Emor
How do we change states?
Reflection by Ariel Hendelman, the Or HaLev Team:
"The Torah portion of Emor, meaning `speak,` covers a lot of ground, mostly pertaining to the service of the Kohanim (priests) in the temple. At the heart of this parsha is a dialectical framework for the spiritual path that is worth examining more mindfully.
On the one hand, we have the concept of blemish – מ֣וּם / moom. On the other hand, we have the concept of cleanliness – טָהוֹר / tahor. Both of these, in their deepest essence, represent spiritual states, and indicate whether someone is able to participate in the ritual rites of the Temple or not.
The Alter Rebbe (the first Rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Scneur Zalman of Liadi) taught that `a Jew must live with the times.` This means that whatever the weekly Torah portion is, we are being invited to engage with it directly – in our own time and in our own lives. So we might ask ourselves, how do these spiritual states present themselves in my life today and how might I work with them more skilfully?
Often, a tahor state will be followed by a moom state and so on. This is what the mystical tradition calls running and returning, or ebbing and flowing in more pedestrian parlance. Just as the heart constricts and expands, so too, our spiritual state oscillates between open and closed, clogged and unobstructed. This is actually the rhythm of life and nothing can be birthed without it.
Meditation practice is a very helpful tool for transitioning out of a moom state and into one of tahor. An extended retreat even more so. But what about when we are simply trying to get through a busy day, not bending at the Temple altar with our choicest cattle, but just trying to make the wisest choices from moment to moment? We might choose to take a sacred pause, place a hand on the heart, and take three deep breaths. We might remind ourselves that every moment has tahor potential because that is the truth of who we are from the soul’s perspective. We might remind ourselves of all of the tools available to us, and that it is okay to be in a moom state. For every moom holds within it tahor, just waiting to be revealed."