Ta Shma

Words may create worlds, as R. Abraham Joshua Heschel insisted, but they can just as surely destroy them. Words can be deadly weapons and the source of uncountable blessings. But careless, evil speech does not just affect others, it also reflects on ourselves. Reading parashat Metzora each year, tradition bids us remember that each time we speak we create the worlds we are destined to inhabit—whether for good or for bad.

Interpreters have long been perplexed by this strange set of laws at the beginning of this week's parashah. Why is a woman who gives birth considered impure? And why must she bring a chattat, or sin offering—has she done something wrong for which she must atone? Even more confusingly: why does her impurity last longer when she gives birth to a girl than when she gives birth to a boy?

What are human beings meant to eat? How does Tanakh envision an ideal human diet, and what implications—if any—should that biblical ideal have for the present? Is vegetarianism consistent with the spirit of the laws of Kashrut, as they appear in parashat Shemini? And, if vegetarianism is a messianic ideal also, should at least some Jews be vegetarian now?

The sacrificial offering associated with giving thanks to God (korban todah) differs in crucial ways from other sacrifices mentioned in the book of Leviticus: all of it must be eaten on the day and all the remainder must be burnt. What is the reason for this? And what can we learn about the nature of gratitude from this obscure detail?

Around this time each year, the eyes of many shul-going Jews begin to glaze over. The book of Leviticus seems so utterly foreign, the rituals and practices it describes so alien, the religious vision underlying them so obscure, that connecting to it seems impossible. And yet if we dig a little deeper, we find a great deal about Leviticus that can speak powerfully to modern sensibilities and yearnings.

There seems to be a deep connection between God's creation of the world on the one hand, and the Israelites' construction of the mishkan (tabernacle) on the other. But just what is that connection, and what is it intended to suggest? In a world overrun by chaos, a far cry from the order of God's creation, the mishkan is intended to serve as one place in which everything unfolds according to the divine plan.

At the beginning of the book of Exodus, God's people are enslaved to a false god; by the book's end, they have been liberated to serve the real One. While Pharaoh oppressed the Israelites with forced labor, God demanded dignified work and voluntary contributions to make the mishkan (tabernacle). While Pharaoh denied the possibility of rest, God mandates the Shabbat. Rav Shai explores what freedom truly means according to Exodus.

God's response to the sin of the golden calf in this week's parashah is perplexing. God is so angry with the Israelites' unfaithfulness that God wants to wipe them out. And yet, the Israelites commit the crime of idolatry, and God wants to punish them... for their stubbornness!? With the help of Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel (the Alter of Slabodka), Rav Shai gets to the depth of what this could mean: that Judaism, at its core, cares not just about actions but also about character.

The hunger to be close to God can be one of the most powerful human desires, but it can also be among the most dangerous. The Torah is concerned with making God present but at the same time not tamed by human beings. Rav Shai argues that the construction of the mishkan in this week's parashah is the Torah's solution to this problem.

Discussing the kabbalistic notion of tzimtzum (God's self-contraction so that the world can exist), and its rabbinic antecedent (God descending into the mishkan, based in this week's parashah), Rav Shai goes into the depths of what it means to be in relationship with another, whether human or divine.