We all know what it's like when we hear about a party and then find out that we were not invited. That sense of exclusion can be very painful whether it happens to us as children or in some cases as adults. In today's world of social media that exclusion is even more immediate because we don't just hear about a party after the event, we see in real time the pictures posted on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. A recent article on the Today website was titled: “Slumber Party Blues: Social media means kids are excluded in real time”. It's clear that social media has just exacerbated this sense of exclusion that some people feel.
As we approach this weeks Torah
portion of Metzorah we might think of it as a Torah portion about
exclusion. It is about taking the impure
and removing it from the camp. The
impurity might come from leprosy or from a discharge and necessitates that the
person be removed from the community.
But in reality the Torah portion’s focus is not really on the exclusion
of the person, instead it is focused on how we can bring that person back
in.
The Torah portion begins: ‘Adonai spoke
to Moses, saying: “This shall be the ritual for a leper at the
time that he is to be cleansed”’ (Leviticus 14:1-2). The Torah portion is not interested in the
exclusion, but rather its focus is on how we bring the person back into the
camp; how we ensure that they can be purified so they can rejoin the
community.
The ritual for return is explained in verse
after verse, so that at is culmination the person can be cleansed and return to
the camp. Throughout the Torah portion
as it deals with things that make a person impure, its primary concern is how
this impurity can be removed so that the person can return to the community. The Torah portion of Metzorah is in this way a
reminder that we should always be seeking that ritual of return; seeking ways
to include rather than exclude.
What can we do in our friendship
circles, in our societies, and in our communities to ensure that no-one is
excluded? The first thing should be that
we find ways to include people rather than having people undergo the pain of
exclusion.
As we read this week's Torah portion
it is clear that impurities should only ever be a temporary status and as such
the exclusion of a person should only ever be temporary. We need to include so that we can be a
complete community, and it is only with this inclusion that we can then find
our way to continue our journey towards the Promised Land.
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