Facebook Post by Rabbi Perlin in the Time of Coronavirus (4/24/2020)
Friday Post 4.24.20: Dear Leviticus, “I’m Sorry.”
by Rabbi Amy R. Perlin, D.D.
Dear Leviticus,
I am writing to apologize for four decades of disparaging your sacrifices, skin diseases, household plagues, and quarantine messages as irrelevant for modern society and my B’nai Mitzvah students. I was always thankful that, as a Reform rabbi, I could assign the Ten Commandments instead of this week’s double portion of Tazria-Metzora (Leviticus 12-15) to generations of Bar and Bat Mitzvah students, because this week’s portion in the yearly cycle, filled with defilement after childbirth and mold on walls, was not something I felt would be meaningful for any thirteen-year-old. In fact, I can only recall three students who actively chose the portion in all of those years: the son of a physician, a Sci-Fi enthusiast, and a third, who thought he wanted to be a dermatologist when he grew up.
Every piece of Torah is meaningful and teachable according to rabbinic tradition, and those old rabbis were definitely right. Like a fine wine, your time has come, Leviticus. People are writing about you this weekend. Scholars are extoling your wisdom with words of praise. Rabbis are grasping on your every word of isolation and communal protection to teach how wise you are.
As for me, I just needed to apologize. I have said some awful things about you over the years. I have found you problematic and have struggled to find meaning in your message for half a century. And now your time has come.
Enjoy the limelight this weekend. And please accept my sincere apology.
Yours in plague and isolation,
Rabbi Amy R. Perlin