One of the challenges of writing a weekly essay on the Torah portion along with a weekly podcast script while also serving as the CEO of a growing organization is that there’s not much time for other writing. My first—and to date, only—book came about entirely because I wrote each chapter for IJS’s annual Text Study program in 2020-21 (and I wasn’t yet writing these weekly reflections).
In recent months I’ve gotten some new inspiration for a larger project, which I’m hoping can become a book and which would focus on the idea of home and, even more, on the experience of at-homeness.
Regular readers will recognize that this is a theme I come back to regularly, and it feels to me like there’s something deeper going on here. Yes, clearly there’s something in the topic that animates me personally. But I also sense that questions of at-homeness underlie many of our collective questions and challenges, from borders and migration to Israel and the Jewish Diaspora, to AI and climate change. At the heart of many of these profoundly challenging issues is a deeply personal yet profoundly collective question: How do we feel at home?
I have explored these themes in many of these reflections already (you can look as recently as last week), but I share this preamble to tell you that, in service of this larger writing project, I’d like to use this frame for these reflections for the next little while. And: I hope you’ll write back with your own thoughts and experiences about not only what I have to say, but also where you might suggest we explore in this journey together.
The opening words of Parashat Emor are directed at the main characters of the book of Leviticus, the kohanim (priests): “And YHVH said to Moses, ‘Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, ‘Let none [of you] defile himself for a dead person among his people’’” (Lev. 21:1). The Midrashic and Talmudic tradition reads this and the verses that follow as the basis for Jewish mourning customs, particularly in defining for whom one is required to mourn. That, in itself, teaches us something about our concept of home: Home is closely associated with the familiar and familial. Thus, who we define as a relative can inform our experience of being at home—particularly with whom we experience being at home.
Yet the verse itself uses neither the words home nor family. The key word for many commentators is the word am, “people.” Rashi, following the Midrash, comments that amav, “his people,” comes to teach that as long as someone from the Israelite people—i.e. the deceased’s extended family—is available to tend to the burial, then the priest should maintain his ritual purity and not become involved in tending to the dead. But, in the case of a met mitzvah, in which there’s no one else to do it, then the priest must become involved.
Rashi invites us to anchor the question of at-homeness in the relationship and status of the priest, who is both of the larger people but also apart from it—itself a key tension underlying the experience of being at home. What does it feel like, and what does it mean, to be at home with one’s immediate relatives? And how does that compare and contrast with being at home within a people, language, culture, civilization?
A Hasidic commentary can help us explore these questions further by interpreting the verse not merely as a commentary on the obligation of burial, but on the ethics of civic life. It comes from Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezritch (d. 1772): “‘Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron…’ Those who rebuke the people and strive to return them to the good are in the category of ‘Priests, the sons of Aaron.’ And behold, the Torah says to each one of them: ‘Let none defile himself for a dead person among his people.’ At the time when one stands and rebukes the people, one must be careful and cautious not to defile or ruin their own soul through arrogance or ulterior motives.”
The Maggid, following his teacher the Ba’al Shem Tov, interprets the verse as a warning about the dangers inherent in the practice of tochacha, offering rebuke (or, perhaps, negative feedback), particularly by leaders of the people. This is not to say that leaders should avoid tochacha—the Torah just told us it’s a mitzvah in last week’s Torah portion! But, suggests the Maggid, leaders have to do real spiritual discernment to know where our tochacha is coming from: Is it pure? Or are there impure motivations? Is the leader uttering their words of rebuke from a place of genuine love and care for their fellows, or, perhaps, are their words more an expression of their own personal resentment, frustration, and even subtle (or not so subtle) desire for power and position?
While the Maggid seemingly confines his question to religious leaders in positions of authority, I think the rest of us can read ourselves into these questions too. Anyone who has ever lived in relationship with another—in a friendship, a marriage, as a parent or a child—can probably feel some resonance with this teaching. When do we speak up, and how? How do we discern our own motivations? These are intimate questions at the heart of familial relationships (and, perhaps, not a small number of hours in therapist’s office).
Read in the context of the question of at-homeness, I might therefore suggest the Maggid is extending the notion of shalom bayit, peace in the home, well beyond the confines of one’s immediate family—and thus inviting us to play with extending our notion of home as well. Indeed, he’s picking up that idea from the Torah itself. If one way of experiencing at-homeness is through a feeling of kinship and mutual responsibility, then the Maggid and the Torah are inviting us to reflect on whether we feel at home with a larger community—the Jewish people, other collectivities—and, if we do, what responsibilities and ethics might emerge as a result.
For Reflection & Conversation
- How, if at all, do you discern whether to offer tochacha/rebuke? What, if anything, motivates you to speak up? What, if anything, keeps you from doing so?
- How do you relate to Am Yisrael/the Jewish People? Is it a home for you? If so, why? If not, why not? Are there other larger collective groups in which you feel at home?