The line between pure and impure isn’t always so clear. The delineation between right and wrong isn’t always so stark. Parshat Chukkat draws this line in a clear way: if you’ve touched death, you are impure. There must be a cleansing process to jump back over the line from impure to pure. But here, Biblical scholars articulate that because life represents Godliness, death is a metaphor for sin, for Godlessness. As a teacher of mine put it, sin takes the place in the world that God could occupy. If we allow sin to take place, we reduce the Godliness in the world. Our contact with sin distances us from God. We have polluted our spiritual world. Our world, sadly, seems far, far away from God. We have distanced our world from God.
Last Shabbat, I spoke about the separation of children from their parents at our borders. This week, I saw action. This week I witnessed millions of dollars donated to organizations to legally represent young children and rallies were organized. And this week, I saw friends in New York show up at La Guardia airport at 11:30PM to witness children, alone, arriving on planes, in an effort to help document where these kids were taken. As a country, we have let sin take God’s place, but each of these actions, however, bring a little bit of Godliness back in. We must continue to work to bring God’s presence into our country and to the lives of all who walk on our soil.
The work on the national level is not the only reform needed. Our affiliation with the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH) gives us the opportunity to engage at the local level. It allows us to find ways to bring more of God’s presence into our city. This coming Sunday, June 24th, all of the MICAH congregations and organizations will come together from 3:00 to 6:00pm, at Lindenwood Christian Church, 2400 Union Avenue, to vote on the community issues that MICAH will tackle. Beth Sholom will have up to 40 votes, and we urge everyone to come to the convention. (If you have questions or need a ride on June 24, please contact Lisa Harris, 340-0138.) This is an important way to make a difference and to make change in Memphis, and this is an important way to say that Beth Sholom is invested and committed to working towards a better Memphis.
May we each do our part, working towards a world where God occupies a bit more space.
