Advancing in Holiness as We Count the Omer
Week Three of Counting the Omer
Parashat Tazria-Metzora, Leviticus 12:1–15:33
Elliot Klayman, Kehilat Ariel, San Diego
Parashat Tazria-Metzora, a double portion, deals with the identification, healing, and cleansing of a contagious skin disease. The priest had the knowledge both of a pharmacist and of a Leviticus scholar who applied the biblical formulas. When the afflicted person was healed, the priest applied two live clean birds, cedar wood, crimson stuff and hyssop to the one to be cleansed: one bird slaughtered over fresh water in an earthen vessel, and the other live bird dipped in the blood of the slaughtered bird over water. Then the priest sprinkles the “patient” seven times. He sets the live bird free. The cleansed one is directed to wash his clothing, shave his hair and bathe in water; then he is clean. He must still remain outside his tent seven days. It is all about purification. On the seventh day he shaves his head, beard, and eyebrows. Then he washes his clothes and bathes in water. He must follow up with an unblemished animal offering at the tabernacle. Now add three tenths of a measure of flour with oil mixed in for a meal offering, and one log of oil. The priest now has 23 more verses to study and apply. This parasha is a whole semester course for the priests, I am sure. They had to be diligent in their studies of the Word and it made a difference when separating the pure from the impure, the clean from the unclean, the tahor from the tamei.
So, how does this translate for us today, as we count the Omer this season leading up to Shavuot? We do not have a temple, nor do we have a working priesthood. We do have our synagogues with their structure, our rabbis and zakenim (elders). Like the priests, the rabbis and elders are called to be knowledgeable in the prescriptions and formulas contained in the Word of God. As believers in Messiah Yeshua we are part of the holy priesthood and are called to be Kadosh (Holy). He is the High Priest who cleanses us from unrighteousness through the blood offering. It’s all about purity and holiness. “Be holy for I am holy” (Lev 11:44, 20:7). That means we should walk in holiness because he is holy. The Bible does not expressly define holiness—how should we interpret it?
Living Compassionately. God has a heart for the sick, the needy, the poor and underprivileged, the disabled, orphans and widows, and leprous ones who are physically afflicted and socially ostracized. It is here that the pure meets the impure, the clean meets the unclean, and through God’s formula, the tamei’s (unclean) status is changed to tahor (pure). We are called to be less worldly and more godly, to constrict our humanity and expand our spiritual godly compassion. This takes yielding to our better angels — to put others first. In holiness you only see the other in God’s image, and empathy moves you to compassion. We make up the congregation of Messiah, who are in need of prayer to be compassionate, for God is compassionate. This is the holy sheaf of barley, the Omer, we present. Holiness is being compassionate!
Living Self-Sacrificially. This means that we ought to live differently from how the worldly live, because for us the Kingdom breaks in, so that we have something holy to experience and take away. Holiness is progressive. The “Sun of Righteousness” breaks into our hearts so that we are closer to having the heart of God during this time (Malachi 4:2). Holiness is a place where we are penetrated by God’s loveliness and an introspective time of developing self-sacrificial plans. It is a day of living here as if we are kingdom citizens while God bids us to grasp his hand and walk along the self-sacrificial path of righteousness as informed by scripture. The Good Samaritan represents the holiness of sacrifice, where, in Yeshua’s parable, though the religious Jew did not help the Jew in distress, the alien Samaritan extended his neighborhood, sacrificing his space, time, and money to do so. Holiness is living self-sacrificially.
Living Pure among the Profane. One classic understanding of holiness is living separate and apart — distancing ourselves from sin and its attractions. If we are prone to anger, then we need to stay out of conversations that make us angry, until we overcome this fault. We cannot offer our “barley” if we are angry. Holiness has everything to do with that which is sacred coming into contact with that which is profane and both, the sacred and the profane, the holy and the unholy, the pure and the impure, emerging in purity and holiness. God comes into contact with the profane anytime he touches this world, through the priesthood, through the Holy Spirit touching the impure. In the parshiot before us, the priest touches the leper — the pure intersects with the impure — and the priest remains holy while the leper is cleansed and transformed from tamei to tahor. From this clean-impure brew, from this this alloyed contact, emerges a holistic holiness. When the spiritual and the material intersect, and confront each other, that is the essence of holiness, not just separation from sin, but interaction with the profane. Holiness is living pure among the profane.
Living an Exemplary Life. God is our Mentor. He planted trees in the Garden; and so we ought to plant trees as a Holy environmental endeavor. He clothed the needy after the fall and we are called to clothe the poor, to visit those in prison, because this is holiness by his example. Yeshua died for the unlovely — that person on death row, that slanderer, that mean employer, the professor who flunked us, the cook who poisoned us, that neighbor who sued us. We are called to go the next mile and share our faith and love to those who are doomed without the protection of the blood applied to the doorposts of their hearts. As God is an example, we ought to be the example to others. We are called to come out of conformity to the world, to be peculiar, noteworthy, and different by walking in the pleasantness of God’s paths of rightness, as prescribed by him in the “priestly” BDR — the Bible Desk Reference. We are to walk as one looking for opportunities to make a difference, and not as one who is self-involved in fulfilling our own selfish desires. Should we walk in the spirit and not in the flesh, we will be what God wants us to be, what he entrusted us to be, what he signaled us to be by his example: in a condition where we are ready to enter into the depths of the ugly rancor to redeem the dying. It is time for our congregational community to do now for others as we would do to ourselves.
Let us literalize holiness and bathe in its reality by living compassionately, sacrificially, in purity and in exemplary fashion. This is Holistic Holiness. May we all walk in the light of Holiness in community so that as a community, we may shine brightly before the Messiah, who has called us in partnership to the Holy High Priesthood.