Dear Friends,
Kindly indulge me a personal message with this D’Var Torah. Some matters occur so rarely in a rabbi’s life, that the occurrence usurps and absorbs all Torah messages for the day – or longer – at least for me.
This week’s Torah portion is the commonly despised section of Leviticus dealing with bodily defilement, generally skin diseases and genital emissions. However, it begins with this portentous verse, “When a woman at childbirth bears a male…” (Leviticus 12:2)
Although the Torah continues to describe a condition of impurity comparable to that of menstruation, which in antiquity was followed by a waiting period and then a sacrificial offering to render the woman pure once again, I can dismiss that as archaic fear of the raw vulnerability and physicality of childbirth.
Rather, the moment more truly includes the majesty and miracle of welcoming a new human being into the living world, one who previously had lived only in imagination, hopes, dreams, and the very real discomforts of pregnancy and kicks and stretches of a growing fetus. That is, until birth. Then, the child has emerged into the world, and into a waiting and eager family.
Such was the blessing of this week, in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, when my daughter, Elena, gave birth to her son (English name as yet unannounced as of this writing!). Elena and Andrew, I have no doubt, will be tender and doting parents to this, their first child, and my second grandchild. They bless my father, who at 91 now has two great grandchildren, and who will melt as he holds this child who will bear his own father’s Hebrew name when he is welcomed into the covenant next week in California.
Family from both coasts will collect, in-person and virtually, to witness the truest implication of our Torah verse, “When a woman at childbirth bears a male…” Though Torah ritualized the occasion with a period of blood impurity followed by a sacrifice, we don’t fully discount its message. Rather, we supplant the impurity and sacrifice with gathering and sharing of photographs, with cooking meals and bringing hand-crafted baby outfits, with contributions in the child’s (as yet undisclosed) name to aid the needy, and with establishing college funds. No – the Torah was not incorrect with its ritualizing the amazing moment of birth; it only did it in its own way. And, so do we.
So, welcome newest member of the family, our youngest descendent of Aaron and Moses, and welcome during the week which the Torah set aside to teach, “When a woman at childbirth bears a male…”
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
Kindly indulge me a personal message with this D’Var Torah. Some matters occur so rarely in a rabbi’s life, that the occurrence usurps and absorbs all Torah messages for the day – or longer – at least for me.
This week’s Torah portion is the commonly despised section of Leviticus dealing with bodily defilement, generally skin diseases and genital emissions. However, it begins with this portentous verse, “When a woman at childbirth bears a male…” (Leviticus 12:2)
Although the Torah continues to describe a condition of impurity comparable to that of menstruation, which in antiquity was followed by a waiting period and then a sacrificial offering to render the woman pure once again, I can dismiss that as archaic fear of the raw vulnerability and physicality of childbirth.
Rather, the moment more truly includes the majesty and miracle of welcoming a new human being into the living world, one who previously had lived only in imagination, hopes, dreams, and the very real discomforts of pregnancy and kicks and stretches of a growing fetus. That is, until birth. Then, the child has emerged into the world, and into a waiting and eager family.
Such was the blessing of this week, in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, when my daughter, Elena, gave birth to her son (English name as yet unannounced as of this writing!). Elena and Andrew, I have no doubt, will be tender and doting parents to this, their first child, and my second grandchild. They bless my father, who at 91 now has two great grandchildren, and who will melt as he holds this child who will bear his own father’s Hebrew name when he is welcomed into the covenant next week in California.
Family from both coasts will collect, in-person and virtually, to witness the truest implication of our Torah verse, “When a woman at childbirth bears a male…” Though Torah ritualized the occasion with a period of blood impurity followed by a sacrifice, we don’t fully discount its message. Rather, we supplant the impurity and sacrifice with gathering and sharing of photographs, with cooking meals and bringing hand-crafted baby outfits, with contributions in the child’s (as yet undisclosed) name to aid the needy, and with establishing college funds. No – the Torah was not incorrect with its ritualizing the amazing moment of birth; it only did it in its own way. And, so do we.
So, welcome newest member of the family, our youngest descendent of Aaron and Moses, and welcome during the week which the Torah set aside to teach, “When a woman at childbirth bears a male…”
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
