Emor 5776 - English

Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik

Congregacion Kol Shearith Israel

Chapter 23 of the Book of Vayikra, within Parashat Emor, brings us the complete biblical calendar including the 3 Peregrination festivities – Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot – and the two minor festivities linked with the priests, Yom Truah, which would later become Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. The list of festivities is headed by the celebration of the Sabbath. 

It should be noted that the seventh day is an “artificial” concept. Unlike the day, the month, or the year, which are concepts associated with the moon and the sun, the week as a measurement of time is not tied to any natural phenomenon (although some say it could be related to the quarters of the lunar cycle). It is even less tied to a holy commemoration every seven days.

This peculiarity of the Sabbath is also expressed since its first mention in the Torah. There it appears connected to the verb “leKaDeSH”, to sanctify. After creating and blessing man, after finishing his creation, God sanctifies the Shabbat: “And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation which He had done.” (Gen. 2:3) Throughout the entire process of creation, nothing else merited such a description, holiness is related specifically with time. 

We must add another innovative aspect from the biblical calendar in the establishment of the Shabbat. While in ancient times these festivities had merely an agricultural content – they accompanied the process of the harvest – the Torah assigns them another function: that of commemorating historical events of the Jewish people (Pesach with the exodus from Egypt, Sukkot in memory of the 40 years in the desert). 

Thus, we see how a true theological revolution begins to take place in the biblical text: God is not revealed only as a local deity anymore nor is He connected to an object or a place, but by appearing linked with the founding events of the Jewish people, He becomes the God of history. 

Contrary to the cultures of the era that worshiped the forces of nature, the Torah tells us about a God that exists beyond the dimensions of space, proclaiming there is another dimension that is not only profoundly linked to this one, but that endows it with meaning too: the dimension of time. 

While other peoples believed that time was just the cyclical reiteration of the same moments, the biblical text incorporates the idea of the linearity of history, giving each instant the possibility of becoming an unrepeatable experience. 

In the beautiful and deep words of Rabbi Abrahem J. Heschel (The Shabbat and the Modern Man, pg. 15):

"Judaism is the religion of time which aspires to the sanctification of time. Unlike the man who is mentally dominated by space, for whom time is unchanging, iterative, homogeneous… the Bible perceives the distinct character of time. No two hours are the same, each one is unique and special…” 

This tendency was strongly emphasized after the destruction of the second Temple of Jerusalem (in the year 70 C.E.) The Rabbinic Judaism that grew from this new reality developed a way of life in which there were no more sacred places but sacred moments. 

In this way, the notion of time as the regulatory framework for the spiritual and ritual beat of the people was established. The development of prayer and the establishment of protocols, ceremonies, and blessings set out the rules for each person to touch the holiness of time at each moment of their lives within their families and within their communities. But in the end, the Jewish calendar with its festivities and commemorations is the central axis that reminds us that the challenge is still to achieve the sanctification of time. 

Shabbat Shalom

Gustavo