Miryam's Space

The LORD said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say

to them: None shall make himself tamei (impure to bring an offering in the

Mishkan) for any nefesh among his people,

Emor, the command to speak, follows vayomer, and G!d spoke, and the v’amarta – you shall tell a three fold repetition of speaking. Rambam explains we must say over and over, and Rashi explains, teach the children, and so the repetition. There is a story of Rav Pinchas of Koretz, whose brother was an eminent scholar, but Pinchas was all fire and emotion, who often was unable to study, because when the paragraph began “And G!d said” he would cry out in wonder, and run outside so moved by that miracle. Here we have G!d speaking, and then the same word AMAR repeated, three times, for Moshe will say and tell them. I can’t even imagine how Pinchas would react. For me, It reflects a beautiful echoing: G!d speaks and Moshe speaks, and then the kohanim must teach. But will our teachings be good enough? G!d’s speach is the pure ideal. Ours will be flawed by the limitations of our understanding and capacities, and perhaps there will be dissonance between them, a paradox.

AND who is this nefesh that will make the Kohen tame? Often used to mean person Nefesh is a level of soul, the life-force of the body, the awareness of the body. enmeshing of the Nefesh with cells and tissues body. Nefesh here is understood to mean a body which has died. I am learning about Jewish concepts of what happens to the soul after death, and merging it with my own understanding from biology, and finding it very enriching. Judaism does not separate mind from body, they are enmeshed. Just as the cells still remain alive, many of them, in the body, so the soul is still partly there

So why would this contact make the Kohen tamei? This is an important question, because there are many kohanim that still will not go to a funeral. My teacher Reb Marcia our teacher, who explained that the Mishkan is no longer here so many Kohanim do not feel that restriction. That’s a good thing because in Ex 19:6 says we should be a nation of kohanim!

This non-separation of life and death, I think, explains why the Kohanim become tamei with contact: this nefesh is a mixture of life and death, a dangerous in between place. The kohen is supposed to radiate an ideal, be symbolic of pure life. Yet he is mortal, human flawed as we all are, and so the paradox. We all exist within this contradiction: harmony and beauty exists and so does dissonance and despair. Mortality collides with our visions of eternity. In perhaps the most challenging verse of Emor, 17 Moshe is to explain to Aharon that any of his chilren

who has a mum/defect shall not draw near and offer nourishment to God.

But we are a nation of Kohanim, and I want to draw near, and bring the offerings of my heartand somehow nourish this world and G!d, AND I, like 26% of Americans, have a mum, a disability. Further I’ve learned that many wounds are invisible, yet disabling. And I pray G!d will accept my prayer, though I am imperfect.

Rabbi Shefa offers this teaching about Emor: Our spiritual challenge is to acknowledge with eyes wide open, our flaws, the harm we cause through them: the suffering, injustice and cruelty that pervade our world…AND at the same time… to see the absolute perfection of it all.

I know R Shefa is right, and the only way through is …through – I am broken, but have known visions of perfections, hear dischord, but know harmony. Am mortal but can conceive of an immortal soul, The paradox is the way home. Maybe that why Torah repeats AMAR 3 times.The first is G!d’s speech, the second is our flawed speech, the third is our speech through the crucible of recognizing of our wounds and defects, the third is our healed speech made holy once again.