Kabbalat Shabbat Kavannah | Rabbi Roly Matalon | June 26, 2026

This week.

This week's Torah portion.

Begins with one of the strangest

rituals in the Torah the Para Duma, the ritual of the red cow.

The red heifer.

And here's the ritual.

If someone came into contact with a dead body,

they become ritually impure,

and they could no longer participate in the rituals of the temple.

A completely red cow

had to be brought, slaughtered, and burned.

Its ashes were mixed with water,

and the person who had come

who had become impure, would be sprinkled with this water.

Through this ritual, they regained ritual purity and were able to return

to the community and regain access to the temple.

The rabbis struggled to understand this ritual,

which borders on hocus pocus and magic.

The tradition says that even King Solomon,

the wisest of all people, could not make sense of it.

I thought I could fathom

it, but it remained beyond me, he says in Coghill. It.

What is perhaps most puzzling in this ritual

is that the person who is impure becomes pure,

while the person who performs the purification

becomes impure.

In a subtle way,

the Torah may be warning us

to be very careful whenever we think

we know exactly who is pure

and who is impure, who belongs,

and who does not belong,

who is worthy and who is not.

And who are we to judge?

This is not an ancient thing.

We still divide humanity that way.

As Pride Month comes to a close,

many members of the LGBT community and especially trans people

are living with fear, uncertainty,

and the painful experience of being told explicitly

or now more openly and implicitly, that they do not belong.

This week, we have also witnessed

an intensification of the administration's onslaught

against immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

So many people are living in fear.

The Supreme Court allowed the administration to move forward

with ending the temporary protected status for thousands of people,

mostly from Haiti and Syria, who have built their lives in this country

and now face the possibility of deportation.

People who thought they belonged

are now being told they do not.

And many Jews are asking difficult questions as well.

As anti-Semitism continues to rise

and we Jews are increasingly vilified.

And many of us are wondering whether there is still room for us

in progressive spaces without having to leave an essential part of ourselves,

our Jewish identity, or our connection to with Israel.

At the door.

We keep drawing lines.

Who is in?

Who is out?

Perhaps that is why the Torah gives us

a ritual that refuses to make sense.

A ritual that reminds us that our categories are too simple

and categorical for the complexity of human life.

The ritual includes both

both cedarwood and hyssop.

Rashi comments that the cedar is the tallest of trees.

The hyssop is among the smallest.

The cedar, he says, represents pride.

The hyssop represents humility.

Those who think to highly of themselves must learn

to become as humble as the hyssop.

Maybe this is what this parasite asks of us.

Less certainty and more humility, less judgment and eagerness

to decide who belongs, and more willing willingness to widen the circle

and be inclusive before

the mystery of another human life.

Humility is much holier than certainty.