Surrounded by Mitzvot - Parashat Emor 5779 - May 17, 2019

I am writing from Eretz Yisrael and I am so fortunate to be here guiding our seventh and eighth grade students, together with Chazzan Ricky Kampf and Mrs. Anat Kampf, on our inaugural Junior High Israel Experience program. The more that we see of the country and land of Israel, the more we want to learn and to see. The students are having a magnificent experience! We are so appreciative of the support of the students’ parents, of the community and of the Lemsky Foundation for making this program possible.

One of the themes that we have discussed repeatedly this week on the program is that in Eretz Yisrael, mitzvot are, so to speak, all around us. The key is to recognize and to look for them. For example, upon leaving the Dead Sea we were trying to make a mincha minyan before driving back to Yerushalayim. We struck up a conversation with a gentleman and it turned out that he needed a minyan so that he could say kaddish for his mother who had recently passed away. We made the minyan and he was so appreciative that we had been able to help him.

An example of this phenomenon from Thursday relates to this week’s parasha, Parashat Emor. The opening verse of the parasha says, “Hashem spoke to Moshe: Speak to the kohanim, the sons of Aharon and say to them: Do not become ritually impure for any dead person among the nation; except for … [close relatives]”. Our tour guide took us to Hevron and to Me’arat HaMachpelah, the Cave of our Patriarchs, or as Mrs. Kampf likes to call it, the first Jewish cemetery. This visit forced us to confront a halachic question – a she’ela – is it permissible for the kohen student in our group to enter the Herodian style building constructed over the graves. Our kohen has been faced with a number of unique mitzvah opportunities during the week. He duchaned (birkat kohanim) a number of times (at the shul of the well-known Tzitz Eliyezer). He was called up first to the Torah on Thursday. He has led bentching numerous times. Now, he was faced with the possibility of a prohibition – entering the Me’arat HaMachpelah like all of the other students on our program.

We presented the question to this student’s rabbi who pointed us to a responsa that had been written on the topic. The responsa concluded that while a few poskim argue that visiting a burial place of the righteous such as Me’arat HaMachpelah would not be forbidden for a kohen, most authorities prohibit such a visit. Therefore, given the Torah level prohibition for kohanim to become ritually impure, the author of the responsa ruled that a kohen should not enter the building. On this basis, our kohen student remained outside. (He and I learned about the history of the outside of the building and how, for the 700 years between 1267 (the time of the Ramban) and 1967 (the Six-Day War), no Jews were allowed to enter the building and had to limit their visit to the “seventh step” outside the building. This shameful “seventh step” was removed after 1967.) Like all of our students, this kohen, between birkat kohanim and the experience at Me’arat HaMachpelah, was surrounded with mitzvot at every turn.

This awareness of being “surrounded by mitzvot” is acute in Eretz Yisrael. However, we all have the ability to grow this perspective even in exile. May we all support our children and our students in maintaining and growing this important awareness.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Benjy Owen