Messengers of Holiness: Emor 5785

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a graduate of Central’s Teshuvah Fellowship, a summer internship program for people who have come home from prison. Halfway through the program, this fellow learned that she was pregnant. Those early days were marked by worry, anxiety about employment, housing, and a chronic medical condition, the uncertainty of what the coming weeks and months could bring.

The image I carry with me from that time is of quiet conversations between this young woman and our Central volunteers, who met her fears with a caring and gentle presence and the promise of their support no matter what she chose to do.

Ten months later, how did that promise unfold? It was nurtured by the care of the Coming Home Community, enriched by the generosity of our Nursery School Parents, and kept by the leaders of Teshuvah Fellowship. And here is how it blossomed, in the words of that young woman:

Once upon a felony, I fell pregnant…It didn’t feel whimsical or even like the fairy tale I had at all planned to write. Without your support this story may have never been told.

Presently, though, with our babe nestled safely in our arms and our days filled with lullabies and late-night cuddles, we look back on a year of support as I faced very serious and life threatening health conditions- with hearts overflowing.

THANK YOU.

For the soft blankets that now wrap our little one in warmth, the tiny clothes that turn every change into a royal fashion show, the books, toys, and trinkets that await curious little fingers. Thank you for your kind words, your wishes, your presence.

But most of all, thank you for surrounding our surprise, but fated-to-be family with love.

This journey—this marvelous adventure into parenthood—feels less daunting because of you. With every bottle washed, every burp cloth used, every onesie snapped, we are reminded: We are not alone. And that people who gather and try for a world reimagined are a powerful force. If we didn’t want prison reform - this baby would not exist. If we didn’t believe in people coming “home” - I wouldn’t have had one to welcome my baby to.

In this new chapter of sleepless nights and starlit wonder, your kindness has become our fairy godmother’s touch—a little poof of magic when we needed it most.

In this week’s Torah portion, parshat Emor, we read:

You shall faithfully observe My commandments: I am יהוה

You shall not profane My holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the Israelite people—I יהוה who sanctify you,

I who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God, יהוה

Parsing this passage, our sages ask: what does it look like for us, transient beings made of but dust and ashes, to sanctify or profane the holiness of our eternal source of life, the creator of our universe? How could we possibly have an impact on God’s holy presence in the world? And yet our Sages insist that we can. They teach that each one of us can perform the mitzvah of kiddush HaShem, sanctifying God’s holy name in this world, bearing witness to the holiness of God’s teachings.

The rabbis of the Talmud make a bold, even revolutionary argument. They insist that we sanctify God’s name not through the words of praise we speak, or even through our punctilious ritual observance. What matters is the way in which we comport ourselves. Our moral habits, the virtues to which we hold ourselves testify to the ethical lessons imparted by our sacred texts—and it is our deeds that honor or dishonor God and God’s Torah.

Here is how the Talmud makes this daring argument:

Our sages ask, what do people say of a Torah scholar who is kind, honest, and honorable? They answer “this person studied Torah! How pleasant is her manner, how upright her deeds.”

Conversely, our sages imagine a Torah scholar who acts unscrupulously and with disregard for the suffering of his fellow. What will people say about him? “look at him who studied Torah, how objectionable are his deeds, and how corrupt are his ways.”

So it is our actions that can bring honor to the Torah or cast it into disrepute. Our deeds, our treatment of those both within and beyond the Jewish community, are the measure and messenger of God’s holiness in this world; a reflection of Judaism’s ethical core;

our inheritance and our legacy. Through us, God’s holiness is made manifest; through our acts, God’s holiness is magnified.

When we reflect the sanctity of God’s presence in the world, an expectant mother’s anxieties are met with compassion and care…New life takes root and a family is born…and we are reminded that we are not alone in this world. Our deeds bring Torah verses to life, bring God’s holy presence into the world; make that holiness real, tangible, powerfully transformative. Like light refracted through the colors of stained glass, our holy deeds imbue the world with beauty.

Tonight we honor and celebrate our Central volunteers whose actions sanctify God’s name, and who proudly show everyone we meet what it means to be Jewish in this time of increasing chaos and despair.

You who show up week after week for families seeking safety and refuge in our city, who welcome children and adults from around the world into our classrooms, and fill our offices with gifts for those who braved violence and terror to reach our borders for a chance at life for themselves and their families—you testify to the love for the stranger and the migrant that is imprinted on the pages of Torah, imprinted in the heart and history of our people.

Tonight we honor you who rise before the sun to share a hot meal and a word of encouragement with our neighbors who are hungry; you who ferry and serve meals uptown to the community fridge and downtown to PS 188; you who make hundreds of sandwiches each week. You are malakhim, messengers of holiness, ambassadors of our Torah’s special concern for the most vulnerable in our communities.

And we honor you who visit our brothers and sisters on Rikers, who sit at our beloved Coming Home community table, who nurture the vision of the ReEntry Theater, and walk with our fellows through the summer. You are the torchbearers of hope for a different world animated and transformed by the restorative practice of Teshuvah, of atonement and return.

We honor you who travel to Albany to advocate for a more sustainable future, who clean up our waterways and streets: our young people fighting for their futures on this planet. You make visible the web of connection and obligation that binds us together in our shared ecosystem.

And we celebrate you who welcome us, members and guests alike, into this sanctuary; you who care for one another in spaces across the city; you who maintain our archives;

you who facilitate dialogue across difference; you who dedicate your time, talents, and resources to the stewardship of our Central community: all of you echo God’s words in Genesis: “it is not good for human beings to be alone.”

In a 1984 essay on what it means to be a refugee, Ellie Wiesel asks what sanctuary looks like.

He answers:

The sanctuary often is something very small. Not a grandiose gesture, but a small gesture toward alleviating human suffering and preventing humiliation. The sanctuary is a human being. Sanctuary is a dream. And that is why you are here, and that is why I am here. We are here because of one another.

Let the sanctuaries we build, the loving relationships we nourish, and the new life we bring into this world sanctify God’s name and illuminate a path forward to a world transformed.