Dear Friends,
When I picked up my first grader from Yavneh this week, I saw these beautiful posters that the class had made, depicting themselves standing at the base of Mount Sinai as the Ten Commandments were given. Their pictures were adorable – big smiles, lots of pigtails, wiggly arms, a blank piece of purple paper, even, and then there was my kid: arms and legs riddled with cartoon-ish muscles, flexing a twelve-pack. Bringing his fullest self to the Torah.
Props to the first grade teachers and to our Education Director, Melissa – it’s a really lovely idea, because we’re all supposed to do this – in every generation, b’chol dor vador, we’re supposed to see ourselves as if we stood there, and see one another that way, too. And during this time of year, the counting of the Omer, we’re on that journey in the most palpable way, counting the days from enslavement to revelation, trying to get ready for it.
This week’s parsha, Kedoshim, feels at once like a snapshot of our having made it to revelation – finally receiving mitzvot, goals, visions of our future – and also like a map to get there. It’s so aspirational. Some of the mitzvot feel clear and straightforward – not stealing, for example, and not engaging in incest. But others are a lot trickier. Honor your parents, love people and don’t hate them, be good to strangers. So much is subjective; so many priorities to juggle. Even once we’ve received the torah, it’s not fully clear how to live it – or if it’s even possible to live it, fully, at all times.
Kedoshim tells us over and over again to be holy. It’s a vision, and it’s a challenge. Maybe it’s okay that some of our imagined selves at Sinai are a little exaggerated, or idealized, or in progress. We’re still drawing ourselves there; still on our way, still counting.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Hannah
