Sermon for Parashat Tazria-Metzora

by Gary M. Bretton-Granatoor
April 14, 1983
Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion
New York

“It’s not my fault!  I swear, it really isn’t my fault!  I’ve been good and I’ve done what I was told to do.  I was quiet when we were supposed to be quiet, I helped build the tent when they needed extra hands.  I followed every law that I was told to follow -- I was in another part of the camp the day a group of people made this sculpture of some sort of animal -- they say it was supposed to be a calf, but it didn’t look like one to me.  I really have been good.  But then the other day, I woke up and discovered that there were these white patches on my arm.  Not too big, mind you, just a couple of white itchy areas.  So my wife tells me that I’ve got to go to the priest to have him look it over.  He looks, touches, probes and then mumbles, ‘Um hum, come back in a couple of days.’  So when I came back, the white spots seemed to have spread a little and he yells out, ‘Tamay!  Tamay!’  He then tells me that I have to rip up my clothing like a mourner, cut off my hair and yell the same thing over and over, ‘Tamay!  Tamay!’  Then, the worst happens: the priest tells me that I have to move out of the area -- leave my tent and move out into the wilderness.  And while this whole thing seems comical, and it seems to me to be comical, I realize that it is not -- I am all alone.  I feel so isolated, so out of touch with everyone else -- the people I love don’t come to see me, they can’t.  If anyone happens to be walking outside of the camp, I have to yell, ‘Tamay!  Tamay!’ to warn them.  Then, they run away and I’m alone.  And what really gets me made is that I did nothing to deserve this, I swear!”           

********************************************

The plight of the Tzarua, the leper in Biblical times: the fear, the isolation and the feelings of rejection, finds its modern day parallel in the plight of those people we have often, unconsciously treated as Tamayim, the homeless -- the street people.  So many times, people have driven down streets like the Bowery and rolled up their car‑windows and locked their doors.  People have closed their eyes to the sight of the near skeletal, dirty, and putrid person reaching out a hand or offering to wipe one’s windshield.  And so many times, we have crossed a street just to avoid an encounter with a beggar -- or to avoid looking at the beggar’s eyes.  We are sometimes stricken with fear and revulsion, our senses are offended by the beggar’s appearance and odor.  We fear for our own safety when confronted with someone muttering words or phrases that make no sense.

Sometimes, we reach into our pockets for some spare coins and offer them as we quicken our pace down the street -- sometimes with a smile in our hearts because we felt we did the correct thing; but even then, the voice inside of us screams Tamay!  We think of the futility of giving a few coins to just one person, when there are so many out there who need help.  Sometimes, we get angry, wanting desperately to grab a beggar by the shoulders and tell him or her to get a job.  And sometimes we make jokes about the idea that the fifty cents we just handed to a bum is probably be used to pay off the new Cadillac that is parked around the corner.  Sometimes, we want to do something but are frozen into inactivity pondering what we could do to be of some help.  Then we can go home, with our feelings, with our cares, with our troubles, but we can go home.  While the poor person’s home is any place: sometimes safe, most of the time not; sometimes warm, but most of the time not.  The only people these outcasts see are those who share in their lot in life or those fortunate people who give of their time to be with them.  Time is marked by meals, or no‑meals; and time is marked by sleeping or not sleeping.

The problems of the poor and homeless are on our minds, and we ponder them and we search for answers or solutions.  The rabbis and prophets have all considered the life of the poverty‑stricken.  It is not a new problem, and our tradition provides us with insights to help us understand the poor and what might be done to ease the suffering of poverty.

