A Discerning Eye

Sometimes, you want a short, pithy phrase to remind you who you are, what matters to you, and what you are trying to do in life. A tagline, mission statement, or mantra, anything that feels grounding and returns you to purposeful and meaningful activities. 

One of my favorite taglines comes to mind every time I sit down to prepare a d’var torah: “Close reading is an act of love.” Like a birder, I stealthily sit down in the presence of Torah and peer through the lens of text, context, interpretation, and imagination. I patiently but passionately ready myself for the subtle call, the flash of something unexpected, the wonder of noticing something new or the warmth of revisiting an old friend. 

This week it took until the very last verses of the parashah, summarizing a lengthy list of kosher and non-kosher animals, to find what I hadn’t yet known I was looking for:

These are the instructions concerning animals, birds, all living creatures that move in water, and all creatures that swarm on earth, for distinguishing between the impure and the pure, between the living things that may be eaten and the living things that may not be eaten. (Vayikra / Leviticus 11:46-47)

לְהַבְדִּ֕יל בֵּ֥ין הַטָּמֵ֖א וּבֵ֣ין הַטָּהֹ֑רL’havdil bein ha’tamei v’ha’tahor.To distinguish between the impure and the pure. 

This must be one of Vayikra’s taglines! Havdalah, if it is a familiar word, likely brings you to Saturday evening and the ritual we use to end Shabbat. It literally means “distinguishing” or “separating.” Here it is used simply to name the purpose of Vayikra’s instructions on kosher animals. 

But it isn’t simply about knowing that a cow is (generally) kosher and a horse isn’t. Once you learn that rule, you are unlikely to run into an edge case where you can’t tell if an animal is a cow or a horse! (For the parents reading, there’s a charming Bluey episode about precisely this dilemma.)

Rashi (11th century, France) clarifies that the goal of being able to l’havdil is “not that one should only learn the laws, but it is a command that you should know and recognize the differences and be expert in them… You shall distinguish between such an animal as is clean (permitted) to you and such as is unclean (forbidden) to you even though it is a clean animal per se, i.e., make a distinction between an animal which has been killed by cutting at least the greater part of each organ (the gullet and the windpipe) or whether it has been killed by cutting exactly the half of each organ. And how much difference is there between the greater part and the exact half? A hair’s breadth only.”

In other words, l’havdil means you have to see with a discerning eye and have discriminating judgment. The priestly book of Vayikra is certainly interested in the rules of kashrut and all the other practices it lays out, but it is also interested in teaching us to be close readers, to be people with heightened sensitivity to subtle nuances, whether we are gathered about a slaughtered animal, a sacred text, or a moral dilemma. 

So often, we contrast nuance with oversimplification. Those who know we need nuance in reading the political and moral situations of our time are often stuck with the lackluster tagline, “But wait…” or even worse, “But what about…” Meanwhile, those quick to conviction rush ahead, trying to get stuff done for good or for ill. 

But Vayikra’s approach to nuance is different.  It is a marriage of making slow and careful observations and taking a clear and courageous stand. A hairsbreadth may separate opinions, but we still need to distinguish between what we find true or useful, and what leads us astray. There are no shortcuts, nor should we just walk in circles. 

One of the great moral aspirations we are called to is to hone our judgment, to see more clearly what is “kosher” and what isn’t. 

Discernment is by definition not about obvious choices. When have you needed to discern something important (perhaps about a job or a relationship)? Who or what helped you refine your judgment? And of course I have to ask - what might your tagline be?

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine