Bechukotai 5784
Almost exactly a year ago, when I was teaching 2nd and 3rd grade Judaics at Luria Academy here in Brooklyn, I went from teaching a lesson about Mt. Sinai to Mt. Sinai (hospital). I was going for my first biopsy, a strange shehechiyanu moment, and I felt perhaps similarly to the Israelites on their way to Mt. Sinai. Trembling, afraid, uncertain what was about to happen and what it would mean for the future.
This week, way after both my and the Israelites experience at Mt. Sinai, I was at an event here at PSJC, a processing space for parents and children about what’s happening on college campuses right now, when a college student looked at the new scar on my neck and gasped. “Oh, it’s just from this surgery I had, it’s ok,” I said, trying to comfort her from what I assumed was fear or squeamishness or both. “No!” she said, pointing at her own neck, her own now faded scar. “I just never see anyone else with it!”
In this week’s parsha, G!d says to the Israelites:
ִאם־בֻחּקַֹ֖תי תֵ֑לכּו ואת־מצֹוַ֣תי תשמרּו ַוֲֽעשיתם אָֹתֽם׃
If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments
ְוָנֽתתי גִשמיכם בעָּ֑תם וָנֽתָ֤נה הָ֨אֶרץ יְבּוָ֔לּה וֵ֥עץ השֶ֖דה יִֵּתן פריֹֽו׃
I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit.
A question that has bothered the rabbis about this verse and others like it is: How does a law (chok) differ from a commandment (mitzvah)? Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad, explains that the word for law, chok, can also mean engraving. He writes, “There is an aspect of Torah that is ‘inked’ on our soul: we understand it, our emotions are roused by it; it becomes our lifestyle or even our personality; but it remains something additional to ourselves. But there is a dimension of Torah that is chok, engraved in our being.”
It’s widely said when one receives a new scar, at Mt. Sinai or elsewhere, that they tell our story, they show our bravery. Perhaps our scars are the pieces of Torah that are engraved in our bodies, the stories and experiences that have changed us often through hardship.
It is safe to say that this ongoing war, this 238 days of confusion, anger, and pain, has given us significant scars. And while I feel that any Torah that may be hidden in this time is way beyond our reach, maybe not accessible in our lifetimes, there is deep healing in noticing one another’s scars. Saying, like this student said to me the other night, I have that too! I was/am hurting too.
In our times of pain, many of us tend to isolate, hide our scars or wounds. Or, in some cases, feel overwhelmed by shame for having been hurt at all. How would the world and our community be different if, instead, we acted as mirrors for one another. Not trying to fix each other’s pain or take away the scars, but offering a reminder that we are not alone.
I’ll end with a joke that I heard at a comedy show the other night from a Scottish comedian named Fern Brady. She spoke about the pressures of being famous and how that pushed her to get botox. After receiving an injection, she went to meet with an older, wiser, and more famous comedian, someone she respected greatly. This woman told her a heartbreaking, beautiful story. Fern, internally moved, was externally unable to move her face, and blurted out, “I am so sorry, but I am really moved by your story, I just can’t move my face because I just had botox.” “Oh dear,” the older, wiser woman said, “don’t you know that your face tells a story, and the lines are the words.”
May we be blessed to learn from the Torah that all of our scars and lines–internal and external–contain. And as we walk this unknown path of continued war together, may we have the gift to see and be seen by each other in our most vulnerable places.
