Rabbi Nancy Wiener, D. Min., compares key roles of the Levitical priests of Biblical times to chaplains of today. They share in common the purpose of livui--accompaniment--of people between society's margins and its mainstream.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener, D. Min., was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and now serves on the faculty of its New York City campus as: Founding Director of the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counseling; Dr. Paul and Trudy Steinberg Distinguished Professor in Human Relations; and Fieldwork Coordinator. Rabbi Wiener, along with Rabbi Jo Hirschmann, is a co-author of Maps and Meaning: Levitical Models for Contemporary Care. Rabbi Wiener serves on the board of Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains. For a more extensive biography, click here
Much of this conversation centers around texts from the Book of Leviticus, specifically, Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 . These texts are read in the annual Torah reading cycle as part of the weekly portions Tazria (Leviticus 12:1-13:59) and Metzora (Leviticus 14:1-15:33). These portions will be read in synagogue shortly after this episode is published. Rabbi Wiener also refers to the Haftarah reading for Metzora taken from II Kings 7:3-20.
Glossary of key Hebrew terms in this episode:
Haftarah: Prophetic reading that accompanies the liturgical weekly Torah reading.
Livui Ruhani: Spirtual accompaniment; "Livui" comes from the same root as Levi, the tribe of the priests, the class of people who accompanied the nation through sacred rites; the modern Hebrew term for chaplaincy.
Mleaven (male)/ Melavah (female) Ruhani: One who provides spiritual accompaniment; the modern Hebrew term for chaplain.
Metzora: A person afflicted with the disease of tzara'at (see below).
Ohel Moed: Tent of Meeting
Tahor: Pure
Tamei: Impure
Tzara'at: a skin disease referred to in Leviticus 13 and 14. It has often been translated as leprosy, but many modern Biblical scholars reject this translation.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: Shalom and welcome to NeshamaCast, exploring Jewish spiritual care today. Brought to you by Neshama, Association of Jewish Chaplains. I’m your host, Rabbi Ed Bernstein.
We are recording on April first, 2024. This is a time on the Jewish calendar in which 2 seemingly contradictory events happen. On the one hand, we are less than a month prior to Passover. Around the Jewish community, people are planning for Passover by cleaning their homes and reflecting on the themes of the exodus from Egypt, to be discussed at the Seder. At the same time, according to the liturgical cycle of weekly tour readings, we have recently departed from the Book of Exodus, and we are now reading the third book of the Torah, Vayikra or Leviticus, precisely at the time when the season bids us to reflect on the meaning of freedom. Our Shabbat Torah readings leave the book of Exodus and they are concerned with matters of ritual, such as sacrifice, dietary laws, purity, impurity, bodily health, the health of a home and other ritual matters.
Let me bring in NeshamaCast contributor, Rabbi Katja Vehlow. Katja, what does Sefer Vayikra, the Book of Leviticus mean to you?
Rabbi Katja Vehlow : For me, Vayikra, the Book of Leviticus is all about communication. You look at the beginning, you know, it opens with a call: God called out to Moshe…. It's different. It's not the usual "and he spoke.” And then we turn to verse 2, and it continues, “speak to the Israelites.” To me, this asks all kinds of questions, you know, about who calls us, and how are we called? How do we know that we are called by God. So, for me, as a rabbi, as a chaplain, as a human being, the question of what it means to be called into this work, and also what it means to be called into being is one that shifts around, and that is good to return to from time to time. And the second topic I return to in this context is the topic of, korban, of sacrifice. It's a word whose roots literally means to bring near and versions of this word appear 4 times just in the second verse: “When any of you presents an offering of cattle to Adonai, you shall choose your offering from the herd or from the flock.”
I think this idea of connecting is also crucial for me, and my understanding of faith, and this God-me communication as well. How do I get closer to God, although I don't really know if my korban, my attempt at connecting is accepted. And even in general, when I try to speak to someone. I try to draw closer to them. But how do I do that?
