Shemini Atzeret, in some regards the conclusion of Sukkot, is in other important respects a holy day all its own. Certainly in the number of sacrifices offered, Shemini Atzeret is distinct. The Midrash suggests that Sukkot is a festival during which sacrifice is offered for all the peoples of the world. At the end of that week of universal concern, God bids the Children of Israel to stay for an extra day to commune with God, like a beloved friend is asked to stay at the party after the other dear guests depart. As we contemplate abiding in God’s presence, some painful questions intrude: are we really good enough to do this? Are we pure enough? Are we holy enough? Has the Torah (and the season of teshuvah) sufficiently gone through us to transform us into someone sufficiently righteous to stand with the Jewish community in purity and holiness? Won't our shortcomings become immediately apparent, and immediately visible?
I've been with that doubt, and one of the things that any observant Jew will attest to is that whatever you're thinking about, you will find staring back at you from the Torah...sometimes in a helpful way. So it was no surprise to me last spring, as we were wallowing in yet another reading about priestly ritual and priestly sacrifice – inspiring to you as it is also to me – that I came across a relevant and troubling passage: “Ish mizeracha l'dorotam asher yiheyeh bo mum, lo yikra lehakriv lechem l'elohav; ki chol ish asher bo mum lo yikrav – No one of your offspring throughout the ages who has a defect – a mum – shall be qualified to offer food to God; no one who has a mum – a defect – shall be qualified."
Now, I have been schooled in the historical method, and my first defense against troubling verses in the Torah is to quarantine them securely behind a historical context, so I began my contemplation using that approach. The Kohen in the Temple is to be a symbol of perfection, and therefore, because the ritual is physical, his perfection must also be physical. And that perfection is understood by the biblical mind as shleimut—as wholeness. Therefore, the Kohen can't be missing any part, because he has to symbolize that wholeness in the presence of God. Indeed, as the Torah goes on to state, “ach el ha-parochet lo yavo'u, v'el ha-mizbeach lo yigash, ki mum bo – One who has a defect shall not enter behind the curtain, nor come near the altar.”
But history doesn't remove the problem here. Are we then saying that you can't draw near to God; you cannot serve on behalf of the community, if you have a mum, a defect? Is there anyone among us who is perfect? Is there anyone here – or anywhere – who doesn't, in fact, manifest not one mum, but many? Is it possible that only those who are perfect are capable of serving God and of serving each other? Certainly, on a literal level, this has not been true in Jewish life. Our father Jacob limped his way into greatness. Moses spoke what are surely history's greatest speeches with a speech impediment. The Talmud is filled with great figures – Nahum ish Gamzo, Rav Sheshet, and others – who, with their physical blemishes, perhaps because of them, went on to attain spiritual greatness. And then, theologically, certain it is that God is the only one who is perfect. Can it be, then, that only God can serve?
The Torah raises this question in the book of Devarim. “Shichet lo? Lo! banav mumam – Is corruption then God's? No, God's children are the ones who are blemished." To which the rabbinic genius turns the verse around: "Af al pi shehem m'laim mumim, kruim banim – even though they are full of blemishes, they are still God's children."
We are, my friends, God's children, blemishes, defects, imperfections, and all, and we cannot afford to allow our shortcomings to prevent us from offering bold leadership, from taking the responsibility that is ours to do what good we can, to glorify Torah as we might. So I'd like to try to offer you a different percolation of that initial verse in Parashat Emor. I'd like you to consider the fact that the one thing a person cannot ever truly have is a defect. A defect is a lack of something. How can you possibly possess that which you lack? What you have when you have a mum is not a lack--you have the perception of lacking something. A mum is only possible if you construe yourself as somehow deficient.
A mum, then, is that lack which makes you feel incomplete. It is the part of some imaginary whole that cannot exist but in your mind. I would like to propose to you, then, that wholeness does not mean physical perfection. Indeed, shleimut is not perfection of any kind. Shleimutmeans serving God with all your being, with the entirety of who you are, with leaving no part of yourself outside of the divine service--"bechol levav'cha, uvechol nafshecha, uvechol meod'cha." God doesn't demand of us that we apportion ourselves into little pieces, some parts of which are kosher, some parts of which are acceptable, some parts of which may be public, and the rest must be hidden away. It is that hiding which is the mum, and a person with such a mum cannot serve the Holy One, and cannot stand before an imperfect community pretending to be perfect.
One can serve the Eternal only with the wholeness that comes from imperfection; with one's entire being, both positive traits and negative. As Rashi says, "bishnei yitzarecha." You can serve the Lord only if your entire history, your entire life, is brought with you into the divine service. Only if your mind and your heart and your soul are engaged passionately in the works that you do and, as we remind ourselves each Kol Nidrei, so that we can forget for yet another year, only if you bring with you your entire community--not just the saints but the sinners too.
Perhaps then, the wholeness to which the Torah alludes is the willingness to stand in your entirety – warts and all, defects and all – and to offer them to God as a sacred service. Perhaps what the Torah is reminding us, then, is an insistence on a community that includes all of its members – that makes none of them invisible, that asks none of them to step outside. Perhaps only that community is a community fit to offer sacrifice that God will accept.
We are charged, then, with a simple but awesome task:
Bring your entire being to the service of God and your fellow creatures. Leave no part of yourself outside. Leave no piece of yourself invisible. Be passionate in the service you offer as rabbis. The Talmud reminds us, "Ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu liva bei--God wants the heart." Teach the Jews whom you will serve that they, too, are precious, and that each one of them, because of their imperfections, are truly God's children. Teach them not to postpone encountering Torah, living mitzvot, and rejoicing in God's love until the day that they are perfect – such a day will never come. And besides, the Torah was not given to angels. We are all of us blemished; human wholeness does not come from some elusive perfection, but rather from the radical act of taking hold of our imperfections and offering even them. "Bechol derakhekha da'ehu--in all your ways, know God."
It is recorded in Massekhet Sukkah that Hillel has the audacity to speak on God's behalf. I am going to take my cue from him and muster the audacity to mistranslate Hillel. God (if not Hillel) would want it that way. "'Im ani kan, hakol kan. If I am here,' says God, 'all is here.'" Who knows, but that for God to be truly present, our all must also be truly present.
In all things, we can celebrate that presence, and inspire the people whose lives we touch to feel that presence and to share their own.