Irrelevance is Relative

Parshat Emor

by Rabbi Avi Billet

Last week I was privileged to teach a class about Mikveh to a group of non-Orthodox Jews. The first ten minutes of the class focused on the concepts of "tumah" and "taharah" and how every single-word or two-word "translation" of each of these words does not do justice to the discussion. Neither people or animals are "unclean," or "contaminated," or "impure."  They can be "tameh" or be in a status of "tumah" (or be "tahor" or in a status of "taharah"). This does not reflect a hygiene issue even in the slightest.

In discussing the concept of "tumah" – which I define as a "spiritual status which bars something or someone from participating in a holy act" – the question was raised as to how much tumah plays a role in our lives today. Without the Temple in Jerusalem, which contained the system and formula for getting rid of tumah – as well as the major source for the need to do such - much of the tumah discussions are irrelevant today.

We do remove tumah with water when we ritually wash our hands and when we go to the mikveh. However, without the Red Heifer (Bamidbar 19), everyone of us is "tameh" in some manner.

            

This leads us to our parsha, which opens with a tumah warning that is still largely practiced today, even in the absence of the Temple in Jerusalem. Kohanim are not to become tameh through contact with (or certain proximity to) dead bodies, with the exception of a close relative, as per the Torah's allowance.

            

When I was a senior in high school, Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l's wife passed away, and her funeral was actually held in the yeshiva's beis medrash. A couple of the rebbeim, who were Kohanim, took all the Kohen students to a different building and had the morning classes with them until the funeral was over. I recall going to the teachers' lounge during lunch and seeing one of the non-observant Jewish teachers who had a Priestly last name. I asked him a couple of questions about something we had been learning, and then he lowered his voice to a serious tone and asked me, "Is the funeral still going on?" I told him it was. He said, "I probably shouldn't be in the building. Right?"

            

The Midrash Rabba 26:6 quotes the verse in Tehillim 19:10 that says "Fear of God is pure, enduring forever." Rabbi Levi taught, "From the fear that Aharon reserved for God, he merited that this section in the Torah was given to him and his descendants until the end of time – and never becomes irrelevant. This refers to the section about how to deal with a dead body, as it says 'God said to Moshe to tell the Kohanim, the sons of Aharon…'"

            

A few paragraphs earlier (26:3) the Midrash recounted the fact that in the times of King David, little children knew how to understand and explain all the facets of the laws of tumah and taharah. I would equate this notion (on a limited scale) to some of the laws of kosher with which our children these days are largely familiar.

            

My two year old can distinguish between a dairy and meat dish. He understands that when I say a treat in the supermarket he has his eye on is "not kosher," there is nothing to discuss because we don't eat that.

            

When you are living and breathing a reality, kids soak it up from the moment they have any conscious notion of understanding.

            

Over the last couple of months, I have read a number of articles (see here and here) as well as a book review, that address the never overstated concern over "what we're doing to keep our kids interested in remaining observant Jews." It is easy to create form-fitting robots who go through the motions of washing and bentching and davening in shul, but are we reaching the neshama (soul)? Is there depth to the commitment? Will an unanswerable question prop itself up one day and shatter everything?

            

Do we even know what our goals ought to be in this matter of a lifestyle we call "observance?" How do we reconcile the fact that over half of the counted commandments in the Torah do, in fact, have no relevance to our lives in the Temple's absence?

            

This is why I think classes like the mikveh class, which revisit an old topic for some, but a new one for others, is such a healthy task to undertake:

We need to look at everything with a fresh eye. We need to question the role of tumah and taharah in our lives, and we need to understand why we still run from eating animals that are in the tameh category.

            

We need to recognize that the more we expose children to the truths of our Jewish lives from a younger age, the more aptly they will pick it up and "get it." And they will hopefully understand that a single bad experience or a specific unscrupulous individual need not be the cause for rejecting all of the Torah.  

            

And finally, we must treasure the kohanim, the last ones to carry the remnant of this ritual on a daily basis. A true testament to their "fear of God" is how much kohanim who bless the people take pride in their role and take extra care not to put themselves in a position that may compromise their ability to fulfill their mitzvah of blessing the people.

            

May we all merit to have a commitment and dedication to our Judaism as the kohanim (for the most part) have to their role in the Jewish community – a role that has somehow survived (in modified form) through two Temple destructions and thousands of years of exile.