
Living in diverse
realities, we try to make sense of each. Seeking the wisdom that each one
offers, to know the unique teaching of each journey and place along the way, we
yet try to identify that which is constant from journey to journey. The
constants offer a strand to hold from one reality to another, from one journey
to another, one world to another. In the constants we recognize ourselves,
soothed by the familiar, by that which doesn’t change. We are challenged by
what does change, that which is new and different, that which defines a reality
we haven’t known before. Knowing that all is part of the greater reality of
life and its seasons, perhaps we can draw comfort even from that which is
different, from that which represents change from one reality to another. Even
when unsettling, change is part of a greater whole, a greater reality, itself a
constant. Each subsequent reality is no less real than what came before, its
own virtues there for us to discover in time, and so to wrestle with its
challenges. One way or another, each new reality becomes home, for however long
we may abide there.
There is one word that I
have come to resent, to rail against, in our current reality. It is perhaps the
most frequently used word other than “Zoom.” It is the word “virtual.” I find
myself beginning to decry this word, even impolitely interrupting its almost
being said. I find myself suggesting, at times too forcefully, that there is no
such thing as “virtual,” only different ways of being real. From a dictionary
search, the word to be avoided is from the Latin “virtus,” meaning strength,
virtue. Already, the word has denied itself in the way we use it to suggest
that something is not real. Every moment has its own strength, its own virtue,
therefore its own reality. Defined as “being so in effect or essence, although
not in actual fact or name,” that which is virtual is real in its own way,
having its own essence.
When we meet on the
screen, for instance, whether to learn, to pray, to work, our words are real,
even if occasionally distorted. The words we say to each other carry the same
emotional content; hold the same concerns, as if said in physical proximity.
However much we wish we could be in the same place, our words still express who
we are and the reality from which we speak, seeking to bridge the distance to
another, hoping to elicit words that tell of the other’s reality. We can be in
the same place and still be distant, even made further apart if the needed
words are not spoken, or hurtful ones instead. An online class is still a
class, a gathering to comfort mourners still a vessel in which to hold tears in
the interplay of words and silence. As much as I yearn to be back together,
whether in the synagogue to pray, whether around the learning table of a weekly
class, I have been touched by a depth of connection among us in these days that
is palpable and real.
Every reality, every
place and moment in time and space, offers its own Torah/teaching, that which we can only learn in that particular
moment. As much as we may wish to be free of a painful reality, it too has its
own Torah to teach. In searching out a given moment’s Torah, we become active
shapers of the reality in which we find ourselves. We become seekers and makers
of meaning, activists, rather than those passively buffeted by that over which
we appear to have little control. That over which we have control is within us.
So too, we have control in the way we apply the constants, the knowledge and
truths that we have carried and that have carried us from one reality to the
next, one journey to the next, in the shaping of our lives. As our ancestors
made their way from Egypt, the desert trek is never described as one journey,
but is always referred to in the plural, teaching of life as a series of
journeys. There are constants that we carry through the journeys of our lives,
the journeys that have formed who we are and that have brought us to the
journey of this time and place.
Learning the Torah of
this time and of our journey through it, seeing Torah through the lens of life,
our experiences offer a window into Torah itself, revealing new teachings about
ourselves and about the world in which we live with others. Seeing life through
the lens of Torah, long familiar teachings now turn in new ways, opening to new
depths and applications. I have been startled before the breadth of teaching
that emerges from Torah to guide us on the journey through this time of the pandemic.
I have come to appreciate more deeply a beautiful teaching of the rabbis about
Torah itself and our relationship with Torah and life, hafoch ba hafoch ba d’kula ba/turn it, turn it, all is within it.
So we ask, what is the Torah that we are learning in this time? What are we
learning about ourselves, about the world, about Torah and life in the turning
of time?
I find myself continuing
to wonder what it means to live in the moment and yet to look beyond it. In our
physical isolation we come easily to feel trapped in this moment, so hard to
look beyond, and yet that is what the experience of previous hard realities
teaches us to do. There is nothing virtual in that, requiring strength and
virtue to face and shape the reality of this time. It is all held in the
tension between the names and realities of two Torah portions that become one
in the turning of Torah and life, the weekly portion of Acharei Mot-K’doshim (Lev. 16:1-20:27). Beginning with a looking
back to a moment of great pain, the sudden death of the two sons of Aaron, aharei mot means “after the death….” In
the word acharei/after, there is hope and encouragement, lifting our eyes and hearts
to look ahead. Yes, we are in a hard reality, but we are bidden to look ahead
to after this time.
Parashat K’doshim speaks both to the vision and the way, of the time
to come and how to get there. The portion begins with one of the Torah’s
greatest challenges: Be holy/k’doshim
ti’h’yu/for I God your God am holy. The way then opens before us, what
seems to be an impossible challenge made real in human terms. Toward realizing
the vision, mitzvot become as sign
posts along the way. The commandments that follow the challenge to be holy bear
almost entirely on our relationships in the human realm. In the way that we
treat each other, so we come to affirm our relationship with God. After the
shattering of life as we know it, whether for Aaron in facing the deaths of his
sons, or for us yet held in the grip of the pandemic, we are still to look
beyond and still to do justly. In good times and hard, from within the midst of
harsh reality and after its passing, we are to leave the corners of our fields
for the poor and landless, to leave the gleanings that fall from the plow, to
pay workers on time, not to oppress, but indeed to love the stranger, for we
were strangers in the land of Egypt. The way to the vision fulfilled, from
within this moment and beyond, unfolds through this portion in the way of love
as Rabbi Akiva’s great principle of Torah, and
you shall love your neighbor as yourself/v’ahavta l’re’acha kamocha.
Love is never virtual,
nor the caring of one for another. Life is real in all of its moments, abiding
values joining us across distance and uncertainty. The values that we live and
their ways of expression during this time are real, helping to soften the
isolation and the worry. They are real now because they are always real, a
bridge between now and then, the vision and the way. Love and caring are the
constant that we know to be true, the strand we hold, if not each other’s hand,
in making our way from one reality to another, from this moment in time to the
next. From journey to journey, each one real, in the way of our living in this
moment, we learn to look beyond.
Rabbi Victor. H. Reinstein
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