| We’re all blemished – no exceptions. Yet in one of Biblical tradition’s most vexing admonitions, only the physically perfect could serve as spiritual priests, as representatives of the people. Society hasn’t evolved far past this spiritual no-fly list, its prejudices or its offenses to equal dignity. We miss out on the great gifts that differently abled persons offer. So why would Torah have a no-fly list at all? Maybe to hold a mirror to us, provoke our moral outrage, and force us to leap beyond ourselves. |
Parashat Emor 5784 (2024)One of spiritual tradition’s great blemishes is how it once treated the so-called “blemish” of some called into service. This week’s Torah portion shines this challenge in our eyes, dares us to flinch and calls us to make continuing repair.
In ancient days, a “blemish” (in Hebrew, mum) disqualified a kohein (priest) from sacred service (Lev. 21:17). Included on this spiritual no-fly list was anyone “blind” or “lame,” or having a body part “maimed” or “too long” (Lev. 21:18), or having a broken limb (Lev. 21:19), or scoliosis or dwarfism (Lev. 21:20) – now called restricted growth or being a little person.
How could our vaunted Western spiritual tradition, which purports to vision each person in the divine image (Gen. 1:27), also deem some to be unfit by dint of birth, illness or accident – and call the idea holy? Something – maybe several somethings – are very wrong here.
We like to believe that society has evolved far beyond devaluing others for how they look. We insist that we’re so much better than that. We might even feel that these noxious Biblical notions pollute spiritual tradition itself and turn people away.
But, no. Societally we haven’t come nearly so far as we might imagine. And sometimes what most rankles us – even in spiritual life – has the most to teach us.
A first inconvenient truth: It took until 1990, fully a quarter century after the 1965 Voting Rights Act, for Congress to enact the Americans with Disabilities Act. Now nearly
another 35 years later, communities still trip over access, inclusion and belonging. Society has a long, long way to go to fulfill our professed values of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (“DEIB”).
A related truth hides in plain sight: few differently abled people today serve in religion’s pulpits (of any religion), or in government, our secular temple of democracy. It’s as if the Bible’s spiritual no-fly list still governs.
Surely it’s not that differently abled persons aren’t drawn to service, or lack talent or capacity. Yet in all my years observing, serving, leading and shaping Jewish life, I know only one differently abled person who became clergy. (I have no standing to speak of other religions, but I sense that few differently abled persons serve as pastors, priests and imams.)
Why is that?
When physical appearance was imagined to manifest metaphysical merit, a “blemished priest” was imagined to taint a spiritual offering. Later our ancestors wrestled this idea – they sensed that Torah’s words concealed a deeper truth – but still they tried to justify it. Some took a psychological approach, imagining that perceptible “deformities” would distract the public from the “holy” business at hand. Medieval rabbis wrote instead that “This matter requires further study” – a signal that the answers they knew no longer made sense.
We can add even more questions that Torah implies but doesn’t ask outright. Why would God allow a “blemish”? Why would God allow disability and illness, sometimes profound and catastrophic? Why would we imagine that spiritual service requires perfection? Why would we imagine that anyone must be perfect? Is any human perfect? Decades of body-image toxicity aimed originally at women and girls, and modern social media “compare and despair” toxicity, are just tips of the perfection culture’s iceberg.
A second inconvenient truth. There’s plenty in textual tradition to discomfort or offend our modern sensibilities – war, violence, discrimination and more. Torah not only allowed but also purported to require capital punishment. Unable to bear the idea, Talmud’s rabbis evolved so many far-fetched procedural requirements, each putatively borne of Torah itself, that capital punishment became functionally impossible.
But if so, Talmud asked, why would Torah provide for capital punishment at all? Talmud’s answer? לדרוש וקבל שכר (B.T. Sanhedrin 71a): “Expound and gain reward.”
We learn that even to the rabbis of Talmud, Torah – and spiritual tradition writ large – does not ask blind obeisance but rather authentic engagement, struggle and ultimately partnership. It is right that we wrestle: sometimes, the wrestle with depth and moral challenge is precisely the point. If so, then logically Torah and spirituality place before us some things precisely so that we will wrestle.
In essence, Torah’s “blemishes” hold up a mirror to society’s own blemishes, daring us to either like what we see or change. Much as Talmud’s rabbis who couldn’t bear capital punishment and so took a leap of change, it’s long past time for us to do likewise.
This kind of spiritual wrestling, however, asks much of us. It asks an unwillingness to settle for easy answers, on the one hand, or abject rejectionism, on the other. And it implies a vision of Torah, spirituality and our capacity to reach for ultimate meaning that can evolve as we evolve. It implies that Torah, spirituality and our capacity to reach for ultimate meaning can evolve at all, lifting us even as we rise.
If some of our ancient ancestors were unready for this intrepid journey, today we should be ready. Covid should have taught us how physically vulnerable we all are, how essentially alike we are. Through that lens, we have the capacity to redefine “blemish” away from the physical and elevate into leadership persons once excluded: after all, they have so much to teach.
Maybe we learn that at the level of appearance, there is no perfection to be found. Maybe we learn to re-train our vision entirely. Maybe we learn that in these essential matters of heart, all of us have a “blemish” and therefore none of us alone can fulfill the ancient transcendent role of kohein.
Lacking a perfect priest without blemish, maybe today that role falls to all of us collectively – all of us imperfect, all of us unable except together.
David Evan Markus 