At its core, that’s what this parshah is all about. Trusting G-d. Remembering that He’s the One who all that we have comes from. The shemitah year is a reminder. It isn’t caring for your crops that makes them grow; it isn’t having a field that makes you have food. If you trust in G-d enough to know that He’s the One that all your sustenance comes from, you trust that when you obey His commandment to let the land rest, the food you’ve saved from the sixth year will amount to more than enough for the shemitah year.

If something happens to grow on your land during a shemitah year, anyone, human or animal, can take it without asking. The land isn’t yours, it’s G-d’s; you have no right to deny its fruits from others as it isn’t any more yours than it is theirs.

After seven shemitah cycles, the fiftieth year is the yovel year. In addition to letting the land rest, just like in the shemitah year, the yovel year also requires land to be returned to its original owners. It’s not enough to acknowledge that the food that grows on your land comes from G-d; we need to remember that the very land itself belongs to G-d. So if I sold my land to you, I need to buy it back during the yovel year; G-d had designated that piece of land for me. 

This parsha also has laws against fraud and charging interest. Business dealings have to be conducted carefully and consciously. Rabbi Bunim of Peshischa brought up that not only are we forbidden to defraud others, but we must also be careful not to defraud ourselves. You have to be real with yourself. Work on developing self-awareness. Don’t delude yourself into thinking untrue things about yourself. But also: don’t delude yourself into thinking untrue things about the nature of the world. The shemitah year tells us everything we need to know—G-d is where all sustenance comes from, G-d is responsible for giving us anything we own.

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The Torah then tells of a man who blasphemed G-d’s name. For his sin, he was executed via stoning. Different sins have different consequences, with committing murder leading to execution and more minor physical injuries or property damage being pardoned through financial compensation to the victim. Since the man in question was sentenced to death, we can infer that his sin was on par with murder, or at least closer to murder than property damage.

A friend of mine resents G-d, blaming Him for every problem in their life. My friend isn’t that far off; nothing enters your life without G-d willing it to. My friend is just forgetting to draw the final conclusion: if it comes from G-d, it must be good. Instead, they leave it at the fact that bad things in their life come from G-d.

The mekallel, the blasphemer, seemed to have a similar perspective. His Jewish mother gave him a spot in the Jewish nation, but since his father was Egyptian, the mekallel belonged to no tribe and had no physical portion of the Land of Israel, things which are passed down patrilineally. He was a Jew, but he didn’t quite belong with the rest of the Jews. This state of limbo he was in, this not-quite-yes but not-quite-no status, was undoubtedly frustrating, but his reaction was unforgivable regardless. His frustration led him to take it out on G-d—who, yes, allowed the mekallel’s original situation to unfold the way it did, but who only does what is truly good. The blasphemer could not recognize that. He was in (what he felt was) unfair circumstances, and instead of drawing the final conclusion, accepting that G-d knows better than any human mind and G-d’s ways are not for mankind to know, he left his train of thought just before that conclusions—this bad thing in my life, he decided, comes directly from G-d. How could that not lead to resentment? Still it’s unforgivable, and his sin intolerable.

See, no one chooses their circumstances. Fair or unfair or somewhere in between, every external factor in our lives is managed by G-d, and all we have is the free will to do the best we can with what we are given. The kohanim, for example, as mentioned earlier in the parsha, had a different role than the rest of the Jews. They would bring korbanot in the Beit Hamikdash and help other Jews, but this elevated role came at a price—they had stricter laws surrounding marriage, and they couldn’t be in the proximity of any corpses. An animal with a deformity cannot be brought as a korban.

The kohen does not choose whether to be born to a kohen father. The animal doesn’t choose to be born with a deformity. The mekallel did not choose his circumstances, just like the kohanim and the animals. Life follows the nursery rhyme that preschool students know by heart: “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset.” You get certain strengths. You get certain obstacles. You get what you get, and you try to do good with whatever you are given. The blasphemer got stuck at stage one—he got upset. 

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There is a whole process that occurs once the skin with tzaraat on it clears up: the metzora is sprinkled with a bird’s blood, shaves off all their hair, including eyebrows and beards, and immerses themself in water. Along with the kohen, priest, that helped cure them, the metzora then brings a specific korban offering to G-d. If the metzora cannot afford the specific delineated animals to bring as a korban, the Torah gives an alternate list of animals to bring instead. Clearly, recovering from tzaraat and rejoining the community is so important that allowances can be made, korbanot made more accessible.

