Talmud Yoma

Rabbi Philip Weintraub

2/8/14

Parshat Tetzaveh

When is it ok to kill someone?  

Would we be better off without the yetzer hara, the “bad” impulse?

At what age do we start teaching children to fast for Yom Kippur?

When should a sick person or pregnant woman eat on Yom Kippur?

Does your office or a synagogue need a mezuzah?

Did Abraham follow the entire Torah?

What actually happened in the Holy Of Holies, the Kodesh HaKodashim, on Yom Kippur?

What’s the deal with the scapegoat on Yom Kippur?  Who is Azazel?

How did Manna look, taste, feel?

How did the High Priest use the Urim and Tummim to ask Gd questions and prophecize?

And why does it take until the 8th and final chapter for Yoma to get to the issues of fasting, bathing, avoiding comfortable shoes, and tshuvah?!

These are just a few of the questions that are discussed and sometimes answered in Tractate Yoma, the volume of Talmud theoretically discussing Yom Kippur.  While ostensibly a Holy Book, a volume discussing the details of the actions of the High Priest on Yom Kippur--the Avodah service we read that day, it includes many big ethical questions, amidst long discussions on sacrifice and offerings.

In my mind, Yoma is a perfect example of Judaism in the modern world.  As modern Jews, we live today, in the United States.  We do not offer sacrifices in the Temple, but instead come to synagogue.  We pray and watch what we eat, yet we do not tie a crimson thread to a goat and shove it off a cliff on Yom Kippur, waiting for the thread to turn white as snow and announce that the People Israel have been forgiven this year.  Yet we might blow shofar over the Hudson River or toss our crumbs in, symbolically throwing our sins away.

Some Jews might write off our traditions and our texts as antiquated, but amidst the discussions of sacrifices or where to go the bathroom or how large a mikvah needs to be, we find questions that resonate today.  We discover issues and problems that we share with our ancestors.  

In Parshat Tetzaveh, what we read this morning, Aaron, the High Priest’s uniform is discussed.  Amongst the details large and small are the issues of the breastplate, with the 12 jewels for the 12 tribes.  Within it, Exodus 28: 30  writes: “Inside the breastpiece of decision you shall place the Urim and Thummim, so that they are over Aaron's heart when he comes before the Lord.”

I might imagine that the primary issue the Talmud would have with our parsha is the specific details of the garments.  What did they look like? How were they constructed?  If the Temple would be rebuilt tomorrow, would the Cohanim be properly prepared? Exactly how did the prophecy work?? Yet the bigger issues the rabbis worry about is human--jealousy and honor!  Will the Cohen Gadol, the high priest, be upset if someone else wears his clothing?  What should the priest who leads the army wear?  What about a temporary Cohen Gadol?  

An important principle to the rabbis (and to us) is that we should always strive to raise our holiness, that we ma’alin bakodesh v’ein moridin, we increase holiness but do not diminish it.  Once a backup Cohen Gadol has worn the garments of the COhen Gadol and served in that role, he can no longer be a regular priest, yet once the Cohen Gadol is healthy enough to resume his duties, he does so, because he cannot decrease either!  The backup Cohen Gadol remains in limbo until the main Cohen Gadol dies!  

To any West Wing acolytes out there, it makes me think of when President Bartlett stepped down when his daughter was kidnapped.  The Speaker of the House took over, but had to resign his position.  From wikipedia: “The Speaker is required by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 to resign as he can act as President only "upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress". Walken himself states that no one can serve in two branches of the government at once”.

Returning to our Gemara, there is another section that really touched me.  After seven chapters of focusing on the role of the High Priest, with the various asides I began with, the last chapter focuses on the meat and potatoes of our modern observances--fasting, affliction, etc.  “The biblical basis for all the Yom Kippur prohibitions is Leviticus 16:29, which instructs, “You shall afflict your souls, and shall do no manner of work.”” Yet the rabbis are very uncomfortable with asceticism.  They do not say we must make ourselves uncomfortable.  We do not have to turn off the A/C or the heat on Yom Kippur (as needed).  We do not need to sit on nails or fast for weeks.  We are simply commanded to refrain from a handful of routine actions, to recognize that the day is different, to focus on reforming our souls and ignoring our bodies for 25 hours.

Yet, the rabbis are very concerned over those who are not pillars of health.  If pregnant women are hungry, they are required to eat.  They are to be reminded that it is Yom Kippur and if that does not stop their hunger, they MUST eat.  If a person is ill, we check with a doctor.  If the doctor says the patient must eat and the patient does not want to eat, he is forced to eat.  If the doctor says the patient can fast, but the patient feels he or she needs to eat, we listen to him or her and allow a broken fast.  Health comes first.  Even the chance of saving of a life allows the violation of the commandments of Shabbat (or Yom Kippur).  

In this building, we have discussed the importance of ethical and living wills, of medical directives.  In the last chapter of Yoma, these issues come to the forefront.  How far do we go to save a life?  What about if there is virtually no chance that the person will live?  Answers are given, but they are debated to this very day.

Earlier I mentioned that this tractate was a paradigm, a model for all of Jewish life.  Even as it includes sections that seem irrelevant to modern life, we discover that through study, the ideas and emotions, the questions and the answers ring true today.  I know many of you look at Torah, read commentaries and think about big questions.  As a rabbi, as a thinking Jew, we must make this part of our lives.  Whether it is 5 minutes a day or the hours we spend together on a Saturday morning, our lives are richer, more nuanced, more challenged, more meaningful when we make study a part of them.  

Shabbat Shalom

Sources:
http://www.jtsa.edu/PreBuilt/ParashahArchives/jpstext/tetzaveh.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Allen_Walken

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/160836/daf-yomi-68