Does God demand perfection?
This week’s Torah portion, Emor, has multiple references to both priests and sacrifices (the animals offered on the altar of the Temple) needing to be “without blemish”:
“Speak to Aaron, saying: Any man among your offspring throughout their generations אֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה בוֹ מוּם who has a defect [or blemish], shall not come near to offer up his God's food” (Leviticus 21:17).
The kinds of “blemishes” the Torah outlines are ones we recognize as things over which we have little control—natural accidents of birth or results of tragedy and trauma: “A blind or a lame person, or one with a sunken nose or with mismatching limbs; or a person who has a broken leg or a broken arm; or one with long eyebrows, or a cataract, or …” the list goes on (Leviticus 21:18-19).
Here, the Torah seems to suggest that in order to offer a sacrifice, a korban, something that is supposed to help us maintain a close relationship to God, to help us “draw near” to God, lekarev—we need to be perfect. Both in ourselves and in our offerings. We need to be perfect to approach God…
And not only that, but it seems to be a superhuman kind of perfection—because lots of people are differently-abled, living meaningful—and full—lives while being judged unfairly by society as lesser than, as outside… We would hope God would draw us all near.
What a time of year to be thinking about perfection… and to be wondering, Does God need my offering to be perfect? Does God need ME to be perfect?
Finals. Graduate School Admissions. Fellowships. Summer Jobs. Resumes and CVs. Tenure. Internships and Fall Classes and Majors and Minors. Grades and Transcripts.
There are a million and one messages you receive every day that tell you: Be perfect. Nothing less than perfect will do.
So now some Rabbi is telling you that the Torah demands perfection, too!? It’s Shabbat! Give us a rest!
We get so caught up in perfection, we are paralyzed from drawing near to the very things that lend our lives meaning, link us to tradition, and nourish our souls. And sometimes we confuse our offerings for ourselves, demanding perfection at all costs in all things, and nearly unraveling when our offerings fail to be accepted in the way we had hoped or expected. We tell ourselves that the animal we sacrifice must be without blemish, and we, like the priest, must also be without blemish: An “A” for the course and an “A” for us.
And sometimes we don’t even know what counts as a “blemish” – it seems like every little misstep disqualifies our offering, nullifies the sacrifices we have made. If they’re not perfect, they don’t count. We drop them from the transcript and ask to start over...
But there’s something I remind myself when I read these chapters in Leviticus, with all their blood and sacrifice, all their unblemished goats and perfect priests in their fancy outfits…
I remind myself that we don’t have a Temple anymore in which we perform AVODAH, the service of blood and fire and animals and meal offerings. We don’t make sacrifices like this anymore.
Instead, we have prayer. We have avodah shebalev, the service of the heart.
We have the regular practice of gathering in community, of being alone together, of reciting ancient words and finding in them links to our own lives. We have communal prayer and we have silent, personal prayer, too. We have prayers for healing for ourselves and our world. We have memorials for our dead.
What does perfect service, the perfect sacrifice, look like now? Now that we have avodah shebalev?
The perfect service of the heart is what is perfectly true and honest for you. It is being self-reflective, and sometimes self-critical, but it is taking the responsibility for self-care, too. It is offering all of what lies in your heart—with no concern about anything being “without blemish,” because there is no external scale by which I can measure your heart. How can the service of your heart be perfect? If it is open. If it mirrors both your rational self and your emotional self. If it engages your memories and your hopes and your fears.
Whatever it is, it will be perfect.
This drash was inspired by Cantor Elana Rosen-Brown’s senior sermon for the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion on perfection in this week’s Torah portion.
Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prayer. Show all posts
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Wonder-Worker
Traditionally, every time a Jew uses the bathroom, she says a blessing thanking God for creating the human body, with all its passages and orifices. If even one of these passages or openings reverses its natural course, we cannot be sustained, we cannot stand before God, says this blessing. “Blessed are You, Eternal, healer of all flesh, and worker of wonders.”
My son is a wonder!
From the moments before his birth, as I worried about his mother’s well-being as she labored and pushed him into the world, through the first days of his life, as we watched him in the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit under observation and again under a lamp to treat his jaundice, I looked at my son, praying to the God who is healer of all flesh and wonder-worker.
Thus far, our little nameless boy (until his eighth day) has been receiving attentive care and doing well on all counts, despite some scares. Though he did spend about a day in the NICU, the time there turned out to be merely a precaution. During that stay, we watched as the cardiologist examined his heart on a screen via an echocardiogram. Four chambers pumping, arteries delivering blood to all the tiny parts of this five-pound fourteen-ounce person. Wonderful. Under the blue jaundice lamp, our son squirmed and slept. When the nurse came to draw his blood to check his jaundice level, he used his muscles and his might to push away her hand! Wonderful.