Tzaraat infects not only the metzora’s skin but also their house. The metaphor might be obvious, but I’ll draw it anyway; your negative actions affect not only you but the people and things around you as well. The person whose home it was would go to the kohen and say, “I think there’s tzaraat on my house.” The house would preemptively be emptied completely—vessels, furniture, everything—because once the kohen declared the house impure, everything in it would become impure as well. This way, by emptying it beforehand, the material possessions could be salvaged. The house would be locked up for seven days, and after seven days, if the kohen would see that the tzaraat had spread, the house would be completely demolished. It feels contradictory, letting an entire house be destroyed yet salvaging mere trinkets beforehand. But maybe it isn’t contradictory. The metzora doesn’t get to choose whether the tzaraat spreads, doesn’t control whether their home is demolished. Someone with an all-or-nothing mindset would just leave the furniture and vessels inside; if they’re losing this, they may as well lose everything. Maybe the Torah is teaching us that life isn’t all-or-nothing. Saving any small bit you can is better than losing it all; doing one mitzvah is better than doing none at all.

The parsha closes with the mention of certain kinds of ritual impurity, for which the bearer, much like the metzora, must be purified through immersification in water. The impurities outlined here have to do with wasting potential for new human life, so for men, that would be spilling seed, and for women, that would be menstruating. One pet peeve of mine is when people call the Torah misogynistic for referring to menstruating women as unclean. The implication in this accusation is that the same is never said of men, but a cursory glance at the text in the last portion of this week’s parsha proves otherwise. The same wording is used for both.

A common theme in this parsha is purification, overcoming impurities regardless of why they’re there. The metzora repents for their sins; the ritually impure person, who didn’t become impure through sinning, merely goes to a mikvah in order to become pure. Even houses might be purified, if needed. But it’s nice to notice that only the house is destroyed if it can’t be purified—impure human beings can always become purified.

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Then, Parshat Tazria talks about tzaraat. Tzaraat is a plague, of sorts. Only a kohen, a priest, could correctly diagnose this leprosy-esque disease. It would show up on an individual’s clothing, house, or even body. If the tzaraat showed up on clothing or a home, the damaged area would be destroyed, and if it showed up on the person’s skin, they would leave the community and live alone outside the encampment until the tzaraat went away. The main cause that would give someone tzaraat is if they partook in my favorite aveira: lashon hara.

I’ll admit it: I love gossip. It’s fun; it’s easy to talk about other people when struggling to come up with a conversation topic that goes beyond generic small talk; it’s easier to talk about other people than to talk about yourself. Who doesn’t love knowing all the backstory, all about why one of your friends is treating another weirdly and what’s really going on within that friend group you’ve always hated?

But Parshat Tazria (and its sister parsha, Parshat Metzora, which is next week’s parsha) is an annual reminder that even lighthearted gossip has its consequences. That it’s an actual sin. I’d hate knowing others were talking about me behind my back. If I ever do find out that that’s going on, I become obsessively curious—what exactly were they saying? And who started the conversation? And what was the tone of voice used? And who else was there, was it just their friends or was it any of mine?

And if I hate the mere thought of being spoken about, why am I comfortable putting others in that situation? If I have something nice to say, shouldn’t I just say it to their face? If I have something mean to say, who does it benefit to say it out loud? What use is there in spilling secrets and sharing backstories if it isn’t remotely relevant to me?

The Talmud talks about how lashon hara harms three people: the speaker, the listener, and the person it’s about. You’re held accountable for gossip even if all you do is overhear it, even if you don’t spread it yourself. If you do spread gossip yourself, you’re not just hurting the person it’s about, but also yourself and the person you’re confiding in. There’s real harm in these seemingly “small talk”-like conversations.

We may no longer get tzaraat as punishment for speaking lashon hara, but lashon hara is just as harmful as it always was. Let’s focus on ourselves—other people’s personal business is irrelevant to our everyday lives.

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Forgiven for their most recent sin, everything should have gone great for the nation at this point, but circumstances soured quickly. Nadav and Avihu, two of Aharon’s sons (and therefore two of the main kohanim, priests, of their generation), brought an incense offering they hadn’t been commanded to bring. These incense offerings, called ketoret, were made of a specific mix of spices, to be brought in specific contexts. Since Nadav and Avihu initiated this decision to bring the ketoret (and may have been a DUI, decision under the influence), they were killed by the same fire that was supposed to consume the incense. Their father Aharon was quiet, and his family mourned.

Again—a small decision, technically well-intentioned, yet it had massive consequences. A well-timed korban meant forgiveness of an entire generation’s misdeeds; a badly-timed korban meant death and mourning. It’s not just what you do that matters, it’s when you do it, how you do it, what you’re thinking as you do it.