And then to me also this other idea that you talked about so beautifully in the book. The idea, not just the priests, but all Israelites are holy and have jobs to do. That is just such a powerful notion. Ed, what does Leviticus mean to you?
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: Well, thank you, Katja, and everything you said resonates to me, and I'll just add to it. To me, Leviticus is about day-to-day life. Genesis and Exodus contain the grand narratives of the origin of our people. Leviticus picks up and says, okay, so you've made it out of Egypt. You're a free nation now. Here’s a template for daily life going forward in this light. The juxtaposition to Passover makes sense, the celebration of freedom in this season is in sync with our reading laws of daily living as a free people.
The problem is that so many of the arituals in Leviticus are difficult to understand for the modern reader. In college and Rabbinical school I encountered works of modern scholars, such as Jacob Milgram and Karen Armstrong who explain the difficult texts and show how they made perfect sense to the ancient Biblical readers to whom the texts were initially addressed.
However, while the scholars I encountered help unlock the mysteries of Leviticus, I still struggled as a rabbi, and I was a pulpit Rabbi, to make these texts meaningful for lay Jews. Then, a couple years ago, a chaplain colleague encouraged me to read the book Maps and Meaning Levitical Models of Contemporary Care and everything changed for me.
Our guest today, Rabbi Nancy Wiener, a co-author of Maps and Meaning, has studied and written about perhaps the most arcane sections of Leviticus. The parts that parents try to avoid when scheduling their children's Beney Mitzvah. And yet: this book tackles the difficult parts of Leviticus. It taps into the best of contemporary Bible scholarship to explain their meaning and context. While also making these texts relevant to contemporary readers.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener is founding director of the Jacob and Hilde Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counselling, and the Dr. Paul and Trudy Eisenberg and is the Dr. Paul and Trudy Steinberg, distinguished Professor in Human Relations at Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City. She is also the co-author with Rabbi Joe Hirschman of this extraordinary book Maps and Meaning: Levitical Models for Contemporary Care. Rabbi Wiener also serves on the Board of the Neshama, the Association of Jewish Chaplains where I am honored to serve with her as a colleague. Rabbi Nancy Wiener, welcome to NeshamaCast.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): Thank you. It's nice to be here today.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: We will soon get into your remarkable scholarship. But first, please tell us a bit of your spiritual and religious backstory in line with all the other previous guests on the Neshama cast. What was your spiritual life like growing up? And what was the path that led you to the Rabbinate and chaplaincy and Jewish spiritual leadership?
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): So, I was raised in a very committed and active Reform household. My parents actually founded a synagogue in the neighborhood where I was raised because there was no Reform synagogue in the neighborhood.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: What neighborhood was that?
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): It was a part of Newton, Massachusetts that didn't have a reform synagogue at the time. And actually, the synagogue met in our living room when I was a very little child. The rhythms of Jewish life were just part of my world. From my earliest memories, and being engaged in synagogue and having relationships with Rabbis, was also part of my world. One of my earliest memories as a elementary school kid was having somebody ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and saying that I wanted it to be a rabbi which didn't exist back then and having them say, oh, you'll be a wonderful religious school teacher.
But that idea stayed with me, and the world changed. Some of my formative experiences as a kid, were being an exchange student when I was in high school to Israel the year after the Yom Kippur War which had a really profound effect on me. Not the least of which was recognizing that the impact of that war on the kids that I was in high school with who were preparing to go off 2 years later and serve was raising all sorts of questions for them about what it meant to be defending a country, and to feel that they were profoundly aware of the horrors of war and the losses, because one of the battalions that was decimated in Sinai was kids who had been at the high school that I met was attending. I sort fought with myself about whether or not I wanted to pursue going into the rabbinate or not, and went and did other things, including teaching junior high school Spanish, and living in Spain and working in international business. And the more I did things radically apart from the Jewish community, the more I realized how much I wanted to be a part of a world where it was centered. Before going to Rabbinical School I went to Columbia and got a Master's degree in Jewish history and loved the studying, but also realized that I was getting into areas that were tremendously exciting for me, but very esoteric for other people, and wanted to be more engaged with the contemporary Jewish community and decided to go into the Rabbinate.
