Rabbi Daria Jacobs-Velde
This week’s Torah portion is Emor: Leviticus 21:1 — 24:23.
Chapter 23 of Leviticus, in Parashat Emor, states, “God spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelite people, and say to them: these are My set (fixed) times, the set times of God, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions” (Leviticus 23:1-2). The Torah then continues with a description of the sacred time of Shabbat coming after the six days of work and includes the directive to have a complete rest on the seventh day, the “sabbbath of God.”
Following this, we encounter the phrase, “These are the set times of God, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its set appointed time” (23:4). The Torah continues by listing the various holidays. The first begins on the 14th day of the first month (Passover) and lasts for seven days. We then start to get into the details of the sacrifices and procedures of the Omer, which lasts for seven weeks. The day after these seven weeks (49 days) is again a holy day (Shavuot), with its accompanying sacrifices. We then must wait until the first day of the seventh month for the next holy day (Rosh Hashanah), followed by the holy day on the 10th of the seventh month (Yom Kippur).
Before heading into a description of the final sacred time, a seven-day period that begins on the 15th day (14+1) of the seventh month (Sukkot), we return to almost the exact same verbal formula as the beginning of our chapter: “These are the set times of God that you shall celebrate as sacred occasions … ” (Leviticus 23:37). Closing off this chapter, at the end of the description of Sukkot, we are reminded of our other primary sacred story, “I brought [you] out of the land of Egypt, I the Eternal, your God,” (Leviticus 23:43), and are told in summary, “Moses declared to the Israelites the set times of God” (Leviticus 23:44).
What might be going on here?
The Hebrew word translated as set/fixed/appointed times is “moed.” In this word you can see the word, “ed” (witness). Perhaps Emor is inviting us into “witnessing God,” especially at times that get us started, like the number one, and that coincide with multiples of seven, the quintessential number that not only recalls the magnificence of the original creation, but also reminds us that as beings created in the image of God, pausing (shavat) to be with creation (the natural world) and attending to the nourishment of our soul (va’yinafash) is crucial.
We are reminded that anything meaningful we create rests within a cycle, which necessarily includes pausing, or completely stopping. In our holy time of 49+1 and 15 (which is 14+1), we are reminded that cycles will indeed begin again. When we slow down to notice and appreciate our place in these beginnings, middles, pauses and endings, we allow ourselves to witness God, and we allow God to witness us.
Through this mutual witnessing we become free from the oppression of nonstop working (as we experienced in Egypt) and grow our capacity to more deeply partner with God/ “Being/Becoming-ness.” (The most personal name for God, spelled YKVK, has the verb “to be” — in the past, present and future — embedded within). In leaving Egypt, we don’t become free to be anarchists but rather turn our allegiance and “servitude” to God/Being/ Becoming-ness. Through this process of pausing and noting where we are in the cycles of our great work, we can witness and acknowledge the presence of wonder, awe and God, and in so doing, deepen our “servitude” by stepping into our greatest becoming.
Rabbi Daria Jacobs-Velde is co-rabbi at Oseh Shalom in Laurel, Maryland, with her husband, Rabbi Josh Jacobs-Velde.