Kosher laws are taught to the Israelites. An animal must have split hooves and chew its cud to be kosher. The Torah lists four animal species that have only one or the other: the camel, the hyrax, and the hare, who chew their own cud but do not have split hooves, and the pig, which has split hooves but does not chew its cud. Learning about this years ago was one of the first times I truly and beyond doubt believed that the Torah was written by a Divine power. Would any human being, especially one living in the Middle East three thousand years ago with no internet access and no animal encyclopedias available, be so bold as to state that there were a specific and limited amount of species that fit specific criteria? Thousands of new animal species are discovered annually, and still no fifth animal, either chewing cud or having split hooves but not both, has been discovered.

Other kosher laws are discussed and taught to the Israelites: from the sea animals, those that have fins and scales are kosher. From the birds, certain ones are not kosher, an abomination to consume, and all those not listed are fine to eat. Specific kinds of locusts are permitted to eat, but no other insects are—check your lettuce, kids! Try that one viral TikTok hack where you pour salt on your strawberries to get all the bugs out!

This parshah shows me how there really is no such thing as a small action. Everything we do has its impact, often bigger than we may think. Timing and context can warp a good deed into being a negative one; single good deeds can balance out our worst societal sins; even a tiny bug in your kale salad can make the entire thing non-kosher.

Isn’t it hopeful in a way, though? Sure, our negative actions (or our neglecting to thoroughly check for bugs) can be far more dangerous sins than we anticipated, but the inverse of that is also true. One mitzvah, one good deed, is also powerful. One single mitzvah can save our entire nation.

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Rules regarding who can eat which kinds of korbanot are thoroughly explained. As the different kinds of korbanot are mentioned, there’s a lot of repetition. When the verse tells us that “any of Aharon’s male descendants may eat from this, for it is the holy of holies,” the same phrase pops up a couple verses later, and then just a bit later. Another concept that’s often repeated throughout the parsha is that of karet, a soul being cut off from the rest of the Jewish nation. If an impure person eats from the peace offering, their soul is cut off; if a person touches something impure and then eats of the peace offering, their soul is cut off; if anyone eats the fat of an animal that was brought as a fire offering, their soul is cut off; if someone eats any blood, their soul is cut off.

Karet, a soul being cut off, is one of the worst punishments in Jewish canon. What does it mean to be cut off from the Jewish nation?

Having a sense of community is important. It holds you accountable; it reminds you who you are and who you want to be. When you lose a community, you lose a part of yourself.

In life, we need people to look up to. We need people with similar values who can notice when we’re slipping, who will inspire us to do better and remind us that this isn’t who we are. (Like in this iconic tweet exchange, except magnified to the communal level.) When you lose your community, the implication is that you’ve fallen so far behind that even they are incapable of helping you or inspiring you. Losing one’s community implies that they are beyond hope, beyond saving, because if they weren’t, they’d still be given the chance to be inspired by others enough to repent.

How come a sin that seems so small, like eating something you’re not supposed to, results in such a harsh punishment? Well, maybe eating forbidden foods isn’t such a small sin after all. There’s a reason why we are supposed to make brachot, blessings, before eating food; we’re asking G-d for permission to eat from His creations. Eating something you’re not supposed to, eating something G-d hasn’t permitted you to eat, isn’t that akin to stealing from G-d? Karet comes into play, in this parsha, when you not only disobey G-d, but disobey G-d by stealing from Him.

I wonder if there’s a connection, then, between thievery and being so beyond redemption that you don’t even deserve to be a part of your community any longer. (In Noah’s generation, after all, the big sin was stealing from one another, and that led to the world’s destruction.) The act of stealing contains within it a blurring of boundaries, forgetting or ignoring that others’ possessions are not their own. If one steals from G-d, they need an important reminder of what boundaries are, and a boundary is drawn around the rest of the nation that they, as a cut-off soul, are not included in.

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There were different sacrifices to offer depending on your situation; some would be brought as thanks, others brought in apology; some would be eaten by the priests, others would be consumed completely by fire. Each korban would be brought with salt. According to this piece from Chabad.org, salt adds flavor. Offering your apology and your gratitude are all good and well, but if you offer a sacrifice without really meaning it, it’s not worth nearly as much. The same way salt must be included in every korban, meaning is necessary for every fully-lived life.

