Taking Out the Garbage

Ufashat et begadav.  ופשט את בגדיו  He removed the clothing he was wearing. 

V’lavash b’gadim aherim.  ולבש בגדים אחרים  And he put on different clothing.

V’hotzi et hadeshen el mihutz lamahaneh.  והוציא את הדשן אל מחוץ למחנה  And he took the ashes outside of the camp.

The Torah is a profound book.  It talks about the creation of the world.  It talks about creating a just society.  It talks about journeys from slavery to freedom, from wilderness to promised land.

Why on earth does this same Torah tell us, in effect, that the Kohen, the priest, changed his outfit in order to take out the garbage?

Rashi says that the Torah is teaching basic derekh eretz, good manners.  The Kohen didn’t want to mess up the clothing that he used for the ritual sacrifices, so he wore a less dignified outfit.

For me personally, this little action on the part of the Kohen is a metaphor for what we need to do more often than we do, and that is, to step away from business as usual, to dress down if we need to, and to begin to remove the garbage that’s all around us and that sometimes seeps within.

By garbage, I mean unacceptable circumstances that we nevertheless accept, due to factors like inertia, obligation and fear. 

When you see an individual or a nation “put on new clothing” and begin to remove the garbage, it’s inspirational.

I want to share some of the inspiration, and then I want to challenge each of us to look within ourselves.

A few days ago, the acting president of Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov, wrote an op-ed to the Times in which he presented a message to the Russian leadership, especially Vladimir Putin. 

In it he points out that his predecessor, by responding to the pro-European yearnings of Ukrainians with force, actually strengthened the opposition, and how the current escalation of force by the Russian leadership will not be able to extinguish the aspirations of the Ukrainian people for democracy and liberty.

What we’re witnessing in Ukraine, it seems to me, is the growing, collective refusal of a nation to submit to an oppressive regime any longer.

If I may invoke the metaphor, we are seeing a national campaign to remove the garbage.

The Ukrainian people by and large are no longer willing to submit to bullying and to a suppression of basic human rights.

Mind you, it took them time to evolve to this point, but they have arrived and it seems like there’s no turning back.  The risk of “taking out the garbage” is great; the need to do it is growing.

For all of the citizens of Ukraine, including the over 60,000 Jewish citizens, we pray for a peaceful resolution to this conflict.

In the now-classic book about family therapy called The Family Crucible, written by therapists Augustus Napier and Carl Whitaker, the authors argued that when families come in for therapy, it’s because they have identified one family member as the problem. 

Families would show up for therapy and say, Tommy has a problem, that’s why we’re here.  To help Tommy with his problem. 

As Napier and Whitaker discovered in their vast experience with families, however, Tommy wasn’t the only one with the problem.  He was just the one who presented with a problem. 

But if the family had the courage and the patience, they could often ALL come to a place of heightened awareness by virtue of the initiation of the so-called “problem child.”

One member of the family, out of necessity, consciously or not, challenges the entire family to take out the garbage.

Naturally, many families are afraid of that.  They would rather keep puttering along with a whole list of things they don’t do or even talk about.  So sometimes it’s a gift for everyone, albeit a painful one, when one member changes his or her outfit a bit and says, “it’s time.  Time to stop pretending everything is AOK.  Time to stop worrying so much about what the neighbors will say.  Time to take out the garbage so we can live more honestly.

Tonight we’ll be reading the story of Haman and Ahashverosh, Esther and Mordecai, in ancient Shushan.

Shushan was a beautiful place, the capital city of the greatest empire on earth at the time, stretching from India to Ethiopia.

But there was a lot of garbage in Shushan.  A king who made party after party and treated women like trinkets. 

An official who was allowed to turn his own personal vendetta into a genocide campaign because who worries about genocide when there’s another bottle of wine to be drunk? 

And a queen who was told by the man she trusted most in the world, don’t tell anyone who you actually are. 

That queen, Queen Esther, may even have been a little embarrassed of her Jewish heritage.  When Mordecai heard about Haman’s murderous plans, he appeared in the royal court wearing sackcloth and ashes, in keeping with the ancient Jewish tradition of tearing one’s garment upon hearing terrible news.

Esther said, you can’t come to the palace like that.  Perhaps due to her being told to keep her identity a secret, perhaps out of fear, perhaps feeling somewhat awestruck by the glamour of her new life, Esther warned Mordecai not to do anything “too Jewish” in the gentile court.

But all along, in lovely ancient Shushan, a few key people had the courage to push back against the trash pileup.  Queen Vashti, refusing to be her husband’s evening entertainment; Mordecai, refusing to bow down to a megalomaniacal descendant of the arch enemy of the Jewish people.  And finally Esther, who realized that she faced an historic moment that would require her to claim her identity and find the courage to speak.

When nations continue to submit to tyranny; when families lack the courage to face skeletons in the closet or elsewhere; when people of all ages are too intimidated to assert their identities – stemming from religion, from sexuality, from ideology, from gender – the garbage starts to pile up.  At first you don’t notice it, but you know what happens to garbage when it piles up.  Eventually it starts to stink.

Let us be courageous, like Esther, and claim who we are and say what we need to say.

Let us, like the ancient Kohen, change our outfit if necessary.  Sometimes our outfit is part of the problem.

And then we can take the deshen outside.  We can remove the garbage, maybe all at once, maybe just a little bit at a time.

So that inside, in our nations, in our families, in our hearts, the honest work can begin.