Vulnerability and the Omer
This speech was delivered at Tekes Hasmakah, the Ordination of JTS Rabbinical and Cantorial Students, in May 2024 by Rabbi Ayelet Cohen.
TRANSCRIPT
In the time you have been at rabbinical and cantorial students at JTS, the world has been transformed, punctuated by COVID and bookended by war.
This Shabbat, Parshat Emor calls us to mark sacred time. Chapter 23 lays out the sacred calendar, beginning with Shabbat, and cycling through each festival. As cantors and rabbis, our tremendous privilege is being invited into the lives of the people we serve, helping them find meaning in our rituals and infusing their lives with kedushah. We help elevate the holiness in these ancient days through music and ritual and Torah, engaging all of our hearts and all of our souls and sometimes all of our strength, so that these days actually feel sacred, not rote. And finding holiness in the holiday cycle year after year is not so easy, especially when we are grieving and the world is in turmoil.
Sifra, Emor, [Section 9 1] teaches that the calendar was adjusted so that all of the children of Israel – whether in the holy land or in the distant diaspora – can access this essential kedushah. Our daunting task as spiritual leaders is infusing these sacred times with holiness, so all of the children of Israel – those are near and at home in our tradition, and those who are distant and alienated from it – find deep meaning, even when we ourselves may feel depleted and distressed.
In Midrash Tanchuma, an idolater questions whether all of these festivals are worthwhile. He asks Rabbi Akiva:
למה אתם עושים מועדות
Why do you observe these festivals? Doesn’t it say in Isaiah:
חׇדְשֵׁיכֶ֤ם וּמֽוֹעֲדֵיכֶם֙ שָֽׂנְאָ֣ה נַפְשִׁ֔י הָי֥וּ עָלַ֖י לָטֹ֑רַח נִלְאֵ֖יתִי נְשֹֽׂא׃
Your new moons and fixed seasons
(Isaiah 1:14)
Fill Me with loathing;
They are become a burden to Me,
I cannot endure them.
But Rabbi Akiva explains that the so-called “false” holidays Isaiah decries—“your” holidays—are sacred times which have been drained of their innate kedushah. What we can call “true” festivals—God’s festivals—touch us deeply and contribute to real inner and social transformation. “True” chagim make manifest the spirit of Isaiah’s subsequent powerful message:
לִמְד֥וּ הֵיטֵ֛ב דִּרְשׁ֥וּ מִשְׁפָּ֖ט אַשְּׁר֣וּ חָמ֑וֹץ שִׁפְט֣וּ יָת֔וֹם רִ֖יבוּ אַלְמָנָֽה׃
Learn to do good.
Devote yourselves to justice;
Aid the wronged.
Uphold the rights of the orphan;
Defend the cause of the widow.
In Emor, we read for the first time the command to count each day after bringing the first sheaf of the Omer, until we reach seven weeks. The early days of Omer are associated with vulnerability, brokenness, fear, and grief. Today is 23 days of the Omer and 223 Days of the Hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza and 223 days of the unimaginable suffering of this war.
In these terrible days, we recall another story about Rabbi Akiba, this one involving the plague which decimated his students:
שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר אָלֶף זוּגִים תַּלְמִידִים הָיוּ לוֹ לְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא מִגְּבָת עַד אַנְטִיפְרַס, וְכוּלָּן מֵתוּ בְּפֶרֶק אֶחָד, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁלֹּא נָהֲגוּ כָּבוֹד זֶה לָזֶה
ְהָיָה הָעוֹלָם שָׁמֵם, עַד שֶׁבָּא רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא אֵצֶל רַבּוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁבַּדָּרוֹם וּשְׁנָאָהּ לָהֶם: …וְהֵם הֵם הֶעֱמִידוּ תּוֹרָה אוֹתָהּ שָׁעָה.
They said that Rabbi Akiva had twelve thousand pairs of students …and they all died in one period of time, because they did not treat each other with respect.
And the world was desolate of Torah until Rabbi Akiva came to our Rabbis in the South and taught his Torah to them. …And these are the very ones who upheld the study of Torah at that time. Although Rabbi Akiva’s earlier students did not survive, his later disciples were able to transmit the Torah to future generations.
Yevamot 62b
The key to the flourishing of Rabbi Akiba’s later disciples, in contrast to the earlier ones, was their capacity for treating others with kavod—seeing and lifting up the Divine Presence in each other. We learn from Akiba that by applying ourselves to the practice of the sacred calendar, the chagim and theOmer, we can ascend in kedushah—but only to the extent we learn to promote mishpat, justice, and by loving each person, witnessing and lifting up their innate, infinite, sacred worth.
The Omer recognizes the vulnerability in this part of the agricultural cycle. We have prepared soil and planted seeds. Our harvest ultimately depends not only on our efforts, but on sun and rain. In vulnerable times like these, we are especially aware of our dependence upon God, a sacred Presence within and beyond us.
I wish you could begin your work as rabbis or cantors in an easier world. But you are equal to the task before you. You have affirmed your commitment to serving the Jewish people through these tumultuous years. You have watched and learned from your mentors how to navigate and lead others through challenging times.
I pray that you will tend to your own learning, treat one another with kavod, with respect, uphold the study of Torah, and transmit that Torah.
And now it’s time. The Jewish people need you. May you be like the later disciples of Rabbi Akiva, committed to ongoing learning, listening and communicating across difference with respect. May you lead with curiosity and humility, and may you ultimately reap and taste the sweetness of the fruits of the harvest.
May you be cantors and rabbis who teach us all to infuse the everyday, the profane, with kedushah, pursuing mishpat, justice, and treating one another and all being with kavod, honoring the Divine Image in each face you meet.
May you learn and teach
How to laugh and cry with the same eyes.
How to hold compassion for Israelis and Palestinians
How to hold ahavat Yisrael and pursue justice
Rav Nachman of Breslove remanded us
Lo l’ityaesh. Asur lhityaesh. We must not despair. We must not despair.
May the one who makes peace in the Heavens
Help us
To be God’s partners in making peace here. For all of us. For all of Israel and for all the nations of the world.
