MAY 4 • 2023 | 45
T
here is something unique
about the way Parshat Emor
speaks about Shabbat. It calls it
a mo’ed and a mikra kodesh when, in the
conventional sense of these words, it is
neither. Mo’
ed means an appointed time
with a fixed date on the cal-
endar. Mikra kodesh means
either a sacred assembly, a
time at which the nation
gathered at the central
Sanctuary or a day made
holy by proclamation, that is,
through the human court’s
determination of the calen-
dar. Shabbat is none of these things. It has
no fixed date on the calendar. It is not a
time of national assembly. And it is not a
day made holy by the proclamation of the
human court. Shabbat was the day made
holy by God Himself at the beginning of
time.
The explanation lies in the context in
which the passage containing these terms
appears, the chapters of the Torah whose
primary theme is holiness (Lev. 18-27).
The radical claim made in these chapters
is that holiness, a term normally reserved
for God, can be acquired by human beings
when they act like God. The festivals stand
to Shabbat the way the Sanctuary stands
to the universe. Both are humanly created
domains of holiness constructed on the
model of Divine creation and sanctification
as they appear at the beginning of Genesis.
By inviting human beings to create a sanc-
tuary and determine the monthly and year-
ly calendar, God invests us with the dignity
of a holiness we have not just received
passively as a gift but acquired actively as
co-creators with God.
Mikra kodesh and mo’ed as they appear
in Leviticus have an extra sense that they
do not bear elsewhere because they evoke
the opening verse of the book: “He called
[Vayikra] to Moses, and the Lord spoke
to him in the Tent of Meeting [Ohel
Mo’ed], saying…
” (Lev. 1:1). The focus is
on mikra as “call” and mo’
ed as “meeting.
”
When the Torah uses these words
uniquely in this chapter to apply to Shabbat
as well as the festivals, it is focusing on the
encounter between God and humanity in
the arena of time. Whether it is God’s call
to us or ours to Him, whether God initiates
the meeting or we do, holy time becomes a
lovers’ rendezvous, a still point in the turn-
ing world when lover and beloved, Creator
and creation, “make time” for one another
and know one another in the special form
of knowledge we call love.
If this is so, what does Parshat Emor tell
us about Shabbat that we do not learn else-
where? The answer becomes clear when we
look at two other passages, the two versions
of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments,
as they appear in Exodus and Deuteronomy.
Famously, the wording of the two versions
is different. The Exodus account begins
with the word Zachor, remember. The
Deuteronomy account begins with Shamor,
“keep, guard, protect.
” But they differ more
profoundly in their very understanding of
the nature and significance of the day.
TWO VERSIONS
Here is the Exodus text: “Remember the
Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days
you shall labor and do all your work, but
the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord
your God. On it you shall not do any work
… For in six days the Lord made the heav-
ens and the earth … but He rested on the
seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the
Sabbath day and made it holy.
” (Ex. 20:7–9)
According to this, Shabbat is a reminder
of creation. The Deuteronomy text gives a
very different account: “Six days you shall
labour and do all your work, but the seventh
day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On
it you shall not do any work, neither you,
nor your son or daughter, nor your male
or female servant … Remember that you
were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your
God brought you out of there … Therefore,
the Lord your God has commanded you to
Three Versions
of Shabbat
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
continued on page 46