Shnayim Yomi - Emor - R'vi'i - #4 - Rabbi Meir Gavriel Elbaz - Ongoing Opportunities for Growth

Shalom u'vracha. Parshat Emor, aliya revi'it, the fourth aliya. The Torah speaks about this as one of the only two places in the Torah where the Torah discusses all of the mo'adim. Parshat Pinchas also discusses the korbanot of the various holidays and festivals throughout the year, but in two places in the Torah we find the actual mention of the laws of the holiday. That's in Parshat Emor, in this aliya, and once again in Mishneh Torah, in Parshat Re'eh. The Torah discusses the cycle of the year. The first of the mo'adim the Torah mentions is Shabbat, then moves on to Pesach and Sefirat Ha'Omer. And the Ketzirot Ha'Omer, Shavuot, Shavuot, and it's an interesting thought I once heard from my rebbe that look at the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu, in His infinite wisdom, set up the year and gave us the mo'adim. Every, you know, not so much time goes by between each of the holidays, and each holiday has a theme that Am Yisrael is supposed to focus on and work on. And as the Ramban writes in this week's parsha, that even when the holiday is over, we have to take the theme of what the holiday stands for and apply it to our day-to-day lives. Look, Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't leave us without a holiday for long. Every month or so, we have something else, something to encourage us, something to look forward to. And that is one of the chassadim of Hakadosh Baruch Hu that He gave us not only a Shabbat every week, but a holiday every month or so to look forward to and to connect Hakadosh Baruch Hu through all of these themes of cherut and simcha, freedom and joy. Shavuot is coming up, zman matan Torateinu, a chance to reconnect with these age-old themes and bring them in to infuse our day-to-day lives with the Torat Emet and the chagei zman simcha for Am Yisrael.