Emor

Creating Personal Holiness

Rabbi Josh Cahan, 5763

I would like to draw your attention to an interesting repetition at the end of our parashah which deals with the holiday of Sukkot. First, read through chapter 23. Pay special attention to the following verses, 33-44, which conclude the chapter.

1. What is the topic of the chapter?
2. Which days are mentioned? In what order?
3. What do we learn about sukkot in 33-36?
4. Why do you think 37-38 appear where they do? What problems do these verses raise?
5. What is different about Sukkot in 39-43 from the previous description?
6. Does verse 44 add anything? Why is it there?

The holidays are the high points of the Israelites' achievement of holiness. Everyone participates in these grand celebrations, commemorating both historical and natural events. They are described as "מִקְרָא קֹדֶשׁ", a "holy gathering", suggesting that at the height of the experience of the holidays is the special closeness to God which is expressed as "kedushah", holiness.

The Torah describes these holidays several times in various places, and each time they take on a different shade. To illustrate the differences, I will focus particularly on Sukkot. One model is the sacrifice-centered model. According to Leviticus 23:33-36, the only thing that is done to celebrate the holiday is animal sacrifice in the Temple. While the passage calls the holiday Sukkot, it is a misnomer - sukkot/huts have nothing to do with the rituals of the holiday. The Temple is the central locus of holiness - we read at the end of Exodus that God's cloud came down and filled the sanctuary, which is later replaced by the Temple in Jerusalem. Since that is the place where God's holiness resides, that is the place where the holiest times must be commemorated, by rituals oriented around the altar, the place of the highest holiness. The people come for these events, but mostly in order to be spectators.

Something changes radically when we revisit the question just a few verses later. Here, it is the people who celebrate. They bring the symbols of the earth for whose bounty they are grateful. They make huts (sukkot) where they can be in touch both with the natural world around them and with God watching over them, and renew their sense of being closely tied to these things. These are rituals that Jews can do in every place, even if the ideal is still to come and do them in Jerusalem. They are rituals that every Jew can perform: every Jew is able to demonstrate the connection to God symbolized by these acts.

Notice verses 37-38. They are a kind of summation of the entire chapter. Why here, when there is more to come? Another question: Why does verse 39 tell us the name of the holiday and its dates, given that the Torah already told them to us in verse 34? Everything points to verses 39-43 being a later addition to the passage. The Torah never gave up the idea that tremendous holiness resides in the Temple, and so there is a special and unique significance to the rituals performed in that place. But it saw that there was something missing. There is also tremendous holiness in the people. But unlike the Temple, it is not a static holiness. It is not that we are, as Jews, simply filled with it. Rather, we have to strive for it constantly. Last week, God commanded us, "קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ"-"You shall be holy". In other words, you need to strive to be holy. By taking great care in our words and deeds we have the power to bring sanctity into our lives and into the world.

Through our rituals, through the lulav and the sukkah on Sukkot, the candles and kiddush on Shabbat, and many others, we remind ourselves of our connections to God, to the natural world, and to the people around us, and are reminded of the commandment: holiness does not reside only in the Temple; we are all expected to create holiness within ourselves and, by so doing, to bring holiness into the world.