Blog

This is a week when the whole world feels different, strange and new. Everyone's lives have been upended, each of us adjusting to the new rules that seem to come out so quickly they're nearly impossible to track. Some of us are still trying to figure out which rules specifically apply to us, if there are loopholes, if there are rules that apply to others but won't affect us.

It seems fitting, then, that this is the week when we also started reading a new book of the Torah, specifically the book that is entirely about laws: Leviticus. Leviticus is the book that Reform Jews have struggled with the most throughout our history. So many of its laws have always felt like they don't define who we are and the Jewish lives we want to lead; we are rule breakers and iconoclasts! These rules apply to others, but not us; we have always found ways to get around them. In fact, early Reform Jews suggested eliminating the book all together because its laws were exactly the ones that we were trying to reform. Sacrifices? Not our style. Special rules for how we gather, for what we wear, for how we wash our hands, for how we clean our homes? Not something we need the Torah to tell us.

Oh boy. The irony is pretty apparent. Could it be that for the first time for many of us, the book of Leviticus will have something critical to teach us? Not all of its rules and laws speak to us today for sure-we don't offer animal sacrifices, we don't have high priests, we don't have the ancient Temple. Yet the most important thing Leviticus has to teach us is this: for the system to work, everyone has to participate. Everyone has to follow the rules, even if the rules apply slightly different for each of us based on our occupation, our health, and our needs. A healthy community only works when we all work together, taking our neighbors lives as seriously as our own, offering what we can from what we have for the benefit of all.