Friday, April 24, 30 Nisan 6:00 PM Rosh Chodesh Kabbalat Shabbat Services Please join Rabbi Plumb and Ellen Allard for a virtual "From Our Home to Yours"
Saturday, April 25, 1 Iyyar 9:30 - 10:30 AM Rosh Chodesh Shabbat Morning Services Shabbat morning service will be led by Rabbi Marcia Plumb and Cantor Ellen Band, with wonderful Rose Spitzer reading Torah. We will celebrate Rosh Chodesh Iyar. Please join in for a virtual "From Our Home to Yours"
The Parasha is Tazria-Metzora Leviticus 12:1-4 The Haftarah is Isaiah 66:1-24
Today we begin a new week of the Omer—the third week. This week, the middah to focus on is Tifferet—beauty. It is hard to contemplate beauty in a world that is full of illness, food insecurity and fear. Our parasha is no better. It is Parashat Tazria/Metzora, which details skin rashes, leprosy and other illness.
It is a striking parasha for us this week. The Torah outlines what to do if someone has symptoms of illness. They go to the priest, who acted as doctor, who would quarantine the patient for seven days. No one was allowed to see the patient, until the high priest checked on them and declared them ‘clean’ or well.
Ill patients covered in leprous scars are hardly beautiful. Those who suffer from the coronavirus also don’t feel beautiful. But beauty is famously not just skin deep.
Tifferet refers to the beauty of the soul.
This week, I spoke with a doctor at MGH about trying to work with the hospital leadership to allow family to say goodbye to loved ones. The doctor is dedicated to helping the families of Covid 19 patients see their loved ones if possible. That is tifferet.
The nurse who spends time managing facetime for families with their loved ones in hospital—that kind of compassion is tifferet.
The sanitation workers, hospital cleaners, home health aids, delivery people, grocery store workers, scientists, communication and electricity workers are all dedicated to keeping our society, and their families, functioning, at risk to themselves. Self-sacrifice for others is awe-inspiring and beautiful.
Below is a poster I put on our fridge this week reminding my family to look for tifferet in ourselves and each other
This Shabbat, may we notice, and create, moments of tifferet in our lives and the lives of others.
This Sunday, we have the chance to learn from beautiful minds at our Mussar econference, April 26, 4.00-6.30. Register here
I look forward to seeing you there.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Marcia Plumb
TIFFERET BEAUTY What is beautiful about you, both inner and outer? What is something beautiful about each person in the family? What ‘beautiful’ thing did you do this week that made someone else feel good or beautiful?
Congregation Mishkan Tefila 384 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446
