by Leora Cockrell – Camp Tawonga – San Francisco, CA This week’s Parsha, Emor, discusses priests, purity, prioritization and perfection. The specifics of which are either largely outdated (I haven’t recently checked to make sure my livestock’s legs match before sacrificing them, have you?) or offensive (judging people’s worthiness based on their bodies). But as a fellow F ellow taught me, sometimes you can read the Torah like an arrow…where is the message trying to take us given the context of the world it was written in? As the Jews wandered the desert, wrestling with their new identities as free people, they could have felt caught between the “world was their oyster” sensation and “too many choices are overwhelming” paralysis. Learning to live a different rhythm of life traveling in the desert, getting along with your fellow travelers (some of whom had just been your enslavers), and finding what was more meaningful to them than the comforts of what was known was a big task. And understandably, a few rules, regulations, and rituals could have done a lot to smooth over tensions and build a collective sense of purpose. I have made a journey to the unknown wilds myself, recently. After spending […]
