Parshat Emor; Leviticus 21:1-24:23
This week’s portion Emor outlines the yearly holiday and festival cycle. It describes in detail the moedim, or fixed times of sacred gathering that are the Israelites’ holy day calendar. The Torah outlines in addition to the Sabbath, the weekly holy day, the three pilgrimage festivals, Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot, and the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It tells the days to observe these sacred gathering and a little about how to observe them. Although the details with which we observe these holy days in our time have developed throughout history, with additional interpretations and with influences of traditions, local custom and lore.
One passage in this section (Lev. 23:15-16) outlines the period of time that we are in now; the counting of the Omer, which begins on the second night of Passover and continues until Shavuot. The omer was an ancient measure of barley that was brought to the Temple as a sacrifice. Each day in this 50 day period, we count off another measure of barley. We recite a special prayer and then name the day—So we say this is twenty days in the counting of the omer, which is two weeks and 6 days of the period of counting the omer as an example of the way in which the counting is done..
We mark these days not only because this Torah portion says to enumerate them, but we link the holiday of Passover to Shavuot. First it is linked because Passover time is around the spring planting and Shavuot is the early harvest. On Shavuot we bring the first fruits of the harvest to the Temple as an offering. We also link these two holy Festivals because at Passover we commemorate the Exodus from Egypt while Shavuot marks the holy day when we commemorate receiving the Torah on Mt. Sinai. Thus these two holy days although separated by 50 days, none the less are both linked to our national identity and to the major narratives that form our people. Our freedom from bondage was celebrated at Passover but at Shavuot when we bound ourselves to God’s covenant a new kind of freedom ensued for our people. This was a freedom to become a nation of laws, justice, and faith. In the revelation at Sinai we found ultimate redemption!
There was a rabbinic debate about exactly when the counting of the omer should begin. The text in Emor says it should begin the day after Shabbat during this period. The Pharisees believed Passover was a Shabbat since no work took place thus the counting begins on the second night of Passover. This is how we count today. However, the Sadducees believed that the counting should begin on the day after the Shabbat in Passover. The Karaites still follow this custom in this way today.
This period of time from Pesach until Shavuot is also a mystical time. Each of the seven weeks of this period is dedicated to one of the mystical, kabbalistic aspects of God. Also each day in a week is also dedicated to another kabbalistic aspect of God-one of the Sefirot. The Sefirot are the divine emanations in the world. Thus each day of the omer period and each week are dedicated to calling these divine emanations into our world from the heavenly realm and helping us correct or fix (Tikkun) the world, our relationships and ourselves. We are preparing the world and preparing our spirits to receive the Torah again at Sinai on Shavuot. These seven aspects that we focus on during this period are: Chesed-lovingkindness, Gevurah-justice and strength, Tiferet-compassion/balance and harmony and beauty, Netzach –endurance or eternality, Hod-humility/sincerety and splendor, Yesod –bonding/foundation and remembering, Malchut, sovereignty/healing and leadership.
Each day is dedicated to a different healing and a different aspect of the Divine energy to help us heal ourselves, correct our lives and our relationships so that we can be ready for full redemption in receiving the Torah on Mt. Sinai
As we count off the days and weeks during this season hopefully we will be inspired to change our ways and become more mindful of the importance of Torah and of our own personal need for mending our spirits and souls
Posted by Lee at April 30, 2007 10:29 AM