It is so strange—and wonderful—to look into the eyes of this little stranger, a sojourner in this world with us. He trusts us completely and turns to us for food and for comfort and for care and for love, and we of course offer all to him freely. He is beautiful: a face just like his mother when she was a baby, a cute nose and big upper lip, a full head of dark brown hair, and magical blue eyes.
How can such a small creature motivate such big feelings? When I look into my son’s eyes, or watch him sleep, I feel how big a responsibility and how big a joy this next phase in our lives will be, as we take on the role of parents. And I have already let out the mama bear claws, refusing to compromise on his care, asking the doctors all the questions, demanding what he needs. I know I would do anything for him.
As I write this, our son is with us at home after receiving treatment for his jaundice, and as of right now, all indications are that his body is responding the way we would hope—all his passageways and organs are wondrously doing what they need to do. I will continue to pray that my son will be sustained, that all his passages and orifices will continue to function and to respond to all the efforts to improve his health as he transitions from the only environment he knew to a world where he will learn what it means to be a human being and a Jew and, we hope, a mensch.
We will welcome our son into the covenant of the Jewish people on Tuesday, surrounded by family and friends, and we will pray for his continuing development. I wonder who he will become.
How wonderful.
My son is a wonder!
From the moments before his birth, as I worried about his mother’s well-being as she labored and pushed him into the world, through the first days of his life, as we watched him in the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit under observation and again under a lamp to treat his jaundice, I looked at my son, praying to the God who is healer of all flesh and wonder-worker.
Thus far, our little nameless boy (until his eighth day) has been receiving attentive care and doing well on all counts, despite some scares. Though he did spend about a day in the NICU, the time there turned out to be merely a precaution. During that stay, we watched as the cardiologist examined his heart on a screen via an echocardiogram. Four chambers pumping, arteries delivering blood to all the tiny parts of this five-pound fourteen-ounce person. Wonderful. Under the blue jaundice lamp, our son squirmed and slept. When the nurse came to draw his blood to check his jaundice level, he used his muscles and his might to push away her hand! Wonderful.
It is so strange—and wonderful—to look into the eyes of this little stranger, a sojourner in this world with us. He trusts us completely and turns to us for food and for comfort and for care and for love, and we of course offer all to him freely. He is beautiful: a face just like his mother when she was a baby, a cute nose and big upper lip, a full head of dark brown hair, and magical blue eyes.
How can such a small creature motivate such big feelings? When I look into my son’s eyes, or watch him sleep, I feel how big a responsibility and how big a joy this next phase in our lives will be, as we take on the role of parents. And I have already let out the mama bear claws, refusing to compromise on his care, asking the doctors all the questions, demanding what he needs. I know I would do anything for him.
As I write this, our son is with us at home after receiving treatment for his jaundice, and as of right now, all indications are that his body is responding the way we would hope—all his passageways and organs are wondrously doing what they need to do. I will continue to pray that my son will be sustained, that all his passages and orifices will continue to function and to respond to all the efforts to improve his health as he transitions from the only environment he knew to a world where he will learn what it means to be a human being and a Jew and, we hope, a mensch.
We will welcome our son into the covenant of the Jewish people on Tuesday, surrounded by family and friends, and we will pray for his continuing development. I wonder who he will become.
How wonderful.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Pouring Out Prayer
In contemporary Judaism, we think of prayer as something that happens in a very particular place at a very particular time. Prayer is a ritual—some might even say a routine—for the synagogue. In this week’s Torah portion, we had an example of a different kind of prayer, the prayer of Isaac.
Isaac had lain on the stone, wood for the fire below him, and he had looked up at his father Abraham, a knife raised in his hand to sacrifice Isaac, his son, whom he loved. Isaac was spared, the ram slaughtered in his place, but it cannot have been an image easily forgotten. His traumatic near-death is followed closely by the death of his mother, Sarah, and Isaac is lost from the story for a number of verses.
“Va’yetzse Yitzchak lashuach basadeh”—Isaac went out to wander in the field (Bereshit 24.63). What does it mean, “to wander”? The Rabbis of our tradition argue that Isaac went into the field to pray.
If Isaac’s walk in the woods contained prayer, we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he’s got a lot on his mind. His father tried to kill him; his mother is dead. In his youth, he lost his half-brother Yishmael to the fear and jealousy of his mother. His life has been complicated. His stroll immediately precedes the dramatic first meeting between him and his future wife Rebecca (so struck by the image of Isaac in the field that she “fell from her camel” when their eyes met). He walks, as day turns (literally in the Hebrew) to evening, lifting his eyes to see the caravan of camels approaching with the wife who will soon bring him comfort.