Meaning is hard to find. Harder to hold onto. Sometimes I think I’ve found all the meaning I need, that my beliefs are unshakeable, only to fall into a rough patch and suddenly lose grasp of all the meaning that was once so closely within reach. I guess what I have to do in those moments is add some salt. Meaning isn’t always internally-rooted; internal feelings aren’t always strong enough to keep your life meaningful. In those moments, you have to sprinkle on some salt, sprinkle on some external meaning. Learn something new; seek out a mentor who can help you reconnect with your sense of purpose; take on a new mitzvah; find a new hobby. In life, you might not always “feel it.” But you can always add some salt, add some external flavor when your inner self isn’t providing enough of it.

When we Jews still brought korbanot, we had to bring animal sacrifices. Now, prayer is the standard substitute for sacrificial offerings. It’s so much easier nowadays, in theory. You can do it from the comfort of your own home; you don’t have to buy an animal to fulfill the commandment. Convenient! Free! Still, somehow, it’s so hard for me to actually do it, actually sit down and pray. I suppose the question to ask here is How can I sprinkle salt onto this sacrifice? Which external motivation can I use to find meaning in prayer?

Something that’s helped me connect with prayer in the past is learning more about what the prayers mean, how each prayer is relevant to me in my own life. Knowing what I’m saying is what transforms my prayers from a routine of rote recitation to a personal request. Another way I’ve found meaning in prayer is by engaging in hitbodedut, the Hasidic practice of talking to G-d in your own words. G-d becomes less abstract, more of a close friend, when I speak to Him in casual words and on a more regular, less restricted basis. We don’t have korbanot nowadays, in a time period where we still don’t have the Temple, but we do have prayer. Instead of adding salt to my korbanot, I’ll add salt to my prayers and really, really mean them.

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Everything that G-d had commanded to Moshe, which he then relayed to the Israelites, they did now. When the craftsmen and their assistants finished building, they brought the mishkan and its vessels to Moshe, and Moshe, seeing that they’d done everything right, exactly as they’d been commanded to do, he blessed them.

They set up the mishkan and everything in it: the menorah, the altars, gates all around and dividing curtains. Moshe anointed everything with the special anointing oil that he had prepared. Then, he anointed his brother Aharon and Aharon’s sons. Aharon would be the kohen gadol, the High Priest, and his sons would be kohanim. The priesthood would continue in their lineage forever.

A cloud would lead them as they traveled in the desert. It rested on the mishkan when it was time to stop traveling, and it would rise once it was time to travel again.

The past few parshas all centered the building of the mishkan—the dimensions they would follow, the clothing they would make for the kohen gadol. But it was all projections for the future, not really any acting on what they said they’d do. Finally, in Parshat Pekudei, it all came to fruition, words becoming actions and plans for the future coming true. It’s great to make goals. Even better to outline the steps you’ll take to achieve them. But the ideal is to actually take the steps. Prove that you don’t just talk for the sake of talking, that your words hold some weight; show that when you say you’ll do something, you’ll actually do it.

Proving yourself goes beyond acting on your plans and fulfilling your promises. It also includes proving your worth or integrity to other people. The Midrash Tanchuma, an interpretation on Tanach composed in the early Middle Ages, discusses how Moshe Rabbeinu accounted for everything, every donation, no matter how small. He knew the Israelites were contentious (Sefaria’s translation, not mine), and in an attempt to ease their argumentative spirits, he preemptively gave them the exact accounting of all the donations and all he’d used them for.

It’s hurtful to be doubted. Hurtful when people assume the worst of you. And when questioned, maybe you want to lash out, double down. But people asking for proof that you are who you say you are, people asking for some guarantee that you can be trusted, are not inherently accusing you of not being trustworthy. And even when it does stem from a place of aggression, you don’t need to stoop to their level of bad faith arguments. You can do what Moshe did when the Israelites tried catching him in a lie, didn’t have faith in his integrity, wanted him to prove himself. He listed all his calculations and what all the donations were used for. He did just what the Israelites wanted him to do, even though they were going in with an argumentative perspective: he proved himself. 

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Not only did they donate all that was needed, each individual bringing their jewelry and wool clothing and whatever else they had to offer, but they donated even more than that, so much that Moshe had to tell them to stop bringing things. They built the mishkan and all its furnishings: a solid gold menorah they lit every day, altars to bring sacrifices on, a table always stacked with twelve fresh loaves of bread, an ark with two carved cherubs atop it, and a washbasin made out of copper mirrors.

