Facing the Field
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Parashat Tazria Metzorah
1.
Back when we were at the Friends school,
(may we return speedily and in our day)
One shabbat, seeing us all bow to the back door, which is east
A mysterious man approached me and pointed out that we were all facing away from the ark when we bowed
And we should face the ark instead
I thought he was just a typical Kitchen-ite with opinions
But it turned out that later he revealed himself as a rabbi who had served for fifty years.
Even though my heart is in Jerusalem, out of respect, and because the point was a good one, we split the difference and often faced the ark from then on.
And as I was remembering these quaint pre-covid questions
I began to think about where we’re facing now —
No I am not watching which direction you face on zoom
I mean more symbolically
That is
As we begin to consider the staggering project of re-entry, the adaptation of society
Which way shall we face?
After a plague, a pandemic
After a year of protection, necessary for sure
But as things eventually become safer again
How will we come out of our homes?
Which way should we face?
How can we orient ourselves towards life?
2.
As if on cue, Torah is asking us the same question this week in parashat tazria metzorah
There was a plague, see
And we got rid of it
All the plague is gone, see
We identified it and took down the house it was in
And scraped the stones and put them outside the camp
We cleaned the clothes and sequestered the people
But there’s a problem see because the people are still afraid
And by the way, in Torah we’re not anxious about leaving the house
In Torah we already left the house b/c of the plague was in the house
So in Torah the issue at stake is that we don’t want to go back inside the house
But really, whether the plague is in the house or somewhere next to it
The question is the same:
When the plague is gone
When we have declared it safe
How do we avoid the strong pull towards endless self protection?
How do we return to life?
What direction do we face?
3.
In Torah, please notice
Once everything is okay
The allotted time has gone by
The walls have been checked and there is no resurgence —Everything is perfectly safe
Still a ritual is still required
And maybe those of us who have been crying as we received the vaccine and praising science and medicine in the name of the holy one blessed be god can understand
Even when everything is okay
Especially when everything is okay
We still need to mark it as okay
We need to seal it, establish it as okay
In order to try and go back to life
The “all clear” is just a piece of the matter
We still have the need to do something physical, say something, mark our safety and change in status
In Torah, as you might expect
The answer comes in the form of sacrifice,
(but don’t worry, there’s no temple any longer and we know God is not asking for our sacrifices, not the animal kind anyway)
There’s a sacrifice of one bird, true, but there’s also another, a second bird
A lucky bird
A bird who is not domesticated and so will not fly back to us
A bird who lives in the wild
A live bird
That’s we send off (!) into the air.
וְשִׁלַּ֞ח אֶת־הַצִּפֹּ֧ר הַֽחַיָּ֛ה
And he shall send the living bird
אֶל־מִח֥וּץ לָעִ֖יר
From outside the city
אֶל־פְּנֵ֣י הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה
Towards an open field
I imagine the relief that must have come from watching that free, living bird flying higher and higher and further away.
4.
How do we turn towards life today?
Mishnah has an idea
You see
There’s a strange passage regarding the release of our living bird
Almost like a note to us from the rabbis then
Mishnah says when the person who frees the bird is positioning himself to release it
It is very specific
He does not turn his face to the sea
He does not turn his face to the city
Nor does he turn his face to the wilderness / the midbar
Instead, he sends that bird towards the open fields.
Literally, quoting Torah,
אֶל־פְּנֵ֣י הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה
Towards the face of the field. (1)
Maybe we also have something to learn here about our return to life
Something to learn about not reverting to our mentality before the pandemic or not unnecessarily perpetuating our fear of the pandemic
Maybe our return to life also has to do with which direction we will face
So, I wondered, what is our equivalent of facing the field
Facing the face of the field
5.
