Parashat Tetzaveh
Emily and Sofia may have spent the entire week focused diligently on this weekend, but it’s been pretty eventful for us all. We’ve had the roadmap to recovery and Purim to grapple with. Purim isn’t normally something one needs to grapple with, but in all honesty, this Purim felt a little different. It is almost like an anniversary. The last time the community all really gathered together was Purim 2020, and although I hadn’t yet taken up my post, I was so excited as Rabbi in waiting to bring the family along and to celebrate with the community at the families Purim party.
Last Purim we knew about Covid, but the path ahead was still unclear. We were washing our hands regularly, but masks weren’t yet seen as essential, (unless they were a Purim costume) and social distancing wasn’t really a thing, though there was a degree of elbow bumping going on. And of course last Purim we were still able to celebrate with Rabbi Kraft.
Every celebration has been different this year, but this Purim felt somehow stranger, and more momentous than the others. It marks the completion of a full year of festivals celebrated at home, rather than in the synagogue. At the same time we have also just received a plan, a roadmap, a hoped for way to begin returning to that which is missed. We are at a strange moment of transition. Millions have had the first dose of vaccination, but not everyone. We know the earliest time that things might happen, but it could be later. Summer seems within grasp, but we know it can easily slip away, and while we may want to jump back into life as it was, that could set us back well before the summer.
Emily and Fifi read so beautifully for us today about a Jewish institution that I sometimes think of a being similarly transitional. The desert Temple or mishkan was the focus of the Israelite’s ritual life in the desert. Last week we heard about the cherubim adorning the ark of the covenant, and this week we’ve heard about the theatre and drama of Priestly ordination and sacrifices. There is something that feels like it borders on idolatry, particularly with the cherubim, but we have to remember where the Israelites have come from. There is a lot about the ark itself that resembles archaeological findings in Egyptian tombs, and next Shabbat we traditionally read the story of the golden calf – an innate desire in the Israelite community to have a physical focus for their worship.
So the mishkan and then the more permanent Temple formed, for a very long time, a sort of stepping stone – a step away from the full blown polytheistic idolatry of Ancient Egypt, training the community, perhaps, to see the awe and wonder possible in community life. As Progressive Jews we don’t pray for a return to the Temple rites, but we can acknowledge the impressiveness of the power of the experience there.
We have, in some ways, found ourselves in the polar opposite of the Temple experience this year. Rather than gather with thousands of others, and getting a tiny glimpse of the action from the pulpit, we have been isolated, and yet also closer to the action. Zoom and live streams give us a front row seat. We may now need our own transitional space to learn how to re-enter the world. We can see the promised land of reopening, but if we rush, we may find ourselves back in the wilderness.
As Emily described in her d’var Torah, the seemingly gruesome sacrifices performed in the Temple were also a part of teaching the Israelites how to live as a community having left slavery. The Levites, who served as the priests and carers for the temple, were not granted a chunk of land to enjoy for themselves and their descendants when the land of Israel was carved up between the tribes. This left them with no land to farm, but a Temple to serve and keep operating. And so the sacrifices formed a key part of sustaining the Levites, at once a powerful group running the Temple, and a vulnerable group unable to produce their own food. This was a system where we are taught to look out for those who are vulnerable and might not have the means to feed themselves, just as we do at Purim by giving Matanot Levyonim – gifts to help the poor eat.
There was something else that happened this week, both very personal, and very publicy important. I received, as a frontline key worker, my first dose of the Covid 19 vaccine. I was incredibly impressed at the entire process and set up. An army of volunteers, in which Naomi, Emily and Fifi’s mum has been serving, were making sure operations ran smoothly, everything was cleaned, every protocol was followed. They were almost like the Levites in the Temple – serving the entire community to ensure we are all looked after and protected. I felt almost nothing when it was administered, and then was invited to sit for 15 minutes to ensure I didn’t have an allergic reaction. I didn’t react, but the volunteers did check on me more than the people around me. Because I sat in my chair fighting back tears, not always successfully.
It was just so overwhelming to take this incredible step towards protecting myself and all of those I serve and interact with. This simple moment, made possible by not only the incredible volunteers, but unimaginable hours poured in by scientists, investments made by governments, and risks taken by all those who served as guinea pigs in the vaccine trials. It took incredible cooperation and care to ensure this vaccine roll out could happen, just as the entire Temple system was a part of trying to protect the community, with social distancing when people signed showed of illness, caring for the vulnerable such as the Levites, and hoping in the science of the day – which is part of what sacrifices were.
But my tears were also about all that we have lost this year. From so many loved ones in our own community, to the mental health struggles we will be grappling with for years to come. On Tuesday, the day before my vaccine, I conducted a stone setting for a beloved father and grandfather who had been victim number 263 in the countries Covid deaths. Today that figure is over 122 thousand. Each loss loved and missed by someone, if not a whole network of people. As I sat fighting back the tears at the vaccination centre, I also thought about this family, and all the families, denied the ability to mourn together properly, and of Sophia and Emily and so many other b’nei mitzvah, whose celebrations have been curtailed. I was so moved by how both of you found positives out of this last year, but we also have to allow ourselves to acknowledge and feel the pain and loss.
Judaism always encourages us to do this. We have seasons of joy, such as Purim, but we also have permission to know our grief, and to name it. Emily and Sophia you yourselves have known this grief in the last few months, when you lost your grandpa. Giving ourselves permission to feel that which hurts, allows us to learn to live with it, and is one of the strengths of the Jewish tradition that today you are taking your places in.
It seems we are nearing the light at the end of the tunnel, and as we do it is ok to acknowledge how hard it has been, and how hard it will continue to be as we make sacrifices to get us to the finish line together. I am so looking forward to being in a synagogue full of you all once again. Cain Yehi Ratzon, may this be God’s will. Venomar, Amen. Shabbat Shalom.