The Book of Proverbs states, M’chetat dalim raysham “  (the ruin of the poor is their poverty).  Property robs a person of her or his humanity -- poverty dehumanizes.  As we read in Exodus Rabbah (Mishpatim 31:14), “If all of the afflictions in the world were placed on one side of a scale and poverty on the other, poverty would out weigh them all.”  Poverty outweighs all of the world’s afflictions, precisely because it degrades the person in the sight of others.  Poverty causes us to look at someone differently and to act differently towards them.  V’yikra Rabbah notes, “the poor person is the lowliest of God’s creatures, not only in the eyes of others but in his own eyes as well.”  It is a terrible thing when one loses self‑respect, or stops valuing his or her own life.  Even the poor person’s efforts to be self‑sufficient on the streets are quickly frustrated -- yet food must come from somewhere if one is going to eat.  Talmud Betza 32b states, “The world is darkened for one who has to look forward to the tables of others for sustenance.”  When one cannot even provide for personal needs; when clothing, shelter and food must be forgotten or begged for, one’s humanity is ripped away.  In this dehumanized state, one is at the mercy of others for food, clothing and shelter -- one must continually beg, by the out‑stretched hand, the offer to perform a menial task or by a speech delivered to a captive audience between subway stations.

If given an opportunity, many would try to work; some, unfortunately, could not hold down a job of any sort.  But most would rise to the chance to restore their own humanity and gain a sense of self‑worth.  Isn’t this exactly what our tradition demands that we do: to enable these people to regain a sense of their own value?  But this requires that we change -- that we shift the way we think about the poor individual.  We must stop thinking of the poor people as a “them,” an amorphous group swarming about our discarded bits -- but to realize that each one is a person.  Every single one on the street has a spark of the divine within and every single person has the right to be afforded respect.  This is so very difficult when we encounter a person who is psychotic and who is in dire need of therapy.  This is so very difficult when confronted with dirt and stench.  This is so very difficult when we complain about the “bums” or the ‘”skels” or the “plight of the poor”  -- by stereotyping and classifying we continue to allow their humanity to be stripped from them -- we deny each person’s uniqueness.  By meeting each person before us and treating her or him with respect, we are forced to consider our own attitudes that have developed about those individuals who are poor -- who are in need.  This is exactly what our tradition compels us to do -- this is the way we are commanded to act.

The rabbis indicate ways that we can better the lives of those individuals who are enpoverished.  Baba Batra (9b) suggests that the we recognize a person’s humanity by the way we treat him or her, “He who gives a coin to a poor man is regarded with six blessings, but he who  encourages him with kind words is rewarded with eleven blessings.”  Thus the primary task is to begin to treat others with dignity.  This notion is expressed in a Midrash which says that if you have nothing to give to one who is poor, you are to console him with kind words and say, “My soul goes out to you as I have nothing to give you.”  This is the true act of Gemilut chasadim  -- loving‑kindness, for it is action with compassion and empathy.

Another source of guidance is RMBM, whose eighth and highest degree of charity is “to anticipate charity by preventing poverty; to assist the reduced fellow, either by a considerable gift or loan of money, or by teaching the person a trade, or seeing that the person is set up in business so that the person may earn an honest living and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of extending a hand for charity.”  (Mishneh Torah Matnot Aniyim 10:7) It is clear that most of us are not in the position to do exactly as RMBM instructed.  However, each of us can take RMBM’s message and search for our own way to apply it.  This action can take  myriad forms but we must first recognize our responsibilities.  For once we realize what we must do, this allows us to act.  We need not make major changes in personality, nor do we need to begin with major tasks, doing little things open us up to the possibilities of doing more.  By doing this kind of work, we allow ourselves to be affected and touched by the individuals that we aid.  There are soup kitchens that need to be staffed and shelters that need people to run them.  There are temples in the New York area that are willing to open their doors to shelter the homeless but are afraid that they will lack volunteers.  We can be those volunteers: each of us could approach our local synagogue and express our willingness to serve the needs of the homeless and the poor, as a few people have done by volunteering at the JFK airport shelter.  Some of us could spend time on the streets and encourage the homeless to come into shelters.  By being able to set up more, smaller shelters like the one at the JFK airport, many of the homeless would find clean and safe havens for the evening and they would receive the personalized care that they deserve.  While I laud the efforts of the people who organized the Can Drive here at the College, there is so much more that we can do.

