Emor - Mixed Emotions

Grief and Celebration: Strange Bedfellows, Timeless Wisdom

We’ve been through so many emotions over the past couple of years. There’s the grief and mourning following October 7, and then moments of joy, like when a hostage, such as Edan Alexander, who, thank God, was released this week. We’re jubilant… but then immediately reminded of the many others still in captivity. It’s a painful, never-ending cycle of mourning and celebration.

This week’s parsha reflects that tension. It begins with commandments for the kohanim, including restrictions on how they may engage in rituals of mourning — it’s one of the main sources for the halachot of aveilut. But then the parsha takes a sharp turn and presents the list of Jewish holidays. The juxtaposition of mourning and festivals seems strange at first.

But we find something similar in Masechet Moed Katan, a tractate that also links these seemingly unrelated topics: the laws of Chol HaMoed (intermediate festival days) and aveilut (mourning).

Another example from the parsha: the mitzvah to count the Omer for seven weeks, culminating in Shavuot. Ramban (Nachmanides) explains that the Omer period is itself a kind of moed, a sacred time similar to Chol HaMoed, since it's listed among the biblical festivals. And yet, we treat this period as one of mourning, commemorating the deaths of Rabbi Akiva’s 24,000 students during a plague. Once again, we see this odd overlap: holiday and mourning, joy and sorrow, side by side.

We see this pattern reflected in modern Israeli history as well. Four significant days fall during the Omer period: Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron, Yom HaAtzmaut, Yom Yerushalayim. Two are mournful, and two are celebratory, reinforcing this profound link between grief and joy.

The message here, echoed in our parsha and throughout Jewish tradition, is one we’ve spoken about before. As the Gemara teaches us

גלגל הוא שחוזר בעולם — The world is a turning wheel [Shabbat 151b]

Life is cyclical. When things are hard, we can have hope — they will eventually turn around. And when things are good, we must not take them for granted.

Derek Jeter was once asked about the secret to the Yankees' success during his time, when they won five World Series championships. He said, “We never got too high or too low.” There’s real wisdom in that. It’s the same message we find in Emor: stay grounded, because life is always shifting, and our tradition offers the guidance to navigate it.

Shabbat Shalom.

Eliezer Hirsch