Rabbi Katja Vehlow (she, her): I'm really interested in hearing a bit more about how you navigate your many identities as an academic, as a rabbi, as a chaplain. I'm a former academic who went to Rabbinical School and trained as a chaplain, and I'm about to return to university life as a university chaplain. But what does it mean for you to be an academic and someone who spans a bridge to the wider world. And how do you help students develop tools to be more caring humans as they begin their careers?
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): So, I see what I do now, as the the bridge that I was seeking when I left at Pure Academia and went to Rabbinical school. I don't see the worlds as being separate. I see them informing each other and interacting with each other in really exciting and synergistic ways and that just the pure, academic or intellectual understanding of something is lacking, and needs the complementary real-life world to find its application. And so, I find it really wonderful to be studying different things in depth that are multidisciplinary, which is really how my mind works, and then to realize that that same complementarity that can exist, and the fusion of fields is a reflection of the complexity of every human being and so to be able to sit down with another human being and to be able to listen and see and experience on multiple levels that human being or a community and to be able to be open to hearing what it is that they're bringing and what it is that their needs are and to be able to draw on my own religious sensibilities, as well as the knowledge that I have feels like a gift to me, and a gift that I can bring to the world. By being at a seminary, I find that I'm actually in a world where all of those different disciplines are honored, and where my time with students is intentionally a fusion of sparking their intellectual curiosity and helping them understand that it's their humanity ultimately that they're bringing out into the world. And if they don't know themselves, and they don't care for themselves, they can't be there and care for others.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: Rabbi Wiener, let's jump into your scholarship, which I've been looking forward to discussing with your book Maps and Meaning that you coauthored with Rabbi Joe Hirschman. I'd like to ask you if you could talk about the basic premise, the thesis of the book, and also what prompted you to write it. What void did you seek to fill about a decade ago, when you wrote this book?
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): So, we began by asking the question of if there were any models for us as contemporary chaplains and pastoral care givers for the work that we do that we could find in classic Jewish texts. And so, we started by looking at the metzora, who was really the primary example of someone who had some sort of condition that could be seen as an illness that was uncertain in its duration, and where there were clearly ways in which in this case the priest was an ongoing presence, for the metzora.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: And just to contextualize, what is the metzora? And where do we find that.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): The metzora is found in Leviticus primarily in chapters 13 and 14, and the metzora is incorrectly translated as the person with leprosy. There is nothing that indicates that this is leprosy at all. And we started studying what tzoraat was, what the condition was, and the person who had the condition, metzora and how different strata of Jewish literature understood and related to the metzora. What we realized was that we needed to understand the ways in which the Biblical narrative constructed the world and that in order to understand what was going on with the metzora, who was required to spend time outside of the camp where the rest of the Israelites were, meant, that we needed to understand what the camp was, what the regions outside the camp were, and how people navigated transitions from being within or spending time outside of the camp.
This resonated with us in terms of times that people spend outside of the normal bounds of community, and in our world, the Jewish community and what it meant for the religious leader of the community to have access to both the community that was in the encampment, or say in our normative institutions and communities. And what it is to have access also, and to be required to spend time with those who were outside of the camp, and we started thinking of maps. Hence the title of the book.
There was a mental map that everyone in the community held of what was in the camp, what was outside the camp, who was in, who had to spend time outside of the camp, in addition to those with tzara’at. There was a military camp that was outside the camp and there were other individuals who at times needed to spend time outside the camp and one of the things that we noted was that there was the ohel moed inside the camp, which was the primary precinct where holiness resided, and where the priest had access to all of the precincts of the ohel moed.
