Emor - Weekly Torah Portion

The Haftarah for Shabbat Emor recites the words of the prophet Ezekiel, “‘the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who took responsibility for My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to serve Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood,’ declares the Lord God.” It continues with their tasks regarding the offerings and commitments that reflect the words of the portion of the Torah we read on this Shabbat and which are typical to the book of Leviticus. Among others, the prophet states, “They shall also keep My laws and My statutes in all My appointed feasts, and sanctify My Sabbaths.” This connect to the portion of Emor, where we find these words, “The Lord spoke again to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord’s appointed times which you shall proclaim as holy convocations—My appointed times are these’.’”

These are then detailed; however, it is quickly evident that some of those we celebrate today make no appearance in this passage. There is not mention of Lag BaOmer, neither Purim or Hanukkah. Those that do appear are first the Shabbat, which has a weekly occurrence, then Passover, the seventh day of Passover, Shavuot, “a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets” which is Rosh HaShana, the Day of Atonement – Yom Kippur, Succoth, and Shmini Atzereth, the eighth day from Succoth. Shabbat comes first, “For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a Sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. You shall not do any work; it is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwellings.” Hence there is a measurable difference between work days where “work may be done” as opposed to the seventh day where “any work” may not be done. It is a clear distinction between two parts of the week. In other words, we may say that there is no meaning to a Shabbat if it cannot be differentiated from the rest of the days of the week.

In the Mishna, the Shabbat tractate, we learn about the 39 basic types of work. Among others sowing, plowing, harvesting, hunting, baking, kneading, weaving, sewing, writing two letters, erasure to enable writing of two letters, extinguishing a fire, and lighting a fire. This may raise an interesting question – is it possible to have Shabbat if it cannot be distinguished from other days of the week? Is it possible that a person that only studies texts, only for the purpose of studying them, can actually maintain the mitzvah of Shabbat? The list of what is considered as fathers of work deal with what happens during weekdays are directed towards the ability to change the world. On Shabbat we are expected to cease that and enjoy the world as it is. Those who simply repetitiously memorize texts without even bothering to write something new about it do not seem to be doing even the minimum required act of work during the working days. That makes their Shabbat questionable as it cannot be differentiated from the rest of the week by the work criteria.

It is not that I would like to suggest that it makes sense in our days to create some kind of Shabbat-metric to establish who keeps and who does not keep the Shabbat. Sometimes those who do not seem to be keeping the Shabbat in fact do, while others who seemingly keep it, actually do not. The idea of the Shabbat is to create some kind of distinct differentiation between the workdays and the day of rest, a day of change. The workdays are those were we change the world; the Shabbat is the day where we can review that which has changed. On the Shabbat we can take the time to take it all in, enjoy that which we have done and maybe spend some time doing something else. We can certainly avoid the week’s rat-race where we are fully committed to work. We can dedicate time to our family, ourselves, processing and maybe even planning for the week ahead.

Shabbat Shalom and wishes for Good Health.

Reuven Marko, 30 April 2021, 19 Iyar, 5781