Shabbat Parashat Emor - 5785

Shabbat Parashat Emor - 5785

Rabbi Hal Miller

  For a six-day period labor may be done, and the seventh day is a day of complete rest, a holy convocation, you shall not

do any work, it is a Shabbat for God in all

  your settled places. [Vayikra 23:3]

The commandment to cease work on the seventh day appears in all sorts of places in the Torah. Presumably each iteration has a separate lesson for us. What is the purpose of this one?

The verse writes "a holy convocation" immediately after "a day of complete rest" as though this is a clarification. Holy convocation usually refers to a holiday, which ties this verse with the prior one in which God says He is about to list His festivals. But Shabbat is usually not included in such a list. Rashi in fact asks "Why is the subject of Shabbat here next to festivals?" He answers, "To teach you that whoever desecrates the festivals is considered as if he desecrated Shabbat days, and whoever upholds the festivals is considered as if he upheld Shabbat days." In other words, festivals are not to be treated more lightly than Shabbat. But there are many other explanations for why Shabbat is inserted into this place between where God says He is going to list the festivals and then does so.

Rav Soloveitchik begins by pointing out that "God sanctified Shabbat, but the Jewish people sanctify the festivals." According to this, Shabbat needs to come first in order for us to understand what we need to do for the festivals. But he continues, noting that in fact Shabbat gets a double sanctification, that God and the people do so in partnership through kiddush, which is what allows us to bring in Shabbat early and extend it late. This is not necessarily true for festivals, for example Shavuot we begin after dark in order to ensure that the omer count is of complete days. Thus Shabbat and festivals have similarities and differences, and Shabbat could be seen in part as a festival.

Ramban explains that the halachic relaxation on festivals for the preparation of food does not apply on Shabbat, and that when they coincide, Shabbat restrictions take precedence over the holiday relaxation, thus Shabbat comes first. Torah Temimah and Talelei Oros bring the Vilna Gaon on this, that the six days of work noted in our verse refer to the six festival days during the year when relaxations of cooking apply, which are the first and last days of Pesach, the day of Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah and the first and last days of Sukkot. Yom Kippur should also be on this list as the seventh day, but as it is a day of fasting, the food rules are not relaxed.

Rav Hirsch reviews various iterations of the commandment to observe Shabbat throughout the Torah, giving a short reason for each. For our verse he writes "Shabbat stands in its relation to the cycle of festivals of the year". He follows the thought that Shabbat is fixed by God and the festivals are set by the people, thus our verse is teaching us how we are to sanctify the holidays. Further, Shabbat is not just a day of rest, but primarily an acknowledgment of God, even moreso than the festivals, which commemorate other things as well. Shabbat is then the top of the list, preexisting Israel, while the other festivals follow it in part and occur only when Israel proclaims them.