Emor: Holy Days

Within the passages of Emor, the Jewish calendar takes shape, G-d laying out a yearly cycle constructed around pillars of holiness, the ’מועדי ה, ‘the fixed times of G-d’ (Leviticus 23:2). These fixed times consist of the festivals of Rosh HaShana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot, each celebrated and observed at different points in the year, their exact dates determined by the Bet Din. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks notes that these passages are significant, as, ‘unlike the Exodus and Deuteronomy passages[, Emor] includes Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur’, laying out specific mitzvot for each festival, notably Sukkot – Emor is the ‘only place where the Torah mentions the arba minim, the “four kinds”, and the command to live in a sukka’.[1] Yet, before these festivals are discussed, G-d revisits the first holy day mentioned in all of Torah: Shabbat.

In his commentary in Studies in Spirituality (2021), Rabbi Sacks views this inclusion of Shabbat as one of ‘various structural oddities’ in these passages, though he notes that ‘this [inclusion] would not be strange in itself [since] Shabbat is one of the holy days’.[2] We know from Bereshit that Shabbat is sacred, G-d blessing it and declaring it holy after He created the world (Genesis 2:3). Why, then, is it included among the festivals, which are holy in different ways and reference entirely different things? The festivals are described using the words מועד (‘appointed time’) and מקרא-קדש (‘sacred assembly’), language which is also applied to Shabbat, Rabbi Sacks noting that ‘bringing the two together under a single head seems to make no sense’.[3] מועד and מקרא-קדש are not applied to Shabbat anywhere else in Tanach, making it even more puzzling in Emor – if Shabbat is a temporal concept, how can it entail an assembly, sacred or otherwise?

I would argue that it is possible to bring these two words, these two concepts – מועד and מקרא-קדש – in conversation with each other in the context of Shabbat. Firstly, Shabbat’s מועד is clearly designated in the early passages of Bereshit, in which G-d declares the seventh day to be Shabbat – at the culmination of a week of work, of physical creation, one may always find these 25 hours in which such work and materialistic endeavors are laid aside in favor of the emotional, the interpersonal, the spiritual. The literal meaning of מועד is clear here, yet, as Rabbi Sacks points out, its use in the phrase אהל מועד, a ‘tent of meeting’, the place in which man and G-d could meet, gives it greater meaning beyond the literal.[4] This idea of a ‘place’, whether a physical space or a mental state, gives the seemingly temporal meaning of מועד an entirely different dimension, relating it far more easily to the phrase מקרא-קדש, which, like ‘meeting’, refers to a ‘sacred assembly’, a holy meeting of many. Where the Mishkan and the First and Second Temples would have served as places of ‘sacred assembly’, as biblical critics Trevan G. Hatch and Loren D. Marks note, ‘after the temple’s destruction in 70CE, Shabbat observance became even more central for Jews, preserving the Jewish nation in the absence of its temple and sacrifice’.[5] They go on to write that ‘what was primarily a space-oriented system of approaching the divine before 70 CE was later transformed into a time-oriented system, with a particular focus on Shabbat’, though I would suggest that this temporality was present long before the destruction of the Bet HaMikdash, folded into the words of Torah that we read in Emor.[6] In attributing מועד and מקרא-קדש to Shabbat, Emor imbues this holy day not only with a temporal aspect but an unusual physical one, since Shabbat can be celebrated anywhere in the world. The physical space for ‘assembling’ with G-d transforms into a mental space, Shabbat offering a chance to meet with that which we may not have been able to meet with properly in the week: spirituality.

With this in mind, Shabbat becomes the weekly moment in which humanity may engage with spirituality and holiness, taking a moment to breathe away from the bustling weeks behind and ahead. Though we remain in the material world, a world we need to sustain us physically as human beings, Shabbat allows us to elevate some of this materialism: the food we cook becomes holier, prepared before Shabbat begins, blessed, and eaten with family and friends; the words we read and the songs we sing can be engaged with more deeply, away from our material responsibilities; the conversations we have can be brought into sharper focus, our attention not split across various tasks. After all these days of creation, Shabbat offers what bible critic Marvin A. Sweeney calls ‘a day of rest for all creation so that creation might rejuvenate itself and thereby better ensure its viability or sustainability’ in a parallel to G-d’s actions and rest in Bereshit.[7] On Shabbat, we may revitalize our creativity by allowing it some repose, looking to our relationships with others and with G-d for sustenance.

As Rabbi Sacks so beautifully writes, Shabbat allows us to ‘celebrate our blessings, renew our relationships, and recover the full vigor of body and mind’, things that give our life true meaning.[8] Where we might be more self-serving during the week, Shabbat is the time and space in which we can serve something other than ourselves – our partners, our families, our friends, and, quite literally through prayer and blessing, G-d. It is no wonder, then, that Shabbat is situated among the holy festivals which give us identity, purpose, and reminders of our human fallibility and fragility. Shabbat reminds us of what is truly important in our lives, providing us the time and space to remember, revitalize and recenter, its weekly occurrences throughout the year spreading spirituality and holiness throughout the days in our calendars.

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[1] Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Studies in Spirituality (2021), pg.156

[2] Sacks, Studies in Spirituality, pg.156

[3] Sacks, Studies in Spirituality, pg.157

[4] Rabbi Sacks, Studies in Spirituality, pg.159

[5] Trevan G. Hatch and Loren D. Marks, ‘Sanctuary in Time: Shabbat as the Soul of Modern Jewry and the Essence of “Doing” Judaism’ in The Routledge Handbook of Jewish Ritual and Practice, (2022), pp.361-370, pg.362

[6] Hatch and Marks, pg.362

[7] Marvin A. Sweeney, ‘Shabbat An Epistemological Principle for Holiness, Sustainability and Justice in the Pentateuch’ in Christian Origins and the New Testament in the Greco-Roman Context: Essays in Honor of Dennis R. MacDonald, ed. Margarel Froelich, Michael Kochenash, Thomas E. Phillips, Ilseo Park, (2016), pp.53-81, pg.61

[8] Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Judaism’s Life-Changing Ideas, (2020), pg.171