The rabbis who interpret Isaac’s walk in the field as prayer clarify that he walks in order “lishpoch sicho,” to pour out his conversation. My classmates and I spend much time thinking about our own current and future practice as leaders of prayer and as pray-ers. How does—or how can—that prayer relate to Isaac’s outpouring of words?
Abraham Joshua Heschel, in Quest for God, argues that prayer is a combination of the material and the spiritual, a constant balance and interplay between keva (formula) and kavanah (intention). He says, “The body is the discipline, the pattern, the law; the spirit is the inner devotion, spontaneity, freedom. The body without the spirit is a corpse; the spirit without the body is a ghost.”
At the Akedah, the binding and near-sacrifice, Isaac was merely a body and almost a corpse; traumatized, he returned to his life only to find himself a mourner, left to his overwhelming grief, a ghost. I’d like to think that in his prayer in the field, in his outpouring of conversation, Isaac became whole again. His prayer brought together body and spirit, flesh and emotion, keva and kavanah, and prepared him to continue living. Prepared him, even, to love (and to love actively, as I learned from the people at Amichai’s this weekend) and to accept comfort.
The rabbis argue that Isaac prayed, and they use his example as part of the reasoning behind the daily afternoon prayer, which takes place in those liminal hours when day turns to evening. I’m not convinced, however, that Isaac prayed only in a way resembling our contemporary prayer service. His was an outpouring of conversation, not a recitation of fixed texts. Did he converse with God, in a reciprocal dialogue? Did he simply expel his thoughts and feelings in utterances, sometimes forming words and sometimes only sounds?
I’m not saying we should throw out our prayerbooks and wander in the fields. But I’d like to learn something from Isaac’s prayer, especially if that outpouring enabled him to find love and comfort, to turn from what could have been utter desperation and disillusionment towards a new family and a new life.
Isaac had lain on the stone, wood for the fire below him, and he had looked up at his father Abraham, a knife raised in his hand to sacrifice Isaac, his son, whom he loved. Isaac was spared, the ram slaughtered in his place, but it cannot have been an image easily forgotten. His traumatic near-death is followed closely by the death of his mother, Sarah, and Isaac is lost from the story for a number of verses.
“Va’yetzse Yitzchak lashuach basadeh”—Isaac went out to wander in the field (Bereshit 24.63). What does it mean, “to wander”? The Rabbis of our tradition argue that Isaac went into the field to pray.
If Isaac’s walk in the woods contained prayer, we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he’s got a lot on his mind. His father tried to kill him; his mother is dead. In his youth, he lost his half-brother Yishmael to the fear and jealousy of his mother. His life has been complicated. His stroll immediately precedes the dramatic first meeting between him and his future wife Rebecca (so struck by the image of Isaac in the field that she “fell from her camel” when their eyes met). He walks, as day turns (literally in the Hebrew) to evening, lifting his eyes to see the caravan of camels approaching with the wife who will soon bring him comfort.
The rabbis who interpret Isaac’s walk in the field as prayer clarify that he walks in order “lishpoch sicho,” to pour out his conversation. My classmates and I spend much time thinking about our own current and future practice as leaders of prayer and as pray-ers. How does—or how can—that prayer relate to Isaac’s outpouring of words?
Abraham Joshua Heschel, in Quest for God, argues that prayer is a combination of the material and the spiritual, a constant balance and interplay between keva (formula) and kavanah (intention). He says, “The body is the discipline, the pattern, the law; the spirit is the inner devotion, spontaneity, freedom. The body without the spirit is a corpse; the spirit without the body is a ghost.”
At the Akedah, the binding and near-sacrifice, Isaac was merely a body and almost a corpse; traumatized, he returned to his life only to find himself a mourner, left to his overwhelming grief, a ghost. I’d like to think that in his prayer in the field, in his outpouring of conversation, Isaac became whole again. His prayer brought together body and spirit, flesh and emotion, keva and kavanah, and prepared him to continue living. Prepared him, even, to love (and to love actively, as I learned from the people at Amichai’s this weekend) and to accept comfort.
The rabbis argue that Isaac prayed, and they use his example as part of the reasoning behind the daily afternoon prayer, which takes place in those liminal hours when day turns to evening. I’m not convinced, however, that Isaac prayed only in a way resembling our contemporary prayer service. His was an outpouring of conversation, not a recitation of fixed texts. Did he converse with God, in a reciprocal dialogue? Did he simply expel his thoughts and feelings in utterances, sometimes forming words and sometimes only sounds?
I’m not saying we should throw out our prayerbooks and wander in the fields. But I’d like to learn something from Isaac’s prayer, especially if that outpouring enabled him to find love and comfort, to turn from what could have been utter desperation and disillusionment towards a new family and a new life.
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