies modern human occupation of land. How we need this great turning.
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This opening verse of Torah portion Emor leads to a multitude of awareness practices for our embodied selves. In Torah, the nefesh is the embodied self. It is the vessel for the essential universal self from which we emerge and to which we return. Tamei, over-activation of the life force, can arise when there is unbalanced contact with strong physical transitions such as death, fertility and sexual arousal.
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Tamei, often translated as “impure,” or “unclean,” is mentioned throughout the book of Leviticus. It comes about in reaction to strong physical-spiritual experiences such as contact with death, menstruation, childbirth, and male ejaculations. The priest is vulnerable to additional categories of tamei, related to the duties of the priestly caste. Tamei separates us from kedoshim, holiness, the connection for which Eternal Presence brought us out of slavery.
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