We walk on streets and don't see the homeless folks. We work in our office and don't see the coworker who is abused. We don't see that the man who has been sitting next to you in synagogue for a year is gay and closeted and desperately wants to be out and welcomed.
The early impressionists recognized that we don't see details - we make them up to fill in the broad stroke pictures we grasp as we hurry by. We make up the rest according to what we want to see. Malcom Gladwell came to the same conclusion in his book "Blink." Within two seconds of meeting someone or seeing a house, we jump to a series of conclusions about whether or not we will like that person or want to buy the house.
Our imaginative faculty is a powerful tool. One can look at the lines and curves of one of Picasso's or Braque's cubist paintings and discern a figure. Our imagination can also create a picture of the person who is standing in front of us which is nothing like her.
This week's Torah portion is all about seeing. Not seeing only what you want to see but really seeing what is there. The Torah teaches us about seeing in an unusual way. The portion is all about skin disease.
Last week we learned about how one is pronounced as having an impure skin disease:
13:1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 2 "When anyone has a swelling or a rash or a shiny spot on their skin that may be a defiling skin disease, they must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who is a priest. 3 The priest is to examine the sore on the skin, and if the hair in the sore has turned white and the sore appears to be more than skin deep, it is a defiling skin disease. When the priest examines that person, he shall pronounce them ceremonially unclean. 4 If the shiny spot on the skin is white but does not appear to be more than skin deep and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest is to isolate the affected person for seven days..."
This week we learn about how the person is cleansed of the disease.
14:1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "These are the regulations for any diseased person at the time of their ceremonial cleansing, when they are brought to the priest: 3 The priest is to go outside the camp and examine them. If they have been healed of their defiling skin disease, [a] 4 the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the person to be cleansed. 5 Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. 6 He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. 7 Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the defiling disease, and then pronounce them clean. After that, he is to release the live bird in the open fields..."
What are we to make of these texts? One of the interpretive keys to the Torah, deployed by the Hassidic movement in the eighteenth century, is to ask: how is this relevant in every place and every time? In other words, now that the Temple is destroyed and there is no way to purify oneself, nor are the priests to do the rite, why do we care? Why do we still read this and torture rabbis by forcing them to preach on this?
One answer is found in the work of the early nineteenth century Hassidic Master, Mordecai Yosef Lainer of Izbica. Rabbi Lainer said that the priest, the Kohen, mentioned in the Torah is not only a Temple professional, but is the aspect of discernment that is present in each of us in potential. It is through service and devotion that we can actualize this potent ability of discernment which is called the Kohen. The Torah is teaching us then about discernment - about the ability to tell the difference between a physical and a spiritual ailment, about the importance of paying enough attention to be able to actually see what we are seeing.
In light of this insight we can also understand the Talmud's remark that this skin ailment is brought about as a result of slandering or speaking ill of another person. This is a second level of discernment. First we must attend to that which is in front of us and really understand the images that we process. Then we must filter the knowledge that we have accumulated and not repeat them verbatim merely for the sake of gossip.
Finally, this spiritual practice of actualizing the Kohen function in ourselves can lead to radically transform the way that we live in the world. The French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) taught us that most people are half asleep and half awake. That is, most of us proceed through life without actually paying attention to the ramifications of our actions. He was referring to the way we lived in our major metropolitan areas - Paris, New York, Los Angeles. The way I decide to act can have even unintended consequences for other people who live in my city. In order to be fully awake I must attempt to be conscious to the fact that my actions - what I buy, how I drive, how I vote - affect others (whom I do not know) in profound ways. Being awake is the first step to creating a just city.
When I walk down the street and I encounter the homeless man outside the grocery store, if my Kohen reaches out to greet him - to see that homeless is a physical situation and not an essential ailment, that he too is a human being and part of my community - I am taking the first small step toward a more just and righteous world.