And then there was another place where God could be found outside the camp a different ohel moed which was not bound by the rigid rituals that took place within the ohel moed, within the camp, but seemed to be a place where, if somebody found themselves outside the camp and needed to be communicating with God, they could go there. We dubbed it the tent of special appointments. It was like you made a special appointment to convene with God when you were outside the camp, and you could momentarily have the opportunity to commune with God. Again, we thought of resonances with contemporary people who might be outside the camp with the spaces that are set aside in hospitals for chapel chapels, or for say kids who might be at camp for the summer. There were places where they would go, which would be the places where everybody would gather for special meetings.
We were really taken by the idea that God walks in the camp with the soldiers while they're out there, that God can be present, though we tend to think of God's presence being in the ohel moed that's in the camp. God is momentarily present for those who are outside the camp as well, which we found very powerful.
So, there was this geographic map that we could draw out and then there was a secondary map that seemed to overlay that which had to do with 2 different things. One was holiness. and where holiness could reside. And then there were states of being that were recognized as influx where something could be either tahor, usually translated as pure or tamme, regularly translated as impure, and that in order for God to dwell in the ohel moed, there had to be both only things that were holy there and things that were tahor. And so, we started mapping out where there were areas where there could be both things that were tamme, and tahor, where things that were wholly could or could not be and realized that while it was arcane and really confusing for us as moderns that it seemed like the ancient Israelites held both of these maps, and therefore could live their lives guided by these 2 overlaid maps, and that if somebody was diagnosed with tzaraat, they understood that that meant that they couldn't be in the camp with everybody else, because they ran the risk of causing other people to become tamme and they would move outside the camp, but would know that there were clear ways for them to move back into being with the rest of the community again, once the condition subsided.
And so we started thinking about the ways in which our society does and doesn't understand what was embedded in these Biblical texts. We translated for ourselves: somebody whose tamme is somebody whose world is out of balance, where the equilibrium that they've known is suddenly thrown off and they're unable to function in the world in the ways that they they've known, and that people have known them to be able to function in. So, for example, we know, and our tradition is very, very strong and clear about the idea that after a death we don't function the way that we normally do, and it builds in all sorts of ways for us to not be expected to function as we do when we're not confronted with the death of somebody in our immediate world.
We don't have anything parallel for that built in for us as moderns or, and Jews in the modern world. When there's disease, or some sort of other thing that completely unmoors us, and throws us into a state of not knowing how to function, and feeling unbalanced in the world. We seem to be functioning in a world where if I'm sick today, I'm supposed to be fine tomorrow. If I've had something major, go on in my life, say, I've lost a job, or I've experienced something that was emotionally, really jarring. Then I'm supposed to brush myself off and go about my daily life.
Whereas in Leviticus we learned that when you've been in a situation that has been completely disorienting and thrown your equilibrium off, you need to not only go through a set of rituals that help you acknowledge the ways in which your inner and outer being have been affected but that you also need time. You need time to transition back and you need time to just get used to being back in the world that you've known, and for people to get used to your being back in that world as well.
One of the most striking images for us was when the metzora returned to the camp, the metzora sat at the entrance of their tent for a week just being there, not expected to be engaging with the community again, not expected to any of the normal things that they had done, but just to get used to being back there and for the community to get used to seeing them again and we inferred for them to get used to being back in the company of their family in their tent because everybody in that tent was equally affected by their being outside the camp though they weren't necessarily the person who was being identified as being the one who needed attention.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: In the mindset of the Biblical author, it seems like there's not a moral judgment of the metzora. It's just something that happens, right. And there's a procedure in place. For when someone has this disease, when something or someone is impure. We're not casting aspersions on that person. It's just there's a procedure you have to follow. Is that right?
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): Yes, two pieces of that that I'd like to unpack a little bit. One is that there's no moral judgment which we still have for many diseases and many conditions that people have. There was no assumption that that was a late, much later Rabbinic overlay.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: You're talking about the motze shem ra, the gossiping connection with Miriam. Because Miriam in Numbers. Chapter 12, is afflicted with tzaraat for speaking gossip about Moses, and so she is afflicted with some sort of skin ailment. And so, the rabbis make a connection between that and Leviticus. There must be some sort of moral judgment. But in the in the mindset of the author of Leviticus, at the time it was being written for the audience for whom it was written, there was no understanding of any moral culpability of someone who had tzaraat. It was just something that happened.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): It was just something that happened, and one of the most striking things for us was that even when required to be outside the camp, the person was never seen as not in relationship with God and not in relationship with the community.
