This week’s Torah portion outlines an extended purification ritual, involving sacrifices, herbs, bathing, and shaving, ending with the afflicted person providing a guilt offering (a special kind of sacrifice). For many modern readers, these rituals may feel inaccessible. They speak in intense detail about afflictions we are not familiar (or which make us squeamish), about sacrifices we not longer practice, about categories (such as purity) that many of us no longer think in. And yet, I think the message of these texts is profoundly resonant.
Rejoining the World
Rejoining the World
Rejoining the World
This week’s Torah portion outlines an extended purification ritual, involving sacrifices, herbs, bathing, and shaving, ending with the afflicted person providing a guilt offering (a special kind of sacrifice). For many modern readers, these rituals may feel inaccessible. They speak in intense detail about afflictions we are not familiar (or which make us squeamish), about sacrifices we not longer practice, about categories (such as purity) that many of us no longer think in. And yet, I think the message of these texts is profoundly resonant.