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Emor
This is the 5-year anniversary of my conversion--not the exact day, but this is my Torah portion. Most of you know me, and you will understand what I mean when I say I found it appropriate that my Torah portion, Emor, translates as 'say', or 'speak'. Because this is a place--speech-- in which I am most flawed, most damaged-- most 'defective'. And defects--blemishes--are something that come up in several places in Emor, including what I am about to read.
"Every man with an imperfection, who is from the seed of Aharon the Kohen, will not approach to bring near the fires of Yah. There is an imperfection in him; the food of his G-d he will not approach to bring near. The food of his G-d from the holiest and from the holy he will eat. But to the Curtain he will not come, and to the Altar he will not approach, for there is an imperfection in him. And he will not desecrate My holy (offerings), for I am HASHEM, who makes them holy."
Of course, verses apply only to kohanim. (And there is a list of specific disqualifying blemishes.)
There is an implication in these verses that the imperfect, the flawed and the holy cannot mix; that to be damaged is to be unable to draw close to G-d. But is this of G-d, or from ourselves? Do our flaws, our defects, our disabilities truly separate us from G-d? Do they disqualify us from serving Hashem or our community? Or are we the ones who withdraw, hold back, say "I can't"? Sometimes in our imperfections, the parts of us we are most challenged by--we can find our greatest holiness, and we can come closer to G-d. (Even if it's an adversarial closeness: "Why did You do this to me, why did You make me this way?!" To wrestle with G-d is holy.)
I would like to call up everyone who has felt their imperfections, their flaws, their challenges--whatever they may be--has kept them from G-d, has kept them from the fullest service to G-d and community; everyone who is looking, has looked, for the strength to turn that wall into a doorway.
----May the One who blessed our fathers, Avraham, Yitzakh,
and Yaakov, and our mothers Sarah, Rivkah, Rakhel, and Leah, bless every
one who has drawn near, in service to G-d and the community, here today.
May we be strengthened to remember that Isaac was nearly blind, that
Yaakov limped, and Leah had weak eyes, and to remember even Moshe Rabeinu
had difficulty speaking. May we, like them, find in, with, our challenges
a path to holiness.