The Holiday Paradox - Emor 5784

There is an interesting paradox relating to the Jewish holidays which appears in this week's Parsha, Emor.  A Jewish holiday is not merely a “day off.”  And although every holiday marks an event - Pesach the Exodus, Shavuot the Giving of the Torah, etc., the day is not just marking a historical event.  

Our Sages taught that every year, the holiday brings a new Divine revelation to the world, reminiscent of the first time the event happened.  For example, on Pesach, the day of our freedom from Egypt, a light of freedom permeates the world.  Every year on Shavuot, the light of Torah revelation is once again drawn into the world.

Put another way, the day itself is a time of revelation, and the event that happened is related to that day’s revelation.  This may explain why in the holiday liturgy we say about Pesach “Zeman Cheiruteinu - the time of our freedom” (not the day of our freedom), and about Shavuot “Zeman Mattan Torateinu - the time of the Giving of the Torah,” etc., because the time itself is a time of that particular revelation.  The day itself brings that revelation into the entire year.  So the concept of freedom, that we are not subservient to anything that would stop us from fulfilling our mission, is something that we take from Pesach for the entire year.  The same applies to all our holidays.

So based on the above idea, a Jewish holiday is a time of a unique light from Hashem that is bringing a higher energy into the world than that which is here on ordinary days.  This, one would think, is something initiated by Hashem .  Yet, this week’s Parsha teaches us that we humans determine  which day the holiday will be.  

G-d tells Moshe, “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: The Lord's appointed [holy days] that YOU shall designate as holy occasions” (Vayikra 23:2). What does “you shall designate” mean?  Are the days not “The Lord’s appointed days?” 

When the Holy Temple stood and the Sanhedrin - Supreme Court - was in session, the first day of the month was determined by the Sanhedrin, based on witnesses’ sighting of the moon.  If there was a possibility that the new moon could be seen at night, the next day the court would wait to see if credible witnesses testified that they had seen it, and that day would be proclaimed Rosh Chodesh - the first day of the month.  

In the month of Nissan, Pesach would be 15 days later.  If for whatever reason witnesses did not come, whether it was cloudy or for any other reason, the month would not begin until the next day, and Pesach would happen a day later.

So here is the paradox - the Divine energy that Hashem brings to the world depends on us here on earth.  And this is a fundamental principle of Jewish tradition.  Hashem gave his people the power to affect the spiritual energy in the world.  The Torah, which is Hashem’s wisdom and will, was given to us to study and practice in this “lowly” physical world, using our physical minds and physical tools.  

When we remain faithful to the Torah’s teachings as given by Hashem to Moshe, we connect to the divine spiritual source, and cause new revelation in the world.  (Although today the calendar is fixed, we are following a formula set up by the Sanhedrin before it was disbanded.)  

The message here is that what you do does matter!  A human court can determine which day becomes the source of spiritual freedom and which day brings the light of Torah to the world.  And you and I can determine, by our Torah actions, that a new source of light will permeate ourselves and the world.  

Especially now when the Jewish people are under attack, especially with the grave dangers in Israel, it is important for each of us to remember that every small action can make a huge difference.  May Hashem protect us all, and especially our brothers and sisters on the front lines protecting our people and our land.