By Naomi Tamura

This week’s parsha, Emor, means “speak.” It begins with G-d speaking to Moses, telling him that he must instruct the Cohenim, Aaron’s sons, about the rules they must obey: a priest must not come into contact with a dead person unless they are an immediate relative, must not shave the corners of their beards nor make gashes in their flesh (tattoos?), and a priest must not marry a divorced woman, a widow, or a prostitute, whom, by the way, are all considered immoral women. G-d also tells Moses that any descendant of a priest cannot come before G-d if he is ‘blemished’; "...any of your seed who has a blemish shall not approach to offer…whether it be a person who is blind or lame…or has a broken leg or broken arm," (Leviticus 21:17- 19). And verse 17 indicates that Cohenim with physical disabilities are to be excluded from offering sacrifices; “any man among your offspring throughout their generations who has a defect, shall not come near to offer up his G-d’s food.” This part thus stresses wholeness, as if physical wholeness represents spiritual wholeness. There's also a lot more to this parsha: the festivals of the Jewish calendar, i.e. Shabbat, Rosh HaShana, Yom Kippur, Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot are all outlined and given set times to be observed. I'm just going to focus on the first part though.

Okay, we all know how male-centric and misogynistic the Torah can be, but the first part of this parsha ( at which I have never looked or read before this week) regards women as weak and subordinate, especially to men, AND it shuns people who don’t fit into this mythic norm of perfection. It’s really interesting to me that this parsha associates impurities and imperfections with unholiness, yet Judaism teaches us to embrace our imperfections. Rabbis teach us that no one is perfect, yet everyone is still equal in the eyes of G-d, and that it is our very flaws that actually bring us even closer to G-d. Holiness is found in our struggle to look deep within ourselves, beyond these blemishes. However, this parsha tells us just the opposite, that specific physical bodily conditions defile holiness.

With the summer only a few short weeks ahead, something I’ve been thinking about lately, as both a woman and a movement educator, is how to make machaneh more inclusive and body positive and the ways in which we can educate towards this. Chanichimot are fed these kind of bodily standards (and we are too) through the media, in texts, at school, etc. to make us believe there is a perfect image of what we should look like. In turn, we are made to feel ashamed for looking a certain way that does not align with that image. These standards are also super hetero- and cis-normative.

What makes machaneh so special, summer after summer, is that we create our own little utopia - separate from the often oppressive realities we experience during the year. We strive to create an environment that actively challenges these standards and realities and teach our chanichimot (and each other) to love and embrace our bodies. We design peulot and activities to adhere to multiple learning styles in an effort to create accessible, less ablest and more inclusive spaces, which can be a challenge.

So as we switch over to machaneh mode in the next few weeks and prepare to become amazing and inspiring tzevet members, whether we are working with chanichimot as madrichimot, as guerilla rabbi, as tzevet mitbach, as ropes/tiyul specialist, as Beit-O/M-Yad specialist, matzilimot, etc., I want us to ask ourselves/reflect on the following questions:

What are the ways in which we can make machaneh an even more inclusive space, where everyone of all abilities is valued?

How can we both educate about and represent body positivity as leaders and educators?

How can we do so through our multiple tafkidim, not just through tzevet chanichimot?

And, how can we connect our Judaism chinuch to this? Helloooo shivyon erech ha’adam, but also, I think exploring the idea of holiness in Judaism is pretty cool.