It’s All About the Ceremony: Emor

We all want to live--well, most of us do. 

I went for my first Covid vaccine on Friday. The whole time I was there, I couldn’t help thinking about the fact that I survived Covid, the current crisis in India and around the world, and my simple privilege of having access to the vaccine. 

I was also at a facility that looked much older and more run-down than the facilities I usually have access to. I left remembering again that I have nothing to complain about. 

Then I spent Saturday in bed, feeling sick and achy, reminded of my personal trauma of getting sick and the fear of losing my husband last March. 

I did feel like complaining. 

As a whole over this past year, we’ve thought a lot about and been relentlessly exposed to the closeness of death, which has taken a terrible toll on our hearts and bodies.

We have struggled to stay alive, and if we don’t take it for granted, we are grateful to be alive as we have been reminded of how quickly being alive can change, whether by way of a dangerous virus---or murder by a cop (for example).

We’ve become more keenly aware and outraged, again as a whole, by abuse and murder by police of people of color in the U.S. and are grateful that the jury voted in favor of the lives of Black people and against abuse, specifically in the case of George Floyd last week--even if it’s truly only a start. 

We have again commemorated the Holocaust, and the Armenian Genocide was named by President Biden yesterday, though the latter remains unrecognized by many governments, and the former still has “deniers.” 

I was listening to Krista Tippett this morning talking to Layli Long Soldier, renowned poet, member and citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and the U.S. 

Layli Long Soldier published Whereas, in “response to the U.S. government’s official apology to Native peoples in 2009, which was done so quietly, with no ceremony, that it was practically a secret.” 

They didn’t invite any leaders from the Nations to the White House, and referred to it as “conflict” between settlers and Native Americans, not genocide---the ultimate insult.

Long Soldier pointed out that ceremonies, as far as she could see, are happening in the White House all the time, and she and Tippett laughed together: how vapid, this “apology.” 

Tippett and Long Soldier also talked about how prayer, in the Lakota Nation and during Standing Rock, set those protests apart from others and made it an especially meaningful, powerful experience for those in attendance. Ceremony is and was important. 

This week’s Torah portion begins by focusing on the obligation of priests to stay pure for their ceremonies for their service in the Temple, starting with avoiding contact with the dead (except when it comes to close family members). 

For the priest, being exposed to death apparently muddies the priest’s ability to serve the people and communicate with God effectively. 

Why all the focus on exposure to death and the repetition of the need for this type of ceremonial purity over and over in the Torah? 

In Judaism, there’s a lot about separation between the holy and the unholy and the recognition of life as sacred, and we are actually told to choose life. 

So maybe it’s pointing again to the importance of being intentional about life, so a separation between life and death must be made.

And though life and death are intertwined, being exposed too much can muddy and weigh down our hearts—and our bodies as well.

I think we can all speak to that. 

I just finished reading a novel called Eternal Life, by Dara Horn, historical fiction that makes you think about what it would be like to live forever, because we always seem to want more time.

It’s the story of a woman, Rachel, born in Temple times in Jerusalem, who makes a vow with the High Priest in the heat of the moment, accepting everlasting life for herself in exchange for the life of her dying child--having no idea what this really means---though the priest warns her to think carefully about it (which she doesn’t).

We follow Rachel through two millennia: her suffering, her sorrow, her loss and trauma---and her desire to die so that she can see and experience this no more. 

But the conclusion is that life is worth it in the end---for the moments of love and beauty and peace that we experience, despite the tragedy and pain. And the value of life is derived from the brevity of it as well.

I think most of us can also speak to the awareness of that.

The ultimate question that I struggle with daily is how to balance my concerns for the world, the pursuit of justice, the frustration I have that so many people still don’t see all life as sacred, only some life, and how to appreciate my life and live in joy and gratitude for being alive--humbled by the gift I am given of a new day, each day, and for all my privilege--because I have nothing to complain about, right? 

Towards the end of this parsha, there’s a review of the festivals, with their ceremonies, including Yom Kippur, a Day of Atonement, on which we are to practice self-denial. 

The word used to describe such self-denial means all of the following: to afflict, oppress, humble, bow down---translated into denying ourselves food and water. 

In so doing, we appreciate the preciousness of what gives us life. We are humbled by the importance of food and water as the Source of Life. And we bow down to that Source of Life, in a symbolic way, just as the protests at Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline are very much about the purity of water as the source of life.

It’s all about the ceremony. And choosing life for all.

We need to choose life for everyone, every day, including ourselves. 

It’s all about the ceremony--whether alone or in gathering together to sing and pray, or just to be together---whatever gives life meaning---and finding ways to live in a state of purity of heart and body, and finding the love and beauty and peace in the brief time we are given on earth.

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