Shabbat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim

Over the last six weeks, I have enjoyed being in touch with many of you – 

on the phone, at a “Zoom gathering”, or by email 

(and if we haven't been in touch, I would love to hear from you)! 

I even had the special privilege of walking with some of you on Wednesday.

Hearing from you is so important to me; it bridges the distance between us --

as I’m sure your contact with the important people in your life does for you.

I also acknowledge how devastating it is that we can’t currently connect in the ways we have.

As individuals, this means we can’t enjoy meals together, or get haircuts.

We can’t go out to shop, or see plays. We must think about what constitutes

an “essential” medical appointment, and how to get there and back.

I’ve heard some of you express fears you won’t be able to hug your children again.

We each have our own unique version of the hell and heartbreak we are living through.

Which makes it all the more remarkable to me, in the midst of all this loss and uncertainty — 

that we’ve found new ways to live, that have opened up previously unimaginable possibilities: 

How amazing it’s been to, say, open our iPad and see family in five different time zones;

or to take a trip to the Met, or Broadway, or the Louvre — without having to leave our homes.

*

This week, we read two parshiot. The first, Acharei Mot,

shows us how we used to connect as a people:

It depicts the Israelite encampment — with the Mishkan, 

the Holy Tabernacle where the Divine Presence appeared -- at its center. 

We’ve always believed that connecting to other people

Is also a way to come close to that Thing that is Greater than Ourselves, 

what some people might call “God”.

And our second parasha, Kedoshim, tells us what we need to do to stay connected, 

when we don’t necessarily have access to a physical gathering place.

It begins with the words, k’doshim t’hiu: “You shall be holy.”

Notice, these words are in future form: “you will be holy.”

This leads Jewish theologian, Martin Buber, to write,

Judaism doesn’t divide life into the holy and the profane,

but into the holy and the not-yet-holy.

With k’doshim t’hiu -- the words that start our parasha – God reminds us:

You used to find me in the Temple. We mourn its devastating loss to this day.

Yet, we also celebrate the ways we’ve found to stay in touch: prayer, and good deeds. 

And now we grieve the tragic, though temporary, loss of in-person gatherings.

Still, in the midst of our grief, we take some comfort in the ways we have been able

for now, to make phones and computers into sacred gathering places.

How we find each other and the holiness in our midst, has, and will always change.

When it does, we grieve our loss of the ways we connected before; we sincerely pray,

as we do today, for a restoration of these ways, for an end to this plague, soon and in our day.

In the meantime let us accept God’s invitation to see these new ways to connect, 

as sacred, as worthy of bringing our full presence to – so we,

like the priests in Temple times, can be the eyes and ears, the hands and hearts,

of the Divine Presence for each other now, and always.