Those ties endured and were being affirmed in multiple ways, even during the sojourn of the person outside the camp by the priest visiting weekly and spending time with them, by there being a way to communicate with God with the ohel moed that was outside the camp?
And that we tend to stigmatize people who are on the margins whereas in this set of mental maps that our ancestors seemed to have. There was no stigmatization at all, and, in fact, one of the readings that we thought was really interesting. many people have read the requirement of the metzora to rend their clothes and grow their hair, and muzz it up, and to wear veil over their lip, and to walk around saying tamme tamme as being the ultimate shaming. We read it in the context of all of the other laws that go along with the metzora as a way of the person saying: I'm hurting, in case you didn't notice. I'm hurting, and I need support. And this is affecting me inside and outside, and my whole world is turned upside down. Please pay attention to that. It matters. It matters to me, and it matters to you as a community as well.
The extension of that is that when Miriam is outside the camp, the encampment can't move. Everyone is at a standstill, because the absence of that person and the interconnectivity between the people who are on the margin and the people in the center hasn't been eradicated, and so they can't move because she can't move at that moment, either.
Rabbi Katja Vehlow (she, her): I wanted to come back very briefly to the first concept you talked about, which talks about being outside of the camp, michutz lamachaneh. I was really taken by the fluidity of this concept. In the book you describe that there is this “this very territory that's in that has the potential to become outside and vice versa as well.” I wonder if you could say a little bit more about this. Who is michutz lamachaneh today?
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): I think in many ways, in contemporary, certainly Jewish and American society there are people who are differently abled who are still michutz lamachaneh. We haven't fully been able to figure out how to integrate people into our broader world or to expand our boundaries. One of the other groups, I know that certainly, among my students there's a lot of concern about how the borders and boundaries of the Jewish community, as it has existed is responding to nonbinary and trans Jews. In my generation that same set of questions was being asked about lesbian engagement. And that's a great example of how the boundaries have shifted those questions are not dominating now. It's just in many sectors of the Jewish world. It's just understood that that boundary has now encompassed that group that was once marginalized and that the parameters of the camp shift. And the fact that you and I are recognized as rabbis in the world is another example of a boundary that seemed really fixed that moved and moved such that the people who didn't know the world before women could be ordained as a reality now, understand the camp as that's that's who that's the camp. That's what we know. That's what we live with.
One of the things that we found really striking was that while we tend to tell the stories of the Israelites go on their journeys as the camp, as if the camp remained a static place that every time they moved the parameters of the camp shifted entirely so that the place where one would imagine. Perhaps the metzora was the week before is now where the center of the camp is today or where the military camp was as the vanguard, for the movement in the desert is now the center of the camp, and that vanguard is another however, many meters ahead of that and that everybody learns to adapt and adjust to that, even though we all tend to chafe at change. It's a constant. And so that that map of the Israelite camp, and michutz lamachaneh is just a a real, strong reminder of both our adaptability and the need to be ready to move. Because things are never constant and not in flux in some way.
