A Taste of Shabbos – Parashat Emor

Emor is a single parasha with a short name that means- ‘SAY’. It begins with rules for cohanim-priest, who are allowed to go to the funerals of only their immediate seven relatives, and the high priest can’t go even to those, because the Temple is meant to be a replica of the World to Come. Thus this parasha also contains situations of blemish that restrict the cohein from even serving in the holy Temple.

What is the message behind the parasha’s title, ‘SAY?’ In fact, that word is repeated twice-say and you shall say. Rashi explains the repetition to mean-say to the cohanim that they should say to their children. It also uses the wording- that the elders should ‘warn’ the youths (presumably to behave) However the word warn is related to ‘Zohar,’ implying not just to impart information but to kind of ‘polish’ up the souls of the young to bring out their love for Judaism. It is a directive that the holiest of people should look out for the youth.

A related linguistic teaching comes up in the command to count the Omer, originally the barley offering that made the new crop permissible to eat. The word for counting is ‘U’sfartem’ similar to the multi meaning root ‘sapir,’ related to Sapphire. Here too, besides counting the days, the Hassidic teaching suggests that along with the counting of forty nine days, we ‘polish’ up the dimensions of our souls as expressed through seven times seven of the divine Sephirot. More and more guide books are being written in our times on this topic. A primary objective is to channel the natural fire in our souls in the right directions for the rest of the year.

The highlight of this period is the day of Lag B’Omer, the thirty third day (Lag is the numerical equivalent of 33) of the counting which this year comes out on Friday. Its significance in brief is: Rabbi Akiva had twelve thousand pairs of students who passed away during this time, but they stopped dying in Lag B ‘Omer. Determined not to ‘retire’ from teaching, Rabbi Akiva found five other students who continued his legacy, among whom was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, teacher of Jewish mysticism who later passed away on Lag B ’Omer. His soul was considered so lofty that he was in touch with a divine spirit that was beyond any destruction and negative forces and he too guided his disciples on that last day of his life. In his writings called the Zohar, he taught that with the light of the Zohar, redemption with come to the world in a non-violent way, in a way of polished speech.

The Sabbaths of these forty nine days are considered very exalted. They are part of the journey that takes us from the liberation of Pesach to the revelation of Shavuot, where the all-night study of Torah has also become more and more popular in our times. These in between Sabbaths are all the more precious because they are like a lighthouse between the shadows of uncertainty in the days between the more grounded festivals.

Later in the Parasha we find a listing of all the Biblical festivals, including the counting of the Omer. However, they are preceded by a reminder of Shabbos. Why was that necessary? We have several previous references to Shabbos?

The question of when we start the counting the Omer raised a very interesting historical debate. The Torah’s wording is ‘Mimochorat Ha’Shabbat’ meaning, from the day after the Sabbath, but the sages say that here, the Sabbath actually means, Pesach. The Sadducees however accepted only the written Torah so took the wording literally and so began their count only from the first Sabbath after Pesach, thus differing from the Pharisees counting, as all of Israel does now from the second night of Pesach.

This had a very important philosophical contrast. The Sadducees did not believe that the Torah both came from G-d and was also in the hands of people, to expand and apply to every generation. This debate can shed light on how we approach Shabbos. Some people dive into Shabbos without much forethought. They may follow the rules in a perfunctory way. There is a story of a ‘Bu-Jew’ who went to a Shabbat meal and, beyond the food, expected an extended evening of song, deep discussion, and Torah sharing, but the host just wanted to get through the meal and go to sleep. The point is, you get out of Shabbos what you put in to it actively. Its holiness may come from above, but the more we can illuminate Shabbos from our earthly plane, the more we can partner in revealing the World to Come in this world.