There is a fascinating verse in this week's Torah portion, Reeh:
You are children of the Lord, your G-d. You shall neither cut yourselves nor make any baldness between your eyes, for the dead. (Deut. 14:1)
The custom of many pagans was to cut themselves in demonstration of grief over the death of a loved one. To vent their agony, they would make incisions in their flesh, pull out their hair, and flay their skin. The Torah prohibits this behavior. There must be limits to grief. This is the meaning of the Hebrew word "sisgodedu," to scrape off the flesh.
The Talmud, however, adds a second meaning to this commandment:
The Torah is saying: Do not splinter yourself into separate groups. ("sisgodedu," from the root word "agud" or "agudah," means groups.)
This is a prohibition against the Jewish people becoming divided. Practically, this is a prohibition against one Jewish court dividing into two and guiding the community in a conflicting fashion creating division and conflict.
One practical example would be this. If a synagogue has a certain tradition of how to pray, one may not come and begin praying in a different tradition without the consent of the community.
But there is something strange here. The Talmud and the Midrash often present various interpretations for one biblical term or verse; but nowhere do we find two interpretations that are completely disconnected. On the simple level, "sisgodedu" means scraping off your skin. Now the Talmud tells us that it also means, "don't split up into separate groups." How do these two divergent instructions come together in a single word? Why would the Torah communicate such two disparate ideas in one word-lacerating your body and dividing a community?
No Gashes
Or to put it more poignantly and humorously, the sages, it seems, by imposing this second meaning are "violating" the very injunction they are trying to convey. They take a simple word in the verse and they "splinter" its meaning.
One Organism
Yet it is here that we can once again gain insight into the depth of Torah wisdom.
The truth is, that the two interpretations are not only not divergent, they are actually one and the same. They both represent the same truth-one on a concrete, physical level; the other on a deeper, spiritual level.
The Torah prohibits us from cutting our skin as a sign of bereavement. Our bodies are sacred; our organism is integrated, precious and holy; we must never harm it. We must not separate even a bit of skin from our flesh. Even difficult moments of grief don't allow us to give up on our life and on the sacredness and beauty of our bodies.
But that is exactly what we are doing when we allow our people to become splintered. The entire Jewish nation is essentially one single organism. We may number 15 million people, and come from different walks of life, profess extremely different opinions, and behave in opposite ways, but we are essentially like one "super organism." When I cut off a certain Jew from my life, when I cut myself off from a certain Jewish community, I am in truth cutting off part of my own flesh.
When I cut my skin, I am lacerating my body. When I cut you off from me, I am lacerating my soul, because our souls are one.
Rabbi YY Jacobson