Rabbi Katja Vehlow (she, her): To add to this, how do you see the role of chaplains changing? How do chaplains reflect the former role of priests, for example. But how is it shifting, you know, just as the role of the camp and who's in and out is shifting. So certainly, our role is shifting as well.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): So, for many years the role of chaplain was identified with very, very specific institutions. RThere was the military chaplain, there was the campus chaplain. And there was the hospital chaplain, the healthcare chaplain. Our understanding of chaplain has exploded in the last number of years in terms of our understanding that there can be chaplains, not only at universities, but at schools of all different kinds. There can be movement chaplains. There can be chaplains who are community chaplains. There can be chaplaincy that's provided remotely. We've really started to understand the role of chaplain and the need for spiritual accompaniment as being something that is more universal than the very limited ways that we had been perceiving it before.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: To pick up on that the modern Hebrew term in Israel, for chaplain is melaveh ruhani, or the the action is Levui Ruhani, and there's a close connection between melave or livui and Levi, the Levites. Can you comment on that connection and elaborate on that? And how chaplains fill the role parallel to the priests.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): Sure, so that was one of the things that we noted in the book. The Levi is the one who accompanies people through the different rituals that they engage in both in and outside the camp. But also the Biblical priest had 2 additional major roles in terms of accompanying people both within as they left, and as they return to the camp, so the idea of accompanying was struck us as a literal sort of visual. I'll walk with you as you are within the camp. I'll walk with you as you cross its boundaries, and I'll walk with you while you are outside and that that was precisely what the Levitical priest did with the metzora.
But it's also what the Levitical priest did with the those who are about to engage in military service. They would be there with basically at what would be the corollary to their induction ceremony visibly there, giving them a blessing, helping them understand what their responsibilities were, as well as what their exemptions might be and what the risks were that they were about to encounter.
And then, when the battle was over and the troops were returning, the priest would go out of the camp and meet them outside the camp as part of their welcome back but also as a way of saying, and you need time. And you need to cleanse yourselves, and you need to somehow digest the range of experiences that you've had that have been so out of the ordinary for the typical person in the encampment that you need to go through these steps, and I will be here to help you go through these steps before you can re-enter civilian life. And that again level of being present and accompanying step by step is part of what we, as contemporary chaplains, do as well. And what all of us who offer spiritual care, no matter the venue. And certainly, our colleagues, who are in congregational life do it all the time with people across the lifespan as they are accompanying them through all the transitions that they go through.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: I wanted to just revisit one thing in terms of the metzora in the Scholarship. Like Professor Milgram. He mentions that the metzora is a when there's bodily illness, it's a reminder of death. So back when I encountered Milgram 30 some years ago, and I encountered that theory. And he says it's not a judgmental thing according to the Biblical author, there cannot be a reminder of death within the precincts, the dwelling place of the living God. That's what I recall from his scholarship. I'm just playing with that metaphor in terms of how we bring that into the modern world. It seems like to some extent we may have more modern ways of doing things, but in some ways people who remind us of our mortality are still kind of put outside the camp in hospitals, in nursing homes. And it's the chaplains who bridge those 2 worlds. But I'm just wondering if you can comment on modern society today that we still basically have the same construct as the ancients did, we might use different names. But what does it mean for us that we still don't like to be reminded of our mortality.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): I think we are actually worse at being in the presence of death, and our own mortality, or any reminder of it, than any prior generations. Most people are so removed from it because of the institutions that we've created, where we relegate people who are ill or dying. So that you have to make a special effort to be in their presence as opposed to people being sick and dying at home for most of human history. That we have from my perspective a lot of educating to do so that that separation doesn't seem like it has to be, or that it should be normative so that we nurture new generations of kids and then, when they become adults of people who are just used to going to nursing homes and who are comfortable going and visiting people in hospitals, and don't get anxious when they have to go do a Shiva call. That these are just parts of life, and that showing up matters and that that accompaniment is not just something that those of us who are trained to do can do, but that everybody can hear of somebody who is in need and be responsive and feel a responsibility to respond and to show somebody that they're not alone. And I think that that is the biggest tragedy of our having these places outside the camp that people feel that only those who have license to go to those places can go to them. And that it’s in many ways up to those of us who have that license to dispel that perception and to keep inviting people to come and to be with us, and to be with the people who hopefully, back to the metaphor of the ever-changing boundaries of the camp that those places that are currently outside the camp will become places within the camp again where people will feel that of course they have access, that they should be part of the daily lives of people who today they don't have access to.
