פרשת אמור תש"ט - המועדים

In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at dusk, is the LORD’S passover.

And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD; seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread.

In the first day ye shall have a holy convocation; ye shall do no manner of servile work.

And ye shall bring an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days; in the seventh day is a holy convocation; ye shall do no manner of servile work.

And ye shall make proclamation on the selfsame day; there shall be a holy convocation unto you; ye shall do no manner of servile work; it is a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

Ye shall do no manner of servile work; and ye shall bring an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

And ye shall do no manner of work in that same day; for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before the LORD your God.

On the first day shall be a holy convocation; ye shall do no manner of servile work.

And ye shall make proclamation on the selfsame day; there shall be a holy convocation unto you; ye shall do no manner of servile work; it is a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

Ayin, beit, mem is a mnemonic consisting of the first letter of Atzeret, the middle letter of Shabbat and the final letter of Purim. Rabbi Elazar said: All agree with regard to Atzeret, the holiday of Shavuot, that we require that it be also “for you,” meaning that it is a mitzva to eat, drink, and rejoice on that day. What is the reason? It is the day on which the Torah was given, and one must celebrate the fact that the Torah was given to the Jewish people. Rabba said: All agree with regard to Shabbat that we require that it be also “for you.” What is the reason? Because the verse states: “If you proclaim Shabbat a delight, the sacred day of God honored” (Isaiah 58:13). Rav Yosef said: All agree with regard to Purim that we require that it be also “for you.” What is the reason? Because it is written: “To observe them as days of feasting and gladness” (Esther 9:22).

היום הזה ה׳ אלהיך מצוך THIS DAY THE LORD THY GOD COMMANDETH THEE — This suggests: each day they (God’s commandments) should be to you as something new (not antiquated and something of which you have become tired), as though you had received the commands that very day for the first time (Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tavo 1; cf. Rashi on Deuteronomy 11:13).

And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you; on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.

the day after the day of rest [literally: the day after the Sabbath] Our Sages, of blessed memory, have said [Menaḥot 65b] that this denotes the second day of the festival; the Dissenters maintain that the verse should be taken literally. The faithful bring examples from the Sabbatical Year [25:2], the Jubilee, Yom Kippur [:32], and the New Year [:24], all of which are called “sabbath”. The first and the eighth days of Sukkot are called “sabbath” [:39], too [see also comment on Exodus 31:13]. Moreover, a “sabbath” also means a “week”, as in “seven sabbaths” [:15] as well as “those who came in on the Sabbath, along with those who had finished for the week” [II Kings 11:9] (where one verse uses two different meanings of the same word ). In addition to these definitive arguments, Meshullam ben Qalonymus of Rome attempted to bring a proof from “…on the day after the Passover, maṣṣot and toasted grain” [Joshua 5:11] without realizing that he thereby weakened his own argument. The Passover sacrifice occurs on the fourteenth of the month; the day after the Passover sacrifice is the first day of the festival, as it is written: “They marched from Rameses, in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the Passover” [Numbers 33:3]. However, the eating of parched grain is forbidden until after the ‘Omer-offering has been waved! To resolve this, Sa‘adya Gaon proposed 1) that there are two Passovers: the first is Israel’s Passover, while the second is God’s Passover, and is observed on the evening of the fifteenth. Thus, the reference to “the day after Passover” in Joshua is a reference to the sixteenth of the month, but the reference to “the day after Passover” in the Torah denotes the day after the Passover sacrifice . This explanation is unsatisfactory, because the Passover festival owes its name to God’s passing over our houses. “The day after” that event denotes the following morning — which is still the fifteenth (compare, “…the entire day, the entire night, and the entire day after” [Numbers 11:32]). 2) Sa‘adya Gaon also suggested that the “maṣṣot and toast” were from the previous year’s crop, which makes sense. Scripture says that the waving of the ‘Omer offering takes place “from the time when you begin to reap the grain” [Deuteronomy 16:9]. If the waving of the ‘Omer that year occurred on the fifteenth, when did they have time to harvest the grain and prepare maṣṣot? Even if they had had the time, the only harvest so far that year was the beginning of the barley crop. The choice of words is also suggestive: Scripture says, “from the land through which they had passed [Hebrew: ‘avur]” [Joshua 5:11]; the word may have been used because it describes the produce from the year that had just passed [Hebrew: ‘avra] (“the land through which they had passed” literally means the land of Siḥon and ‘Og). This is borne out by the contrasting phrase, “…from the fresh produce of the land of Canaan” [Joshua 5:12]. Besides, “toast” [Hebrew: qaluy] is not the same thing as “parched grain” [Hebrew: qalee]. Scripture states only that “You will eat neither bread, nor parched grain [Hebrew: qalee], nor kernels” [:14]. The verse “ripe ears toasted [Hebrew: qaluy] in fire” [2:14] does not contradict anything we have said, because there the word qaluy is used as an adjective. Anything which is “toasted” in fire can be called “toast”. We may press the question still further: What grounds have we to assume that the kohen waved the ‘Omer offering as soon as they crossed the Jordan? In fact, the verse distinctly says “the land which I give you” [:10] and the land as yet had not been given to them. The entire point of the verse in question is that the manna stopped; Scripture mentions the maṣṣot and the toast only in the context of the stopping of the manna. Sa‘adya Gaon also pointed out, that if we are to take the word “Sabbath” literally, from which Sabbath are we to begin the count? Rabbi Abu al-Faraj Furqan ibn Asad replied that there are eighteen days called “set times”, besides the Sabbath, when an additional sacrifice is offered [Numbers, Chapters 28 and 29]. Since we know that an additional sacrifice is offered on the day the ‘Omer is waved [:12], we can deduce that the day of the ‘Omer waving must be included in the days of the Spring festival. He seems to have forgot, however, that the New Month sacrifices are also not mentioned in the list! Moreover, Scripture says, “These shall be offered each day for seven days” [Numbers 28:24]. According to him, it should say, “…except for the day on which the ‘Omerwaving falls” (the absence of such a phrase poses no problem for us , though, because we derive the Commandments from the oral tradition). The parasha of Pinḥas also does not discuss the lambs of the peace-offering [cf . :19] when it comes to the festival of Shavu‘ot, nor does it say anything about the “one young ox, and two rams” mentioned in the previous verse [:18] — instead, it talks about “two … bullocks, and one ram” [Numbers 28:27]. The believer can also argue that Moshe knew prophetically that the first day of the month would be a Sabbath, and consequently he would know on what day of the week the ‘Omer waving would fall (just as he would know that the first arrangement of the showbread would occur on a Sabbath [24:8] [comment on Exodus 40:2]). Scripture mentions the days on which events fell during the first year; but subsequent years use the terms “your Festival of Weeks” [Numbers 28:26] and “seven weeks” [Deuteronomy 16:9] rather than speaking in terms of “Sabbaths” [:15]. Similarly, in the first year they offered the sacrifices mentioned here; but in subsequent years they offered the sacrifices in the parasha of Pinḥas . It is useless to say that a “week” perforce begins on Sunday. The phrase “she will be ritually impure for two weeks” [12:5] clearly invalidates such an argument. Most people do not realize that the reason why Scripture does not mention the day on which Shavu‘ot falls — alone among all the festivals — is that we are commanded to count to the day of the festival. Our Sages, of blessed memory, said [Shabbat 86b] that the day on which Shavu‘ot falls is the anniversary of the giving of the Torah, and that the statement “we have a festival of God” [Exodus 10:9] is a reference to Shavu‘ot.