When I was a teen in New York City, my father and I liked to slip out of the house early on Shabbos morning. We would take a long walk together. And end up at one of the conservative shuls in Queens, where we could sit together.
One morning we landed at the Kew Garden Hills Jewish Centre, where the male rabbi gave a passionate sermon about why women should not be rabbis. I do not have a clear memory of his arguments. But I assume he worried that we would upset hierarchies, question popular Torah interpretations, and craft new styles of leadership. However, I do remember clearly what my father did during that sermon. He leaned in close to me and whispered in my ear, “You should become a rabbi.”
So, I did become a rabbi. But first, I became an educator. And today I want to talk about education in a rabbinic way. Through the lens of this week’s parsha.
Vayikra—God calls. The first word of Parshat Vayikra and the first word of the book of Vayikra-Leviticus.
Our scribal tradition presents this word in an unusual way. The last letter, the aleph, is extra tiny. There are so many ways to drash this, to make metaphorical meaning out of it.
Some say that the letter aleph represents the divine. It is the same word as aluf, the chief. It exists before bet, the first letter of the Torah. It’s not a consonant, so it has no sound of its own, except the sound of breath. The divine spirit that runs through everything.
The aleph is here, at the beginning of Vayikra, but it is hard to see. And that is one key theme of the book.
Divinity, God, the Holy One of Blessing is a field of energy. Always present—but not always seen. Because so many things can exhaust us, or hurt us, and blur our perception of the divine.
Grief. Illness. Childbirth. Our house falling apart. Corrupt leadership. Being the victim of a crime. Being the perpetrator. Trauma bubbling up from our unconscious and taking us by surprise. All these experiences generate what Vayikra calls tumah, ritual impurity. When you are tamei, you cannot come to the mishkan, the dwelling place of the Shechinah. Psychologically speaking, you cannot easily find your connection.
How do we restore the connection? According to Vayikra? With ritual, community development, and inner work.
Vayikra describes rituals of consolation. Accountability. Healing. Reintegration. Rituals that a kohen facilitates, witnesses, and accompanies as needed.
Vayikra teaches us how to behave in community. Love our neighbours as ourselves. Welcome the stranger. Judge people equitably, pay them promptly, limit economic inequality.
Vayikra tells us not to hate our siblings in our hearts—but instead, to speak to them gently and honestly. Do we carry a grudge? We should understand it and dissolve it before it becomes an impulse to revenge.
But the book of Vayikra isn’t just a ritual manual, an ethics code, or a self-help guide. It also has stories. Specifically, two stories about how complicated people can be. One story appears at the end of a long list of ritual instructions. Two young priests working in the mishkan ignore those instructions. So they accidently set fire to the altar, and they die in the blaze. The other story appears right after a teaching about community ethics. Two people fight, and one curses the other with death in the name of God.
These two stories share a moral. You can teach perfect systems of ethics, ritual, and introspection. But they cannot contain human life. Because sometimes, we forget to pay attention and make we mistakes. We feel anger and act impulsively. And then, we take another look at our teachings. Reaffirm them and sometimes re-examine them.
Vayikra informs our philosophy of education at ALEPH Ordination Program. We teach each other to be aware of the divine. To create spiritual community. Lead beautiful and effective rituals. Accompany and guide others in all four worlds of emanation, as Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi understood them: action, emotion, intellect, and spirituality. We work together to reaffirm our tradition, re-examine it and renew it. And we remind each other to approach our differences with compassion—because the work and the learning are not always easy.
Especially in our time. This is a stressful time—in the United States, in Canada, in Israel, in Europe—where our students and faculty live. We see grief. Illness. Crumbling institutions. Corrupt leaders. No wonder trauma bubbles up from our unconscious and takes us by surprise. No wonder we need to use every tool Vayikra offers.
But other, positive changes, are happening, too. And I want to thank our Dean Emerita Rabbi Marcia Prager, who helped me find these right words. Fifty years ago, women were newly invited into Jewish spiritual leadership. We were the strangers, tentatively welcomed.
Today, other Jews are newly invited into spiritual leadership: Jews of Color, Queer and Trans Jews, Jews with interfaith families. They might upset hierarchies, question popular Torah interpretations, and bring new styles of leadership.
This is a great opportunity. Together, we can take another look at our teachings. Reaffirm them, re-examine them, and renew them.
Will it be messy? Of course it will. But we know what to do.
Words offered at my Dean installation celebration at ALEPH Ordination Program, the Jewish Renewal Seminary.