Rabbi Katja Vehlow (she, her): The last chapter of Maps and Meaning is titled, The Priest, Prophet and Pastor in Each of Us and you begin that chapter with a quote from Primo Levi, and I quote: “in order for the wheel to turn for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too as is known if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed. Fascism does not want them, forbids them. It wants everybody to be the same inaccurate virtue does not exist either. Or, if it exists, it is detestable." How do you use this quotation in the chapter, how does the priest, the prophet, and the pastor, exist in each of us?
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): So, we each have the possibility of accompanying other people in meaningful ways. We have the possibility of helping people name what's going on in their lives and to feel that they deserve to be recipients of care and attention. Like the ancient priests, each of us has the possibility of appreciating the small and large things that distinguish one person from another without passing judgment on their moral viability and for me the prophetic piece is to be able to do 2 things simultaneously. One is to be able to cure what somebody is not yet ready to articulate. sort of like curing the still small voice. And the other is being able to hear the story of an individual and to be able to recognize when it's indicative of a larger story or problem that is actually society's issue.
And then to say, and as an individual who has heard this story or has become aware of this issue. I need to take action and I need to help others become aware of that and the ancient Priest was paying attention to the smallest details. And we tend not to pay attention to the small details that people share with us. We're looking for the big, splashy things. And if we can become more attuned to the small things that people share. And to recognize that they'll share those small things first and then we can get deeper and deeper. If we've received those with love and care and concern, and then we can draw nearer to each other back to your early comment. Right? What is it to be drawing close to another individual? And how does drawing close to individuals and members of communities help us draw closer to God and to ourselves. Those are things that transcend I hope the area of the world that clergy inhabit or pastoral caregivers inhabit and are things that every human being can offer to another human being.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: Rabbi Wiener. I believe you recently organized a major conference on pastoral care at the Blaustein Center. What was the conference about? And how did you apply your scholarship to the conference and did it include any takeaways that you want to comment about.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): On March seventh we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Blaustein center for pastoral counseling and there were a couple of different components to the day. One was a public program where I spoke about the history of what we'd done, but also where I spoke about the ways in which pastoral careworkers are invited into other people's holy of holies and the ways in which just as in the sacrificial system, there were all sorts of things that other people don't have access to, and that sometimes can be really, really messy but that there's a holiness in that moment of revelation that somebody else will bring to us as chaplains, that is transformative for them and for us. And that really helps us experience something that is transcendent.
And I also spoke about the ways in which we are often in a position of listening to what's hard to hear to something that has shattered somebody's heart, and that hearing it is heart shattering for us. And that it's precisely learning how to hold what is shared with us, seeing and hearing that individual reflecting on it in terms of what it means for us as the human beings that we are, and in light of our tradition that helps us eventually remain present to hear what's hard to hear and that that is a gift that we have. For me that also relates back to part of what we wrote in the book in terms of the Hatat offering, the sin offering, and that the priest couldn't eat of the his own hatat, had to bring it outside the camp, and that we, too, need the supports both from our tradition and from our training, etc. to be able to do the work that we do and to continue to do it.
We also, I gathered, CPE, Jewish CPE supervisors and people who teach pastoral counseling at Jewish seminaries for a day of learning together, which ended up being a really powerful day for us to be reflecting on the impact of our understanding of what we do in light of October seventh and also to be thinking about the ways that we can intentionally be looking at what we do as complimentary contributing factors to the nurturance of the next generation of rabbis cantors and pastoral caregivers.
One of the things that emerged from those discussions was that we really have found ourselves back to one of the impetuses for writing the book in territory that we've never been in before. None of us have tried to offer care or to understand ourselves in the world as it now exists. And the idea of trying to figure out what helps us remain moored when our moorings have been pulled out from underneath us and how we maintain a sense of being oriented in the world when our axes of orientation have been thrown off in major ways?