You know me, I couldn’t help it, I looked up the word for field
שָּׂדֶ֑ה
Sometimes it just means land
Sometimes it means, as you would expect, the home of the animals or the crops
Sometimes it means the place of work, because after all, the people coming in from the fields means they were shepherding or hunting or growing something there
But many times, שָּׂדֶ֑ה refers to a place where a transformation takes place
If you saw, “into the woods” or you have read any fairy tales,
Seems to me, in Torah the שָּׂדֶ֑ה is like the forest,
The locus of the action, the place where not everything is under our control
So, the field is the place where the cave of machpelah is, the cave where all our ancestors are buried (2) at last
In fact we never hear about the cave of machpelah without the word שָּׂדֶ֑ה repeated,
without hearing the cave was in a field, that pairing of the cave in the field comes up twelve times in genesis, 6 almost right in a row
As if Torah wants to offer
The field is where transformations take place, and our ancestors being buried there, marking one of the biggest transformations of our ancient family, not to mention their lives
points to this idea —
The field is where transformations take place
Remember Cain destroys his brother בַּשָּׂדֶ֑ה in the field (3) violence that will take generations to overcome
The field is where the transformations take place
Remember Isaac is famously strolling בַּשָּׂדֶ֑ה / in a field at dusk when he sees Rebekah his future wife for the first time
And Torah points out that Rebekah sees Isaac, her future husband in that same שָּׂדֶ֑ה / field and asks, “Who is that man הַהֹלֵ֤ךְ בַּשָּׂדֶה֙
walking in the field
and getting closer to us?” (4)
As if the location where they were meeting somehow set him apart
As if his walking in the field was the kind of detail Torah could easily have left out but didn’t dare
In order to keep reminding us, through an intermittent patter of repetition
A kind of Torah morse code
That the field is where transformations take place
So when Jacob finds the well that will lead him to Rachel, his future wife, Torah makes a point of telling us that the well is, בַּשָּׂדֶ֑ה….out in the open, in a field. (5)
And, of course, you remember
But in case you don’t I’ll remind you how
Joseph, too, is out wandering בַּשָּׂדֶ֑ה / in the field when he is out looking for his brothers and has the encounter with a stranger that will change his life (6)
See, in all these stories, the field is where transformation happens
In the field, we become who we are next going to be
So our ability to turn towards it, to face the face of the field is of great significance
It means we will not only survive but live
6.
But please notice,
In fact I know you, you are probably already noticing
It is not all parades and love stories in the field
Yes there are moments of great love and spiritual genius but there is also
Searching and burials and confusion and confrontation and even fighting (although please, I am not promoting violence, Cain wears the mark of Cain for a reason)
But regardless of whether the encounters are the kind we seek or the ones that bring us great anxiety and fear
Torah seems to wants us to know that the field —
the place we now understand we must turn towards
this place of questions and growth and momentous chance encounters —
The field represents what it means to live, to be alive
As if transformation, the stuff of life, is harvested right from the field, right there, or maybe in it
And that’s why we can’t stay in our houses forever
That’s why we’re going to need to figure out how to face the new world
Because, as risky as it is in the field
Avoiding it, seeking unending protection, is a kind of death
The Mei Hashiloach — also wrote about our Mishnah of turning towards the field —
And he said
It is possible we are entering a time of taking away the constricting, restricting [protective] outer layer
That we no longer have to retract ourselves, and [tzimtum] and make ourselves small by ourselves
That instead, we are entering a time of expanding, unfurling, finding and inhabiting the kind of place where the stakes are high, the kind of place that smells just like a field God has blessed — (7)
A field warmed by the sun and teeming with the growth of plants and animals
The kind of place where, if you turn towards it, you will find wells and caves, the stranger you didn’t know you needed and the beloved for whom you prayed and prayed, the kind of place you’ll find ancestors both living and buried,
sisters and brothers begging for forgiveness
and even God
Maybe this is why the Kabbalists, in their yearning to be close to God, went out to the fields of sefat to welcome shabbat
They knew that the field was a place of transformation
They knew it and so they tried to be in it, to turn themselves towards the face of the field
7.
For us, too, it is coming time
We have just lived through, and are still living through something very difficult
The protection we maintain is essential
But someday, not so far away from now, we must,
even considering the serious ongoing risks of life
We must stand and turn our faces toward the face of the field,
the place of transformation, the place of life
And send what’s still left of our faith
that living, lucky, wild bird
up, up into the sky.
1) Mishnah Negaim 14:2
2) See: Gen. 23: 9, 11, 13, 17, 19, 20, Gen. 25:9,10, Gen. 49:29, 30, 32 and Gen. 50:13
3) Gen. 4:8
4) Gen. 24: 63, 65
5) Gen. 29:2
6) Gen. 37:15
7) Mei HaShiloach, Vol. I, Leviticus, Metzorah 4.
