torah: rabbi david etengoff

The relationship between Shabbat and festivals

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One of the most unusual textual juxtapositions in parasha Emor occurs at the onset of the Torah’s discussion of the mo’adim (festivals) (Vayikra, chapter 23): “And the L-rd spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: [These are] the L-rd’s appointed [holy days] that you shall designate as holy occasions. These are My appointed [holy days]’.”

Since the Jewish people are commanded to designate certain specific days as holy occasions (mikra’ei kodesh), one would naturally expect the following verse to speak about one of the festivals, such as Passover or Succot. The very next pasuk, however, focuses upon Shabbat:

“[For] six days, work may be performed, but on the seventh day, it is a complete rest day, a holy occasion; you shall not perform any work. It is a Sabbath to the L-rd in all your dwelling places.”

On the surface, this pasuk seems to be out of place. After all, G-d, not man, sanctifies Shabbat, as we find in a very famous passage in Parashat Bereishit:

“Now the heavens and the earth were completed and all their host. And G-d completed on the seventh day His work that He did, and He abstained on the seventh day from all His work that He did. And G-d blessed the seventh day and He hallowed it, for thereon He abstained from all His work that G-d created to do.”

Not surprisingly, a number of Torah commentators have addressed this exegetical problem. Rashi, based upon the Sifra, the halachic midrash to sefer Vayikra, explains the placement of Shabbat at the beginning of the presentation of the mo’adim in the following fashion:

“Why does the Sabbath [designated by G-d,] appear here amidst the festivals? To teach you that whoever desecrates the festivals is considered [to have transgressed as severely] as if he had desecrated the Sabbath, and that whoever fulfills the festivals is considered as if he has fulfilled the Sabbath, [and his reward is as great].”

In sum, Rashi presents the classic opinion that, in some very significant ways, the mo’adim are equivalent to Shabbat, even though it is man, rather than G-d, who designates the actual calendrical dates of the mikra’ei kodesh.

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