Secular and Sacred
There can be no sacred without the secular or celebration without mourning because the mundane is part and parcel of the non-mundane.
This week’s Torah reading, Parshat Emor, has two seemingly contradictory themes. It begins with the laws of aveilut / mourning and ends with the laws of the celebratory holidays on the Jewish calendar. It's difficult to understand why these two opposite themes are combined into one Parsha.
However, we see similar strange juxtapositions elsewhere in the Torah as well. For instance, Mesechet Moed Katan, like our Parsha, deals with both mourning and celebration. The main topic of the Tractate is the laws of Chol Hamoed, the intermediate holidays of Pesach and Sukkot. However, the sages also included the laws of mourning.
Furthermore, in our Parsha, we find the Sefirat HaOmer period included in the list of holidays. The Ramban therefore concludes that the Omer period was originally intended to be a Chol Hamoed, a semi-holiday, between Pesach and Shavuot. However, this period eventually became a time of mourning following the death of Rabbi Akiva's 24,000 students who perished in a plague during this time of year. Thus, the Omer period is another example in our tradition of mixing holiday and mourning.
This duality is also reflected in our modern observance of the Omer period. During this period of time, we commemorate two days of mourning: Yom HaShoah, to remember the Holocaust, and Yom HaZikaron, to honor the fallen IDF soldiers. We also celebrate two days of joy: Yom Ha'Atzmaut, to mark the founding of Israel, and Yom Yerushalayim, to commemorate the reclaiming of Jerusalem in 1967.
In the past, we have offered several explanations for these unexpected combinations of celebration and mourning. I believe that we can gain further insight by examining Parshat Emor, which includes the well-known mitzvot of kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of God's name, and chilul Hashem, the prohibition against desecrating God's name.
וְלֹ֤א תְחַלְּלוּ֙ אֶת־שֵׁ֣ם קׇדְשִׁ֔י וְנִ֨קְדַּשְׁתִּ֔י בְּת֖וֹךְ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל אֲנִ֥י הֹ’ מְקַדִּשְׁכֶֽם׃
You shall not profane My holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel—I am God who sanctifies you [Leviticus, 22]
These mitzvot are typically referred to regarding our public behavior, as our actions reflect the public face of the Jewish people. Anyone who has attended an Orthodox Jewish day school or camp remembers their teachers or counselors scolding them not to misbehave on a field trip, because if they do, they would be violating the prohibition against Chilul Hashem / desecrating Gods name. Similarly, the death of Jewish people in the Holocaust is often described as an act of Kiddush Hashem / sanctifying Gods name.
However, if we examine the words of the Rambam closely, we see that these mitzvot are not restricted to public settings. When the Rambam discusses these laws, he states that someone who knowingly and voluntarily violates one of the mitzvot with the intention of angering God, they violate the prohibition of chilul Hashem. And if this violation is done in public, it would be called Mechalel shem shamayim b’rabim / desecrating God’s name in public.
כָּל הָעוֹבֵר מִדַּעְתּוֹ בְּלֹא אֹנֶס עַל אַחַת מִכָּל מִצְוֹת הָאֲמוּרוֹת בַּתּוֹרָה בִּשְׁאָט בְּנֶפֶשׁ לְהַכְעִיס הֲרֵי זֶה מְחַלֵּל אֶת הַשֵּׁם… וְאִם עָבַר בַּעֲשָׂרָה מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל הֲרֵי זֶה חִלֵּל אֶת הַשֵּׁם בָּרַבִּים
Anyone who knowingly, without duress, transgresses one of the commandments that are stated in the Torah, contemptuous of soul, in order to anger, behold, [such a person] is desecrating the Name. And if he transgressed among ten of Israel, behold [such a one] has desecrated the Name in public. [Mishne Torah, Hilchoy Yesodei HaTorah, 5]
This implies that even if the action is done in private, it still constitutes a chilul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name. The same is true for kiddush Hashem, as the Rambam states that whoever refrains from sin not out of fear or desire for honor, but only because of God's command, sanctifies God's name. Therefore, it is evident that such behavior need not occur in public to constitute a kiddush Hashem. Thus, Chilul Hashem must be more than just managing the public image of the Jewish people.
