Dear chevre,
This week’s combined portion starts with God’s voice entering a silence left by Aharon’s two sons’ death two parashiyot back. God gets right down to business and says, HERE is how you get closest to me, High Priest, without dying. It’s a ritual of sacrifice and blood and touch, hands laid on a goat’s head, clothes put on and off, palms full of incense cast on the coals, an inner chamber entered and left. The verses that follow, Vayikra 18, are called the “Holiness Code.” They, too, talk about physical approach. The prohibitions in Vayikra 18 against homosexual behavior are now, thank God, generally understood to give way before our understanding of all humans as part of and partaking in God’s image and dignity. The physicality of the chapter, however, resonates.
What we do with our bodies is of vital importance. We are souls within bodies, and the principles of ethical speech and action that Vayikra 19 lays out—truth, charity, compassion—come after the physical safeguards. Our souls can’t communicate without bodies in which to live.
I think we’re living that truth right now. We’re focused on where our bodies are, and who else is near them. The jitters of six weeks of quarantine fray our nerves. Tracking measures report that people are starting to leave quarantine, venture out farther, stay in outside interactions longer. We have personal choices about our movements to make that are, perhaps, even harder than when our states first shut down, as novelty has worn off and weary longing for “normal” grows. The very best intentions in the world can’t stop us from unknowingly contributing to coronavirus spread, if we put our bodies in physical proximity to others before it is safe to do so.
