Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on April 3, 2014

On the margins is where some of the most profound holy acts are performed. Standing with those who are in the shadows, on the margins of society, those who have been abandoned, those in our communities who frighten us, who push us to see our own vulnerability, human beings we ignore in the hopes they will disappear but they dont.

Some of the greatest spiritual healers in our world dont just speak about healing those on the margins, they actually go to the margins and bring healing. In our tradition, based in part on the teachings of the parasha this week, Metzora, the Talmud recounts the following about not only spiritual healers, but about something/someone bigger: the Messiah.

Sanhedrin 98a recounts the following discussion between Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi and Elijah the prophet:

When will the Messiah come?

Go and ask him yourself.

Where can I find him?

At the gates of Rome.

By what signs will I recognize him?

He is sitting among the poor and the suffering sick.

Our vision of the Messiah is not of one who will ride in on a white horse, one who dwells among the rich and famous or in the halls of power. Our vision of the Messiah and therefore our vision of how we, the Jewish people, should seek to emulate and thereby bring about the Messiah or Messianic Age, depending on your own theology is to be one who sits with the sick, the outcasts, those on the margins, what some call the wretched of the Earth.

Follow this link:

Healing bodies and souls: Parashat Metzora (Leviticus 14:1-15:33)

Category: Talmud
Tags: