Miryam's Space

Tazria Metzorah 2021        Netzach sheb’tiferet. 18^th day in the counting of the omer, and Israeli Independence day.

Elohai, neshama she’natata bi t’horah hi! Oh G!d, the soul you have given me, she it tahor!

~Morning liturgy

We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden ~Joni Mitchel

How does beauty endure? As I meditated on this late at night I realized it’s a two step process. First, to seek and recognize beauty, to take the time, and to perhaps look outside the box.  Secondly to commit to protecting beauty. During the past year we’ve lived through difficult times, plagued not just with COVID, but with racism too.  Illness is not beautiful, and despairing of beauty can happen. The Poet John Keats, who died of consumption writes, in Ode to a Nightingale urging the lovely bird to “fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget, what thou amongst the leaves has never known,  the weariness, the fever and the fret; here where men sit and hear each other groan,… where but to think is to be full of sorrow and leaden-eyed despair. Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow. ….but in Jewish tradition my grandma’s eyes are beautiful! Psalm 148 brings our eyes to the wonders of life and creation. In spite of it all there has been beauty In our own time, in rebounding of the natural world. Visits to National Parks have soared during the pandemic, we protect beautiful places so they can endure. In Torah Tazria Metzorah, we read about quarantine, contagion, about encounters that shake us to the core, that poke at the boundary lines between life and death,.  And about how to re-enter the group after the fear. a reentry of the spirit, with rich symbolism.  Torah has never seemed so relevant, I wondered what I could add to the conversation, this is what came together. Metzorah begins

   This shall be the Torah for one who has Tzaarat (a contagious skin ailment) on  the Day of their becoming Tahor (pure). And the Kohen will be brought… Be brought where? It was not unusual to find people cast outside ancient city walls. But the Kohen will go Outside seeking the afflicted one, to make possible a pathway back home.

The Kohen shall go outside and see. Then with the technology available at the time the following materials will be gathered:

The Cohen commands two live pure birds, cedar wood, crimson thread, and hyssop And a bowl of MAYIM CHAYIM:  living waters. Then in two stages death is replaced with life.  And  we see things done in sevens – symbolizing a new genesis.

וְהִזָּ֗ה עַ֧ל הַמִּטַּהֵ֛ר מִן־הַצָּרַ֖עַת שֶׁ֣בַע פְּעָמִ֑ים וְטִ֣הֲר֔וֹ וְשִׁלַּ֛ח אֶת־הַצִּפֹּ֥ר הַֽחַיָּ֖ה עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַשָּׂדֶֽה׃   One bird will be sacrificed, blood entering the water, which shall then sprinkle it seven times on the one who is to be cleansed.  In the town water can be stagnant in the wilderness it flows freely,…and then a release, the  live bird is set free to fly over the field. A powerful image, if you’ve seen doves or pigeons set free. Death replaced with life

After this, a seven day waiting period separated from his family sacrifices, sin and olah, and the blood on the right ear, thumb and toe to be replaced with delightful oil on the skin in the same spots, you guessed it, seven times. And we re-enter reborn, without fear or guilt of having either deserved getting sick, or having passed it along.

But I wondered about the banishment/ quarantine to the wilderness or field, and what the person cast out was doing during that time. Perhaps gathering the cedar and hyssop. But what exactly is hyssop? I looked it up: it’s a medicinal plant good for many ailments. The wilderness has much to teach us about medicine, and so many new medicines come from forests and wild places. And the wilderness can set our spirits free, as that dove flies free.  As John Muir said, in wildness is the preservation of the world. And the Israelites were forged in the wilderness.  In my studies of Zohar this week we are studying about Rav Metivta – a University in the wilderness that can be accessed by souls who innovate and re-enliven words of Torah. There in the wilderness we are  taught by the teachers of the greatest generation: those who died in the wanderings of the wilderness, and died there. There on the mountains when your mind and heart are most open to you can be taught and inspired by none other than Moses and Aaron, who runs a school of love, and (this is cool!) Miriam. And your soul can fly, it says from one university in to the other ever more elevated. The wilderness was not just where we wandered, it was the pure crucible of revelation and inspiration. This is the Torah of the wilderness There are plants like hyssop, living waters and birds that fly free. And for there to be enduring beauty and we need wild places. We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden!