Feeling Defiled

In my book, The Fabric of Religious Life in Medieval Ashkenaz, I highlight the fact that Ashkenazic Jews experienced their spiritual states physically. Things that were pure were experienced as physically attractive, while those things that were prohibited were experienced as physically repulsive. Hence, there developed among them a custom that when a pot absorbed something non-kosher, not only did they purge (i.e. kasher) it, they would bring it to a ritualarium (mikveh) to purify it. 

 

Similarly, spiritual states were experienced both emotionally and physically. Based upon that reality, Jews traditionally immersed themselves in a Mikveh as part of their process of repentance (an echo of which is found in the practice to go to Mikveh before Yom Kippur---a custom that really should be observed by both men and women, irrespective of whether the woman is a Niddah, or not). 

 

This sensitivity, physically experienced, has not passed from the world. 

 

It is famously told that Rav Herzog זצ"ל, as part of his indefatigable attempts to retrieve Jewish babies who had been in monasteries and convents during the War, met with Pope Pius XII on March 10, 1946. Rav Herzog asked him to publicly call on priests across Europe to disclose the location of the Jewish orphans. The pope asked for additional information but was essentially evasive. [Fifteen years ago, it emerged that a number of months later the Pope issued a letter forbidding priests from returning the children.] 

 

Rav Herzog was, aside from being a towering Talmid Hakham, a very sensitive and insightful person. He realized he was being played by the Pope, and was so shaken by his encounter that upon emerging from the Vatican he told his the person accompanying him: 'Quick! Get me to a Mikveh!'

 

However, one need not invoke an episode of such dramatic import to understand the physical expression of spiritual or psychological moments. The Rabbis, for example, maintained that the malady of Tzara'at , was imposed as a punishment for tale-bearing and gossip. Whatever the condition was clinically, it was obviously repulsive. It mandated the quarantining of the afflicted person, and contact with him or her engendered an obligation to purify oneself in a Mikveh. When I was younger, I didn't fully appreciate the power of this idea; that is until about thirty years ago. I was walking with my wife one Shabbat afternoon, when we encountered a person, who I later learned was a notorious gossip. We greeted the person, who then launched into an unbelievable torrent of gossip about people in the neighborhood. We tried to get away, but the person kept following us, spewing forth a flood of 'Lashon Ha-Ra' (lit. 'Evil Tongue'). Finally, we succeeded in escaping their clutches. At that point, my wife and I looked at each other, and both of us expressed a need to take a shower as a result of the experience.

 

I'm writing this today, not because it relates to the Torah Portion of the week. This week is not Parshat Tazria or Parshat Metzora which deal with the laws of Tzara'at, it is Parshat VaYera (a challenging Parsha in its own right, to put it mildly). 

 

I'm writing this because I am literally physically and emotionally shaken by an encounter I had yesterday with people who are ('were'?) part of my Modern Orthodox community, one to which I devoted twenty years of my life before coming on Aliyah, and to which I am periodically asked to contribute. I had the temerity to point out that a Biden presidency doesn't bide well for Israeli concerns about Iran. I simply noted that the salvation that American Jews see in a Biden victory, is perceived by an overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews as potentially threatening because of his declared intent to re-engage Tehran, remove sanctions and restore its international window to nuclear weapons. Note, I was not referring to differences of opinion over this candidate or that. I was referring to the tragic fact that Jews in different countries can have different interests, even different existential needs and threats.

 

What I got was a tsunami of abuse because by my observation, ipso facto, it must be that support Donald Trump. Therefore I embody all of the sins of Orthodoxy, represent the apartheid government of Israel, am devoid of Humanity and that I am an educated moron to boot. The type of raw hatred, abuse and pure poison that I saw yesterday (and, frankly, over the past few years) among ostensibly committed Jews leaves me trembling. Among the charges hurled at me are (inter alia): Furious negation of any part of Torah that doesn't align with a specific political narrative; Virulent excoriation of Jewish National Identity and Destiny; the 'cancellation' of any person's Orthodoxy by anyone who does not thereto subscribe (though here I understand from Andrew Silow-Carol's Column today that in the US it cuts both ways) ; Angry De-legitimization of the State of Israel and supercilious dismissal of the threats to its Survival; Deep and Abiding Loathing (nothing less) for all Americans who've cast their lot in with their brethren in the Land of Israel. The list goes on and on. 

 

I feel defiled.

 

I am confident that my interlocutors of yesterday (alongside those paragons of Free Speech and Respectful discourse who've blocked me on Social Media) will (with some justification)  point out all of the sins of the Torah, the Racist Character of Jewish Identity and National Aspirations, the manifold errors of the State of Israel, the moral deficiencies of all other Orthodox Jews, and the intolerable arrogance of American Olim. They will victoriously dismiss everything I've written here. 

 

The point is, though, that 'whataboutism' is beside the point. For I am not here addressing specific issues and flaws, of which there are many on both sides (except for the Torah, which, as the Word of God is, for me as an Orthodox Jew, Perfect). I feel defiled by the Hatred, the Anger, the Loathing, the obtuseness and the Arrogance the spewed forth in my encounter yesterday. Hared, Anger, Loathing, Arrogance...these are not only the path to the dark side. They are, Hazal Teach us, a form of Avodah Zarah.

 

Avodah Zarah defiles.

 

I need a Mikveh.