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Phone: 074-7800643
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The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
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Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
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Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Parashat Tazria Metzora – The Home: A place of refuge and sanctity can also become a place of domestic disease
In the precious days “Before the Coronavirus Era” (B.C.E.), the parshiyot of Tazria-Metzora seemed wholly disconnected from our lives, presenting the perennial challenge of relevance (or irrelevance) to even the most talented darshan (sermonizer). How are we to connect leprous plagues attacking both body and abode to our daily lives? And to what extent does the experience of quarantine resonate with our modern reality?
These are only two of the many questions that we would have posed in a pre-Covid world.
Then the pandemic changed our lives, and transformed our relationship to these previously enigmatic Torah readings. What captured my attention as I turned to Parashat Metzora this year was the idea of the affliction of home. The idea of home, which many of us consider to be a place of refuge and sanctity, is turned on its head as Torah presents us with a case of domestic disease.
Leviticus 14:34–35 teaches, “When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession, and I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house in the land you possess, the owner of the house will come and tell the priest . . .” This triggers a series of directives in which the priest examines the plague; if the plague is determined to be serious, the house is quarantined for seven days; another examination takes place; and then a process of remediation occurs. What are we to make of this curious phenomenon and ritual?
Basing his commentary on Leviticus Rabbah 17:6, Rashi, the prolific medieval commentator, writes, “This was because the Amorites concealed treasures of gold in the walls of their homes during the whole forty years that the Israelites were wandering in the desert; and in consequence, the plague was sent so the Israelites would pull down their walls and discover the hidden treasure.” Far from being a punishment then, this domestic leprosy is, at its heart, a blessing. It strikes homes with the aim of helping their inhabitants discover treasure that the Canaanites tried to conceal.
The Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, has a visceral reaction to Rashi’s commentary. He responds,
Now really! Did the Creator of the universe need to resort to such contortions? Why would God have given the Canaanites the idea of hiding [things in the walls] so that Israel would have to knock down these houses!
The real meaning of these afflictions of houses is in fact quite wondrous; a demonstration that Israel’s holiness is so great that they can also draw sanctity and purity into their dwelling places. Scripture tells us, “A stone will cry out from the wall and a wooden beam will answer it” (Habakkuk. 2:11), regarding a person’s sin, to which the walls of the house bear witness (Arthur Green, The Language of Truth, 173–174).
According to the commentary of the Sefat Emet, our moral and ethical behavior affects our surroundings, and, more intimately, shapes the physical structure of our home. The walls of our sacred dwelling places potentially absorb the consequences of unethical and immoral behavior.
The Sefat Emet teases out a beautiful message: Torah demonstrates a higher level of holiness that is accessible to the Israelite people upon entering the Land of Israel. I would call it the “sensitivity of sanctity.” We are called to live up to our greatest morals and principles. It is through this virtue that we acquire and maintain possession of the Land of Israel. As inhabitants of Israel we must be attentive, vigilant, and caring.
In Judaism, we consider home to be a mikdash me’at, a sanctuary in miniature.
And if so, it should be a place where we try harder—where we have aspirational visions of being the best we can be. Home is not just built of construction materials such as wood, stones, and steel; a home is also built with compassion, love, and an ethical compass. Without soulful work, our home will indeed be plagued with argument, corruption, and isolation. This holds true for both our personal, private home as well as our national home.
As we celebrate Yom Ha’atzma’ut, Israeli Independence Day, and Israel engages in the hard work of overcoming ongoing trauma, may the moral, aspirational vision of Torah guide our blueprint.
image: Five Books of Moses,Vienna 1858, private collection of Rabbi David Golinkin
Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz, an accomplished educator and artist, brings decades of experience in development to his position. From 1999 to 2008, he served as JTS’s Senior Rabbinic Fellow based in NY and Florida, responsible for cultivating and expanding the donor base and teaching adult learning study groups throughout the United States. From 2009, he served as Director of Israel Programs for JTS working closely with rabbinical and cantorial students to significantly enrich their Israel experience.
He is a founding partner of Kol HaOt studio project in Jerusalem’s Artist Lane — which weaves the arts deeply into Jewish learning.
Rabbi Berkowitz is the author and illuminator of the widely used The Lovell Haggadah published by Schechter in 2008.
Matt is a Wexner Graduate fellow alumnus and serves on the faculty of The Wexner Heritage Program.
He is married to Nadia Levene and the proud father of three children.
