Last week I did not write anything on the parsha (weekly Torah portion) because the parsha was a special one for Pesach (Passover). Perhaps I should have written about Pesach instead, for that is what the parsha was about. I was very busy cleaning my house of chometz (leavening), and myself of ego.
This is one of the traditions I learned while I was in Israel: chometz is created by yeast eating the sugar in the grains and producing CO2, which puffs the bread up. When a person is ego-centric, they are “puffed up.”
Matzah, which is the most basic, essential bread, is just bread and water. No ego. No puffing up. This is what we are trying to get to before Pesach: our most basic essential essence with no puffing up – no ego.
So, I was busy cleaning me house of chometz, and never thought to write about Pesach. I guess that leaves me something to write about next year at this time.
That was all about last week, and now we are in this week, and I am in a quandary: what do I write about? Here is the problem. In Israel, we keep one day of yom tov (literally good day; I prefer to call it holy day), and outside of Israel, we keep two days. The 7th day of Pesach is a yom tov. This year it falls on Friday. So, in Israel, shabbat is a normal shabbat, and the parsha we read is Shmini. Outside of Israel, shabbat is the second day of yom tov, and so we have a special reading, and we read Shmini next week. No matter what I write, it won’t match up to what is being read in a shul (synagogue) somewhere.
The only way that makes sense to me is to follow the tradition of where I am. Given that I am outside of Israel, and outside of Israel we are reading a special parsha this week, and Shmini next week, I will save my ideas on Shmini until next week.
Before I end this, I will make one observation. Shmini means 8th in Hebrew, and in Judaism, 8 is the number that transcends the physical world. So perhaps this paradox I am facing only exists in this world, and in the higher worlds everybody reads the parsha at the same time. That makes for a nice thought, that somewhere we are all united.
May everybody be having a good Pesach, and may everybody be willing to walk into the yam Suf (sea of reeds) and trust that our Creator will do what is best for us.
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.