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Sermon: Parshat Tazria-Metzora, 4/16/21

04/20/2021 09:51:04 AM

Apr20

Rabbi Charlie

Shabbat Shalom!

I don’t feel that the idea of “diversity” is in any way controversial, and yet it is. A week ago one talking head was claiming that one company’s desire to increasing diversity in their workforce could get people killed. https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-warns-united-airlines-diversity-initiative-will-eventually-kill-people-1581853 It was shocking to read – and I guess that was part of the point. Sometimes people say things just to generate clicks on a website or to get more viewers or listeners on their show. Shock jocks are often shocking – just not always helpful. In my view, diversity doesn’t kill people – diversity is natural, expected, and something to be embraced.

Much of this week’s Torah portion, Tazria-Metzora, focuses on a strange disease called tzara-at. It’s considered a spiritual disease contracted by sinning, although it was also seen as highly contagious – definitely some opportunities for interpretation there. The only way to know that you had tzara-at would be for a priest to meet one-on-one with the patient and have the priest make the determination. The cure was separation from the community and along with a few more steps.

After a week or several – if the tzara-at had cleared up, the priest would place their hands on the individual. Even though it was highly contagious and even though no one wanted to go near the person – they were literally supposed to call out “unclean, unclean” if anyone got close - the priest would touch their ear, hand, and foot as a part of the cleansing ritual to stress that we can all welcome this person back into the community.

It’s another beautiful moment that emphasizes the importance of every individual. Everyone deserves individual attention. Everyone deserves dignity. And everyone, even when they have made mistakes, can be welcomed back. It’s just one more example of how Judaism doesn’t just give lip service to the idea that we’re all created in God’s image. There’s a reason why Ben Azzai states that being created in God’s image is klal gadol baTorah – the great principle of the Torah. Jewish teaching comes back to the sanctity of every human being over and over again.

Each individual is holy. And in the Talmud there’s a blessing for when one sees a gathering of more than 600,000 individuals that acknowledges the diversity of humanity and God’s ability to understand what is in all of our hearts. (In Sanhedrin 38a), Rabbi Meir states it even more simply, “In three things people are different one from the other: in voice, in appearance, and opinions.” We are all sacred and we are all different. The focus and repetition on the sanctity of every life, that each human life is equivalent to an entire world – combined with the understanding that we all have diverse appearances, opinions, voices, and problems – leads us to the conclusion that not only are people holy, the differences between people must also be holy.

This is why the traditional form of Jewish study is chevrutah – two people arguing so both can learn from each other. It’s why the Talmud (Avodah Zara 19a) encourages us to learn from more than one teacher and why Ben Zoma teaches (Pirkei Avot 4:1) that one who is wise learns from all people.

That’s why it’s so disappointing to hear about so many people being dismissed because they hold a different point of view. The cynicism and lack of trust are too high to give some people the benefit of the doubt, as Judaism encourages us to do. To me, it’s just as troubling to see that as it is to hear about 9th grade students at a school in Aledo who held some form of a mock “slave auction,” pretending to bid on black classmates a couple of weeks ago. The rift in the Southlake school system over diversity is simply painful. Human diversity, our differences are sacred! Our schools and our congregation and our nation will be better off when we find a way to embrace diversity and cherish the dignity and beauty of every child and every person.

In this vein, next week, I’m participating in a workshop run by the One America Movement (link below) – a group trying to combat toxic polarization in our society. If it goes well, it’s something that I’d like to be able to share with our congregation and our community.

This evening, in our prayer for God’s love, we offered the teaching from Danny Segal that if we just treated everyone as if they were the messiah, then our world would be transformed. The person doesn’t even have to be the messiah. If we believe that all people deserve dignity and respect, we just have to live that value – in every interaction. That would truly be transformative – in our schools, within our social networks, throughout social media – in every part of society that one idea would be revolutionary. The question is – how can we do that consistently, with all people and how can we get others to try? I’m not sure – but that’s the world that I want to live in and that’s a world worth working towards.

Shabbat Shalom!

 

https://oneamericamovement.org/event/how-to-talk-to-your-neighbor/

Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784