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Parshat Emor

 

Parshat Emor

By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron

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Seeking the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land

 

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"The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, protect and save your beloved People of Israel from all evil for the sake of Your praise. When the holy beloved Shabbos ends, may this week, this month , and this year, come upon us with complete faith, faith in the Sages, love of our fellowman, devotion to the Creator Blessed be He..." (Prayer of R. Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev for Motzei Shabbos)

The memory of our Patriarchs plays a central role not only in regard to our regular prayers, but also in regard to the prayers for special occasions. Indeed, as we noted in our Pesah issue, each of the Patriarchs corresponds to one of the three festivals, Pesah, Shavuos, and Succos. Avraham's connection to Pesah is quite clear since he is explicitly mentioned in context of baking matza and also the story of the Exodus is explicitly delivered to him in the episode of the "Covenant between the Pieces" ('brit bein habtarim'). Yakov's connection to Sukkot is also quite clear, since Yakov camps in a place called 'Sukkot and also wandered much of his life, as it says 'a wandering Aramite was my father'. However, what is Yitzhak's connection to Shavuos?

Shavuos, as its name entails, is actually a one-day festival built upon a period of 7 weeks beginning with the offering of the omer from barley and ending with the offering of the two loaves coming from wheat. These two offerings highlight the period of harvest, from the barley-harvest till the wheat-harvest, specifically in the Land of Israel, since both of these offerings may only be brought from the Land of Israel. Just as barley is primarily a staple product meant for animals while wheat is meant for humans, so too throughout this period we work on ourselves spiritually on cultivating our personality from its coarser animalistic state to a more developed human state.

While on Pesah God granted us, with His kindness, a giant leap into Exodus beyond what we attained with our own work, it is during this period that we work on 'earning' our spiritual share towards receiving the Torah. The concept of 'earning' one's share is parallel to the concept of 'Din'-judgment, for by 'earning' one's share one 'justly' deserves the spiritual level one has attained. Our Sages teach us that Avraham's primary method of spiritual work was through the attribute of kindness, Yitzhak though the attribute of judgment, and Yakov through the intermediate attribute of compassion.

If the period of Shavuos emphasizes 'earning one's share', we may say that this period parallels Yitzhak (albeit there are sources that the day of Shavuos itself has a different attribute). Similar to the Land of Israel which grows its produce from the earth upwards, so too Yitzhak's attribute of judgment works on 'growing from the (human) bottom upwards (heavenly)' to be worthy of the spiritual level attained. In this way we can more fully understand why Yitzhak was especially bidden not to leave the Land of Israel and why the special offerings of Shavuot may only be brought from this Land, the Land of Spiritual Achievement.

Of course, it is in Hebron that all our Patriarchs achieved high spiritual levels and with that come together with all their attributes in beautiful harmony.

 

Real Stories from the Holy Land #68:

"Over about a 24 hour period I was waiting for an answer from someone regarding if he could learn at a late-night collel at Maaras HaMachpela, so I started to call him. That very second, I received text message that he was ready to learn."

 

Sources: Rambam Tmidin Umusafin 7, 5