A Place In Time

“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘With regard to God’s appointed holy days, it is only about the ones that you will designate as designated holy occasions that God will say, “These are My appointed holy days.”

- Leviticus 23:2

Parashat Emor opens with instructions to the kohanim, as well as the Kohen Gadol, and encompasses the laws for maintaining a peerless physical and emotional state necessary for spending their lives in daily service in the Mishkan and later in the Holy Temple.

This Torah portion is also devoted to Shabbat, the Counting of the Omer and the Shelosh Regalim—Israel’s three annual pilgrimage festivals: Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot which sanctify and elevate Israel’s agricultural life. We see in these festivals that sanctity is intricately tied to both time and space. Parashat Emor teaches that holiness is not abstract or theoretical; it is lived through sacred time and the covenantal relationship with the Land. Holiness becomes tangible when the nation aligns itself with God's divine appointments in both where Israel dwells and when they gather.

Just as the Shewbread, referenced in this Torah portion, reflects humanity’s role as co-creators (God created wheat and we fashion it into bread), Israel is not just a passive observer of time; they are commanded to proclaim these festivals. This suggests Israel’s partnership with the Creator in sanctifying time. Notable Jewish thinkers have eloquently expressed this concept in profound ways:

In God, Man and History, Eliezer Berkovits wrote: "Israel experiences time not merely as the passing of moments, but as the unfolding of God's plan in history. Jewish existence is a response to the call of history as divine encounter.”

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, from Jewish Memory and History: “The Jews are a people who cannot escape history, but their relationship to it is not merely historical; it is liturgical and mnemonic. Through ritual and recitation, the past is not only remembered but relived, made present in sacred time.”

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote: “The Sabbath is a palace in time, which we build. It is made of soul, of joy, and of reticence. In its atmosphere, a discipline is a reminder of adjacency to eternity.”

Samson Raphael Hirsch, writing in the 1880s saliently stated, “The Jewish calendar is the Jewish catechism.”

All of these scholars reveal to us that Israel’s purpose is encoded in the very structure of time itself and that the nation’s destiny is to spend their days in holiness, by living in the very place sanctified for that purpose—the land of Israel. By pursuing this epic mission, Israel will fulfill the promise of a time when the nations will see this sweet reality and yearn to follow Israel's example and all of us will eventually spend our days inhabiting holiness.