Moshe refused to accept these copper mirrors at first. Mirrors represent superficiality, vanity, a prioritization of external appearances. G-d instructed Moshe to ignore the usual connotations, to accept the donated mirrors. In Egypt, the Israelite women would use these mirrors to beautify themselves for their husbands. The Egyptians, in an attempt to depopulate their Israelite population, separated wives from husbands and overworked them so they wouldn’t have the time, much less the energy, to conceive any more children. With their copper mirrors, says the medieval commentator Rashi, the women would beautify themselves, seduce their husbands, and conceive more children.

I taught a classroom of middle school students this week, as a substitute teacher. They were scheduled to learn about middot, character traits. I didn’t have any material prepared to teach, so instead we launched into a discussion on character traits as a whole, and I brought up the book Orchot Tzaddikim. The book, anonymously written in the fifteenth century, details a multitude of human character traits, elaborating on how each one can be used for good and for bad. One of the main messages is that, with very very very few exceptions, no character trait is inherently good or inherently bad. Like, a seemingly positive trait, kindness, can become negative if you never stand up for yourself and allow others to walk all over you like a doormat. Or a seemingly negative trait, jealousy, can be used in a positive way if you use your jealousy of others’ accomplishments as inspiration to do better. I love the concept. I love thinking that it doesn’t matter if certain normally-positive traits are hard for me to strengthen, or if I’m inclined to normally-negative traits. Because even the traits we see as negative, even the traits we see as character flaws, can be (twisted around/etc/idk what word to use here) and used for good.

In Egypt, the Israelite women used their mirrors in a positive way; they transformed the normally-negative traits of vanity and superficiality and seduction into positive ones, using them for good, using them to raise their husbands’ spirits and help the Israelite population grow. They’re an inspiration for us, teaching us that the purpose of (metaphorical) mirrors is whatever we choose to use them for. It’s not about the character traits that come more naturally to you. It’s about how you use these innate traits.

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Within the mishkan, they would craft a washbasin. “They’ll wash with water so that they won’t die,” instructed Hashem. “They’ll wash their hands and feet so that they won’t die.” Sounds like some germaphobe propaganda! Moshe would also brew up an anointing oil, infused with myrrh and cinnamon and other spices, with which to anoint all the vessels of the mishkan. After receiving his instructions, Moshe, who was up on Mount Sinai, was given two stone tablets.

The problem? The Israelites weren’t great at calculating time, and they mistakenly believed Moshe was supposed to have descended one day earlier. Terrified at the thought of losing their leader, an angry mob went to Moshe’s brother Aharon and demanded that he create a new god for them. Afraid he’d be killed and trying to buy time, Aharon agreed, instructing them to bring all their gold jewelry, which they would melt down and craft a golden calf statue out of to serve as their new leader. Black magic got introduced into the mix and the melting went a little faster than Aharon had anticipated. Hashem told Moshe about what was going on down below and said He would punish the Israelites, which Moshe begged Him not to do. But when Moshe descended Mount Sinai and saw the Israelites serving this golden calf as an idol, he got upset and broke the tablets he carried down with him. He destroyed the golden calf next, then had the instigators put to death.

Moshe ascended Mount Sinai once more, in order to get new tablets with the entire Torah inscribed on them, and he again begged Hashem to forgive the Israelites for their sins.

When he descended, a new set of tablets in hand, Moshe was glowing. Literally. Light shone from his face, so brightly he had to wear a veil when talking to the Israelites.

Moshe Rabbeinu, the first leader of the Israelites, teaches important lessons about leadership. What does it mean to be a leader? 

It means enforcing accountability: the people most responsible for the sin of the Golden Calf were killed. Accountability was not theirs alone: there’s a Talmudic concept that all Jews are responsible for one another, kol Yisrael areivim zeh bazeh. The sin of the Golden Calf, in specific, wasn’t a sin for which only its generation was culpable. Elsewhere, the Talmud also states that every sin has hints of this sin, the sin of the Golden Calf, within it.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, being a leader means caring about the people you’re leading. Leadership can’t just be a job or role to you—it has to truly matter to you. Moshe was desperate to get Hashem to forgive the Israelites. Sure, he was upset at them too; they had effectively tried to replace him with a statue and completely forgone G-d in the process. Even so, he did everything he could to convince Hashem to forgive them, even saying that if G-d wouldn’t forgive them, He should erase Moshe from the Torah completely.

Too often, we see people in leadership positions sacrificing the wellbeing of the people they’re supposed to be leading for their own personal benefits. Corrupt politicians are all the norm; school boards prioritize donors over students; leaders seem to no longer care about their followers, if they ever did. Moshe, in this week’s parsha, reminds us what a leader is truly supposed to be—caring.

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