Emor 2022

1“And when you harvest the harvest of the land (Israel) do not completely cut down the corners of the field. And the gleanings of the harvest may not be taken but shall be left to the poor and the stranger (convert), I am God your Lord.” Lev 23:22.

2Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and the Ramban all ask why this mitzvah, commanded just last week in Parshat Kedoshim (19:9), is repeated in Parshat Emor, which follows it. They also wonder why this particular mitzvah appears in the middle of the mitzvot of the holidays. Rashi, quoting Midrash Torat Kohanim, answers the second question as follows: “To teach that he who give gifts to the poor is considered as though he has built the Temple and brought its sacrifices during the holidays.”

3In Parshat Re’eh, the holidays appear again, and present another related issue. There the emphasis seems to be on the “joyousness of the day.” Regarding Shavuot, we read:

4Count seven weeks from the beginning of the placing the sickle on the standing grain, from then shall you begin to count seven weeks. And you shall make then a holiday of Shavuot to God you Lord according to the generosity of your giving with the blessing that God has bestowed upon you. And you shall rejoice before your God, [emphasis added] you and your sons and daughters and your servants and the Levite in your gate and the stranger and widow and orphan in your midst, all in the place that God will chose to rest His Name there. And you shall recall that you were a slave in Egypt and shall therefore be careful to fulfill these rules.

5And regarding Sukkot:

6You shall make a holiday of Sukkot for seven days at the time of the gathering of the wheat and the grape. And you shall rejoice on your holiday, [emphasis added] you and your sons and daughters and your servants and the Levite and the stranger and the orphan and the widow in your gate.

7While Passover is listed, no mention is made of a joyous celebration. Is Passover not a joyous holiday? According to the Talmud, joy is a commandment for all three holidays, yet the Torah withholds true joyousness until after Shavuot.

8Perhaps we can say that without the opportunity to share one’s wealth with the poor, there can be no real joy. Until the Omer is brought on the second day of Passover, one may not harvest the field or leave over a corner or leave gleanings for the poor!

9We can now understand why the Torah included the mitzvot of gifts for the poor in the section about the holidays. It also now makes perfect sense why the Torah inserted these mitzvot in the section immediately following the Omer. Only when we are able to harvest our fields are we able to provide for the poor. Then and only then can we experience true joy.

10A careful read of the section in Re’eh bears this out: “the Holiday of Shavuot according to the generosity of your giving” refers to the opportunity to be generous. The commandment to be joyous, both on Shavuot and on Sukkot, includes our joy alongside the less fortunate among us: the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the Levite.

11Dedicated to the memory of Joel Shulman and to the fallen in the many wars for the State of Israel. AH