Get ready for some word play!
When I am a WUS – that is when I am Working Under Stress - I get a little twitch under my eye. It doesn’t happen often but, when it does, it is irritating and a bit embarrassing.
וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר יהוה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה - This is how our parsha begins – And God spoke to Moses - one of the most repeated lines in the Book of Leviticus and said three times in this week’s parsha alone.
How lucky is Moses to have God speak to him and so often!
But what happens when God doesn’t speak to us? Why when we are suffering from a נֶֽגַע - a manifestation of some sort of infliction - does it feel like God is absent, inaccessible, far from us.
Or, is God speaking but we are not listening?
וְנָתַתִּי֙ נֶ֣גַע צָרַ֔עַת בְּבֵ֖יתִ֤... – When I [God speaking] give you the infliction on your house . The Torah is clear – these inflictions are from God. We are therefore commanded to hear the lesson in it. But we know as modern thinkers today that, for the purposes of true healing, we must be very mindful of what we hear when we are suffering.
In a recent chevruta, we played around with an anacronym of letters of the opening line of the Book of Genesis: בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ – In the beginning God, created the heaven and the earth - and with a slight homophone (the spelling is not quite correct) - we came up with בבאאהוה – which sounds out as - in (the coming of) love.
Could this possibly mean that all of the words of Torah are to be read with love?
We can easily read this week’s parsha harshly – surely the language is harsh – it is about segregation, impurity, moralizing of affliction.
But, what happens if we read this week’s parsha with the love possibly intended from the opening line of the Torah? בבאאהוה - in love. If so, what is this week’s message?
We do not have High Priests anymore, so what is our own self-care that we practice when we suffer from our own inevitable and various afflictions? Do we wait until the נֶֽגַע- the manifestation surfaces and cannot be avoided – like that little twitch under my eye? Do we then get angry with ourselves for not withstanding stress better and do we push forward ignoring the signs while wondering why God hates us? All-too-often this has been my practice.
Or can we receive our body’s message - observe it, truly hear it, honour it, give it time to heal. Wait for seven days is a repeated instruction in this week’s parsha. Is there wisdom - and even sacredness - in finding a way to slow down, quiet ourselves, take time for reflective observation without immediately jumping to negative conclusions?
Can we nourish our ailments with the love being offered from Torah?
As some of you know, I am studying Mussar. We are told that we are constantly being given bechira points – moments of choice – like little forks in the road – when we can choose how to react to something. We cannot choose our afflictions – but we can choose how we respond to them. Do we answer our pains with dismissiveness and shame (and maybe fear) or with patience and a tender hug?
בְּצֶ֣לֶם אֱלֹהִ֔ים — In the image of God. We are told that we are all made in the likeness of God. But, often enough, we do not treat our bodies as if they were בְּצֶ֣לֶם אֱלֹהִ֔ים .
So when our bodies next speak to us, let us listen in earnest. Is this God’s language speaking directly and personally to us? And are we listening – בבאאהוה – in and with love.
Wendy Griesdorf *
For April 9, 2022
*With special thanks to Rabbi Heather Miller of California for helping me with this D’var Torah and for the recent chevruta study sessions where we played around with some Torah words.
Wendy Griesdorf is a member of Congregation Beth Israel in Kingston Ontario Canada and prepared this week’s D’var Torah while her Rabbi was on holiday.