Straight From The Pulpit (And Heart)
Shabbat Korach 2024: And To Dust You Shall Return...
Most people are familiar with the term "shameless." Shameless is a term, it's a Yiddishized, oh, that's actually a word, but it's a Yiddish-sized version of a Hebrew word, the Hebrew word being "Shemoat." What is "Shemoat?" "Shemoat" is literally names. And what it refers to is the classification of certain religious items that have to be disposed of in a certain way. Now, we also have another term from this, it's called "ganesa." And the word "ganesa" comes from another Hebrew word, "leak-nose," which means to dispose of something in a way that's not arbitrary. It's done in a very deliberate and particular way. The word "ganesa" in a more modern context has a fascinating connection to it. And that is in the late 1800s, one of the most remarkable and important theologians and Jewish historians of the past few hundred years is a name that I suspect you're all familiar with. It's a name Salomon Schechter. Schechter-- and there's a beautiful survey of Schechter in a fantastic book by Norman Le Brecht. Schechter was working, let's say, toiling in obscurity in England in the mid-late 1800s. And he received some notification that there was a pair of sisters who had been traveling to Egypt and to Cairo. And they had come upon the news that one of the back walls of an old shul in Cairo called the Ben Ezra synagogue had been inadvertently damaged during some repair work. And subsequently, what they discovered was when they began to, I guess, look around and see what was damaged and try to repair things, they discovered that behind this wall it was actually a false wall. That behind the wall was a treasure trove of a ganesa. And ever since then, the words "the Cairo ganesa" lights up the eyes of about .001% of the entire world, me being one of those people. Now, the Cairo ganesa, the items that went into the Cairo ganesa, it obviously took years and years and decades of work to begin removing them, opening them up, classifying them, translating them, not only were they written in Hebrew, but they were written in kind of an Arabic, Yiddish kind of thing. In other words, it was Hebrew and dialects of Arabic. There were some also that were done in Londono, which is like Spanish and Hebrew. In essence, it was an absolute treasure trove. Over centuries and centuries, nearly 1,000 years of collected Jewish work and articles. And these things weren't thrown away. They were placed in two-way ganesa. Over some of the things that were found in it. Me, the obvious things that go into a ganesa. But in addition to that, they found copies of ancient kutubot, copies of kitian of divorce decrees, letters and other articles that had been sent from the Jewish community of Cairo and elsewhere and from outside Cairo, into Cairo from various rabbinic authorities regarding questions of Jewish law. Famously, they found letters that had been written by Maimonides. Because Maimonides, as you know, in his parapetetic journeys after leaving Spain, that he made his way, of course, North Africa, of then truly arriving in Egypt and becoming a physician to the king of Egypt. And so it was quite, quite a remarkable discovery. And of course, as all discoveries, there's a boom and there's an echo. So the boom is the discovery itself. The echo is what happens afterwards. And what Shechter had discovered gave birth to what we understand today, what we call generally conservative Judaism. But let's remove the word conservative from the word Judaism. And let's simply say that a modernist approach to trying to reconcile the view of Judaism as being something evolutionary, as opposed to static, was an idea that was advanced by Shechter and the work that he did impacted many, many peoples, the Karbius Frankel in Germany and elsewhere. Anyways, the story goes on. That's not what I want to talk about, actually. This all leads into something else. And that is when you have a Ganesian, you have a Seamus, when you have things that need to be buried in Jewish tradition, what are those things that have to be buried? For example, we know with certainty, some things definitely need to be disposed of in a careful, particularly religiously mandated fashion. And what are those things? Well, first of all, so I'll be calling Jewish tradition as being "Stam," a safe atora to fill in a mizzouza. Basically, anything that has God's sacred name on it that was written by a scribe, eventually, when a safe atora is no longer usable, they can't be repaired anymore, it's late to rest, and it's buried. We put it into Ganesia, right? We don't just throw it away. A seador, also a copy with God's name on a homage as well. But what about a Kipa? What about your Seder plate? What about a Talit? What about the Yod that is used when you're reading the Torah and you're pointing out it? What about that? Do you