Hebrew Union College, and we, the members of the community here, must be willing to open up these doors to aid the poor and the homeless -‑ the people who we pass very day on our way to school and then we close the doors behind us.  There is no reason why we cannot have our own soup‑kitchen or breakfast‑kitchen.  We have the facilities to prepare the food and serve the people -- it never seems to be a problem at other times, when people are fed at College functions.  With a little bit of effort, we could also house people here at night.  This would give each and every one of us the opportunity to put into practice what Jewish tradition has been telling us to do all along.  This very building is situated on the edge of one of the city’s poorest areas -- the area with the densest population of homeless.  Our presence here in this area obligates us to do these things for the community of which we are part -- we must make our presence felt by the people in this neighborhood.

Yet, there are many people who cannot afford the time or cannot find their way around the fear of working one‑on‑one with the homeless and the poor.  There is work that needs to be done by them also.  They can obtain the funds necessary to pay the people who can devote their energies to serving the poor.  They can help fund food programs and shelter programs.  People are needed to fund medical and psychological services to the poor and to ensure that anyone who needs such services, receives them.

But the most important lesson comes from Rabbi Shelomo of Karlin who said, “If you want to raise a man from mud and filth, do not think it is enough to keep standing on top and reaching a helping hand down to him.  You must go all the way down yourself, down into the mud and filth.  Then take hold of him with strong hands and pull him and yourself into the light.”

It sometimes becomes so easy to say what “they” must do to correct the problem.  We look at the thousands of people who are without homes, thousands in the few square blocks surrounding this very building and become exasperated.  It is easy to say that there is noting we could do to help -- that it would only be a ‘drop in the bucket.’  In the recent film, “The Year of Living Dangerously” the character Billy Quan is asked why, when confronted with all the poverty in Jakarta, did he choose to support one woman and her child as opposed to distributing his resources.  He replies, “You must help the individual God puts before you -- that is your duty.”

We must force ourselves to open our eyes, to see the person standing before us -- to see his or her state and respond as our tradition demands of us.  To raise a person from their poverty, we must restore their humanity.  In order to restore another person’s humanity, we must first discover our own humanity.  For we have the power to raise up the poor individual and by doing so we raise ourselves.  We, ourselves, gain a new sense of self‑worth.  In Talmud Shabbat (102b) we find, “There is no poverty in a place of wealth.”  While many are wealthy, this is not yet a place of wealth until we truly begin the work at hand.  This cannot become a place of wealth until it becomes a place rich in deeds -- rich in action -- deeds that benefit everyone -- deeds that provide every person with the dignity that is deserved.  Only when this happens, when every person is afforded dignity, will this become a place of wealth, for there will be no poverty.

**********************************

“It’s not my fault!  I swear, it’s really not my fault.  I’ve tried throughout my life to do the right thing.  I was never very educated, so I never had a great job -- but I always worked.  That is, until a few months ago when I was let go.  I only had enough money in the bank for one month’s rent and when that ran out, out I went.  I tried to get welfare but you can’t get welfare unless you live somewhere.  I know I don’t look too good right now -- it really doesn’t matter anymore, anyway -- everyone I meet treats me as if I didn’t exist at all.  You know, when some people got on the streets, they went crazy, others were crazy already.  Some were always drunk, others started to drink just to stay warm and to kill the time every now and then -- but now and then becomes always down here and now they’re drunk all the time.  Look, it keeps away the cold and it makes you forget that people don’t look into your eyes anymore.

“It really gets me when people walk away from me -- or try to walk around me.  They ignore me or roll up their windows as if when they touch me they would get some kind of creepy disease.  It makes me feel real bad.  But every once in a while, you get to meet someone who looks right at you -- sometimes they have some spare change, sometimes they don’t; but that doesn’t matter -- because they look at you nice --they make you feel real, human.  Sometimes they talk to you -- not to yell at you to get away from them, but really talk to you.  Boy, that makes my day.  I feel good for a long time.

“I wish I wasn’t so alone here -- I mean there are people around and I have a buddy or two -- but sometimes I feel so alone.  I wish people would treat me like a real person.

“But, you people have been real nice -- you listened to me and that makes me feel good.  Next time you’re driving past my corner, pull over and I’ll clean your windows real nice -- I’ve got a special rag for dignitaries -- makes your windows shine.

“You have a nice day; and hey, God Bless!”

Web site designed by Web Star Lines, Ltd.