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: Yeah. October seventh really has thrown us off our communal axes. We are recording at a particularly challenging time. It's nearly 180 days nearly 6 months after the attacks of October seventh, 2023. The metaphor of mechutz lamachaneh, outside the camp seems apt for so much of the Jewish world today, there are the survivors of the actual terror and the trauma that that entails. There are soldiers at war. There are Jews around the world who have been ostracized, and some literally thrown out of their political camps because they are Jews. How you've spoken a little bit but can you go a little deeper. How are you making sense out of all of this? Are there ways additional ways to apply your work and maps, and meaning to help us draw a fresh roadmap through these turbulent times.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener: So, one of the things that has been really striking for me is that the ancient priest could contract tzora’at, so the idea that the communal leaders, the communal spiritual leaders could know what it was like to be themselves afflicted by something that threw them completely off whack and place them outside of the world that they've known and understood and know how to navigate really has tremendous residence for me right now, in terms of all of us as pastoral caregivers. We are trying to offer care at the same time that we are completely in territory that is vaguely familiar, but not. We've never lived here before we visited, but we've never lived here before in this way. And that we all need to be drawing on the ohel moed that is outside the camp because we have needs that we've never had before, either. And they're individual as well as collective And I think that there's a real power in the haftorah that goes with Metzora for us to be thinking about. We're all sitting outside the camp right now, but it doesn't mean that we have to all be alone.
The metzoraem found each other, and they found some purpose, and they found, even in the threats that abounded around them, and the spoils that they came across potential for hope and a recreation of what they needed and wanted. But it wasn't easy, and it wasn't immediately apparent.
The other thing that I've been thinking about with regard to the work that we did on this book and October seventh is the elaborate rituals that were in place for the warriors to return fly in the face of the way that the Israeli military has always functioned to go from being in miluim (reserve duty) right now and going home for Shabbat, and then going back to the front is so mind blowing, and so such huge demand placed upon the returning soldier for the weekend, the family for the weekend, the whole community for the weekend, and for all of them to have to be shifting back and forth is huge. And friends that I've spoken with, who are therapists and spiritual caregivers in Israel have been commenting on the number of people who have been commenting on this in recent months.
It's a real area for serious thought to be given about how we can be supporting both. What is the norm in terms of weekly rhythms for people who are in the army, and also to be supporting the soldiers and their families with this sustained war, which nobody has ever lived through. In Israel like this before either so.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: Rabbi Wiener, as we draw near our conclusion, I'm wondering if you have any additional messages you have on chaplaincy, Leviticus, the upcoming holiday of Pesach Passover, managing challenging times or anything else on your mind.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener: I've been thinking a lot about the description of Pharaoh throughout the plagues and the repetition of the hardening of the heart and wondering what it is for us to look at ourselves, and to see the ways in which as we've been feeling assaulted and thrown off whack, wow we make sure our hearts aren't hardening and how we might continue to push ourselves to keep listening. And there's a description in Exodus 7 of Pharao just turning away and going home like I've had enough, I'm gonna cover my ears and cover my eyes, and I'm not going to pay attention to the plagues going on around me, I'm not going to listen to what anybody's saying. Anyway, I'm on overload and how much that impulse exists in all of us and how at a time of tremendous stress and anxiety, particularly as caregivers, we might have the impulse when I'm not at work, I just want to do that. But what it what it does for us, if that is the only impulse that we're leaning towards, and what for our own care and our own sustenance would be missed if that's where we head.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: Rabbi Nancy Wiener. I feel like I could talk to you all day, but I want to thank you at this moment for joining us on Nashama Cast, and I just want wanna note that your service and scholarship are a blessing to all of us, and I pray that you will be blessed with good health and strength to continue your sacred work.
Rabbi Nancy Wiener (she/her): Thank you. It's a pleasure talking with you.
Rabbi Edward Bernstein: NeshamaCast is a production of Neshama, the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. Thank you to our guest, Rabbi Nancy Wiener.
Check out of show notes for more information on her and additional resources regarding texts, discussions and a glossary of Hebrew terms.
Special thanks for Rabbi Katja Vehlow, for participating in today’s interview and for her production assistance, along with Allison Atterbury, NAJC acting executive director, and Rabbi Drew Kaplan and the NAJC Social Media Committee.
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May we all work together to heal our world.