put it into Ganesia? Do you bury it? How do you dispose of it? And by way of that, we come to an interesting answer. And that is my manatees, brings forth the absolute formula of how to deal with these things. He says that "divre could do shad nigh nigh nigh nigh nigh nigh nigh nigh nigh nigh nigh" which means that things that are inherently holy, we put them in Ganesia, we bury them. Things that were only used for a mitzvah, you can throw them away. So a Kipa, you can throw away. Your Seder plate, God, hopefully you get a more beautiful one. You don't have anyone to give your Seder plate to. You can throw it away. A Talit, you can actually throw away. But what about us? What about human beings? The idea of what human beings are. Are we a thing that performs amidst, in other words, are we simply utilitarian devices? Or is there something inherently sanctified about human life? What are we? And the question of that sort is brought into a beautiful lens in this morning's Torah portion. To be fair, it's not just this morning's Torah portion. You have to take this morning's Torah reading with last week's Torah reading. And the credit for this idea of contradicting these two portions comes by way of one of my lay teachers. The great Israeli theologian Yishai Olabovich, a blessed memory. And it goes like this. Last week at the end of the Torah portion, we read the Mitzvah of Zitzit. And as you know that in the third paragraph of the Shema, we of course read the section in Zitzit every day, twice a day. And then it says the following about the Mitzvah of Zitzit. That you will look upon that Zitzit, Viyitem Kedoshim, and you will be holy. Contrast that with what we read this morning. Korach leading a rebellion against Moses. Challenging Moses, suggesting and saying that Moses isn't the one who solely should be charged as carrying out the authority and word of God, that Korach gathers. It says as follows, Viyikalu al-Moshheh, Viyalaron. And they congregate on against Moses and Aaron. In other words, a mob appears before Moses and Aaron. Viyomruh lay him. And they say to them, led by Korach. Ravlachim, it's enough for ready with you too. Kikolayidah, Korach turns and says to them. And remember, Korach was the cousin of Moses and Aaron. He says, Kikolayidah, you know, this entire people, everyone here, this entire community. Kulam Kedoshim, they're all holy too. These are two distinct versions of human life. One version of human life says that humans are in instinctly inherently holy. The other version, the Korach is saying, is that everyone is inherently holy. And what's the actual practical, pragmatic difference between these two things? When you say that someone is inherently holy, in other words, they already are what they should be, then there's nothing left for them to do. There's no question, there's no struggle. There's no idea that they need to become anything. But on the other hand, Leibevich points out in saying that in the Torah, by insisting, Vietem Kedoshim, that you should be holy, that you can be holy. Kedoshinti, you should be holy. What does it say? It says that human life is fundamentally a question that you're called to answer. That you aren't anything yet. And that the entire purpose of your life is to set yourself on a journey to become something better than what you became. And that the struggle to do that, in fact, is the determination of wanting to become something, something of value, something of purpose, something that exceeds beyond what you are in the moment, to step outside of your skin. That's the call that Moses was arguing against with Korach. Korach and Moses turning around and saying to put C.T. on on look at the fringes, the knots and the strings, all leading up to the mitzvah to the Torah, saying, "Look at what you could do." And Korach turns around and says, "Ah, you're already there." It's interesting to note that the first opening of the Shukhanah Reuch of the code of Jewish law are written in the 15th century by Rabbi Joseph Karl. You know what he begins with? The opening words. (speaking in foreign language) To wake up every morning like a lion because there are things to do, which brings me back to my question. What about us? Why do we bury human beings? And I know there are some people who say that because it says in the Torah that we are created in the image of God, that there's a sanctity inherent to human beings and they should be buried. But I wanna present to you an alternate idea. The alternate ideas is that when we bury a human being, we stand at graveside with the most fervent wish and hope at the person who we are setting to rest in the earth was dramatically different from the person who came into the world, that they became holy because of what they became and did, not simply because they were born. And it should be true for all of us as well. Shabbat shalom. [BLANK_AUDIO]