Brown logo
(319) 337-3813
  • About Us
    • Our History
    • Our Staff
    • Membership
      • FAQ
    • Directions
    • Reform Judaism
    • Conservative Judaism
    • Gift Shop
    • Contact Us
    • Bulletins
  • Worship
    • Shabbat
    • Holidays
      • Sukkot
      • Simchat Torah
      • Hanukkah
      • Purim
      • Passover
      • Shavout
    • Children’s Services
    • Life Cycle Events
    • Yahrzeit
    • Minyan
    • Our Sanctuary
    • Sermons
  • Religious School
    • Sunday/Hebrew School
    • Religious School Calendar
    • Bar/Bat Mitzvah
    • USY/NFTY
    • Summer Camp
  • Learning
    • Adult Education
    • Israel Education & Advocacy
    • Other Opportunities
  • Youth
    • Youth Activities
  • Calendar
  • Donate
alone but not lonely

Alone but not Lonely

Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz 30/04/2020 Sermon Tazria-metzora

It gets lonely, doesn’t it? Being shut in the way so many of us are.

I had commissioned a friend to make some cloth masks for my family and she did a wonderful job (Star Wars-patterned fabric for the boy and unicorns for the girl). She did a curbside drop-off with the masks in a paper bag and with mini loaves of banana bread thrown in for good measure. We talked to them; us from our porch, they in the drive-way, and in a complicated, socially-distanced way, I was able to offer the family slices of homemade caraway seed cake. It was the first in-person human contact – even which socially-distancing with over 15 feet between us – that my family had had in almost two months.

I am sure you can relate: it’s been a very lonely two months. Considering we are blessed to have each other’s company, I cannot imagine how much harder it is for others less fortunate to be in a strong family unit like us.

Still, this is our lot and it may be our lot for the foreseeable future and all of us involved in the project of building sacred community can turn our thoughts to not just the medical implications of this plague but its social consequences too. The spike in mental health issues; the vulnerability many of us feel, the loneliness, the anxiety, the paranoia about catching the novel Coronavirus, the deprivation of normal human contact. These are not little things just because they are private things. Each of us is waging a war, fighting a battle. Each of us will have to contend with what this all means for our souls as well as our bodies.

This week’s Torah portion is primed towards the body. Tazria-Metzora has the running joke of being the nemesis of B’nei Mitzvah students the world over, but as you may well know by now, this season of the plague is the ultimate vindication of the Book of Leviticus. We read meticulous instructions on how to diagnose, isolate and purify. Bodies that ooze, bodies that erupt, bodies that are tinged with death amidst the great and ancient struggle to perpetuate life.

Today, I tried on my cloth mask for the first time. It is an elegant design of white and pale grey chevrons. I bent the wire to fit the contours of my nose and tied the straps behind my head. It was slightly uncomfortable and plenty discomforting. It labored my breathing and as I looked into the mirror, it was shocking to see the image of own humanity crack as part of my face became concealed. It was a more existential moment than I thought it would be. This too, is Levitical: a meticulous act meant to diagnose, isolate and purify. It is the quarantining of our countenance, binding up our smiles, containing our expressions, words, breath.

Amidst the myriad details of this week’s portion, there are two words that the Priestly text uses over and over again to signal what must be done to the human being who is, somehow, tainted: ‘lehasgir’ and ‘badad’: to ‘shut someone out’ and to be ‘isolated’ or ‘lonely’. We can look at these words as technical terms or as emotional states. One of the hidden truths of Leviticus lies not in its minutiae but in its unspoken, implicit compassion. People aren’t quarantined forever. They are reintegrated. They find healing but they also find spiritual restitution. We forget that the ordinances of Leviticus were not unusual but part of the rhythms of ancient life. There was no stigma to the measures; no judgment on the system of purity.

That is our lesson for today. We must abide by our stringent rules, but let there be no recrimination, no judgment, no cruelty. Let caution not devolve into fear. And may we think of measures, procedures and rituals that can lift the veils of our isolation and break down the walls of our loneliness. Just as there is an infrastructure for containment, let there be an infrastructure for healing, love and reintegration. There is only one guarantee in all of this, and this applies to the uncertain days of ancient times as well as our current, contemporary predicament: we need each other, more than ever.

Ken yehi ratzon.

Four Cubits The Dark Heart of Power

Related Posts

capital-5043172_1920

News, Sermon/

Against Tyrannies, Great and Small

We feel the weight of this moment and the long shadow it casts over our hearts.

1920px-Tissot_Pharaoh's_Daughter_Receives_the_Mother_of_Moses

News, Sermon/

D’var for Sh’mot by Linda Kerber

Everyone, I conclude, should have their own Parsha – one which speaks directly to them.

pocket-watch-3156771_1920

News, Sermon/

On the Cusp of History

The personal dramas of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs have always played out on the stage of historical change and in this sense, their lives are no different from our own.

Posts by Category

  • A Legacy (2)
  • Bulletin (24)
  • Care (1)
  • Holidays (11)
  • jLab (16)
  • Learn (1)
  • Media (6)
  • News (30)
  • Religious School (4)
  • Repair the World (1)
  • Sermon (64)
  • Uncategorized (1)
  • What's On (3)

Posts by Date

April 2020
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930  
« Mar   May »

Find Us

Agudas Achim Congregation
401 E. Oakdale Blvd.
Coralville, IA 52241

T  (319) 337-3813
E  Contact Us
  • Directions
  • Donate

Shabbat Service Times

Friday Evening:
7.30 p.m to 8.30 p.m.

Saturday Morning
9.30 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Office Hours

Mon-Thurs, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Closed Fridays and Jewish holidays

Proud member of the USCJ

USCJ Logo

Legal

Terms of Use
Privacy
Cookie Policy
Manage Cookies
Accessibility
© 2019 Agudas Achim Congregation,
All rights reserved.
© URJ 2021
Powered by

RJ Web Builder 3.0