How does this discussion about kiddush and chilul hashem relate to our parsha's juxtaposition of celebration and mourning? We may find a clue in the Talmud's juxtaposition of the concepts of the chulin / mundane and kedusha / holiness. For instance, the laws of kashrut in Mesechet Chulin, relating to non-ritual meat, are found in the section of the Mishna titled Kodshim / holy activity, which is the section all about ritual meat. It is strange to have a tractate about the laws of regular meat in the section about the ritual meat consumed in the Beit Hamikdash. A similar example can be found in the Book of Vayikra, where the laws of kashrut are stated, even though the book is called Torat Kohanim, which is focused on the Kohanim and their holy service in the Beit Hamikdash.
Likewise, in our parsha, there are numerous references - more than a dozen - to the profane alongside the holy.
קְדשִׁ֤ים יִֽהְיוּ֙ לֵאלֹ֣הֵיהֶ֔ם וְלֹ֣א יְחַלְּל֔וּ שֵׁ֖ם אֱלֹֽהֵיהֶ֑ם
“They must be sanctified to their god and not desecrate the name of their god.”
The key to understanding these paradoxical combinations may lie in our practice of Havdalah on Shabbat. While some authorities, like the Ramban, view Havdalah as a simple rabbinical commandment, where we bid farewell to Shabbat and has nothing to do with Kiddush, the Rambam sees both Havdalah and Kiddush as stemming from the same source: the commandment to remember Shabbat.
זָכ֛וֹר֩ אֶת־י֥֨וֹם הַשַּׁבָּ֖֜ת לְקַדְּשֽׁ֗וֹ
Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy [Exodus 20-8].
According to the Rambam, Havdalah is the flipside of Kiddush, because the concept of a holy day would be meaningless if we could not distinguish it from the concept of a mundane weekday. Something can only be distinctive if it exists in contrast to the ordinary. Shabbat is special because the other six days of the week are not; together, they form two sides of the same coin of life. This perspective is profoundly meaningful because it elevates chol / weekday to be part of a whole created by God.
This distinction is similar to the two different ways we can characterize something undesirable. When God declares that man should not be alone, He uses the very specific words "lo tov," which means "not good."
לֹא־ט֛וֹב הֱי֥וֹת הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְבַדּ֑וֹ אֶֽעֱשֶׂהּ־לּ֥וֹ עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ
It is not good for the Human to be alone; I will make a fitting counterpart for him [ Genesis 2:18].
That is very different from saying something is ra / evil, which, as Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explains, entails a complete disconnection from God’s world. When something is Chulin / mundane, it is still part of Creation and has the potential to be holy along with the sacred.
With this perspective, we can better understand why the Torah and our calendar encompass both mourning and celebration together. It's because they are inextricable aspects of life. The whole purpose of mourning is to move forward in our regular lives. It's a step on the path to resuming our routine activities and finding reasons to celebrate again. That's why when we pray in a house of mourning, we skip Tachanun, the special prayer related to our sorrow about our bad behavior. We do this so that we don't mourn "too much," so to speak, because even mourning is part of the journey to celebrating again.
The message of Emor is that the apparent contradictions in our circumstances are really all part of a greater whole - God's world. Mourning and celebration, secular and sacred, all come together to form the totality of our life; there can be no sacred without the secular or celebration without mourning because the mundane is part and parcel of the non-mundane. While some people consider secular activities to be profane, our Mekor community lives with the insight that the secular is integral to the sacred. It can be challenging to achieve equilibrium, where we pursue secular endeavors and also prioritize our spirituality. However, despite the difficulty, we can meet this challenge by keeping in mind the integral connection between the secular and the holy, not as two distinct concepts, but as two sides of the same coin, the life God has given us.
Shabbat Shalom.