A Debate about Time
“Rabbi Shimon said: Come and see how dear is a mitzvah performed in its proper time.“ (Pesachim 68b)
By this Rabbi Shimon meant to say that a Mitzvah must be fulfilled at the time it was intended even if it causes the violation of another. In this specific case it was the burning of the Paschal lamb on the 14th day as instructed, even if the 14th day fell on Shabbat.
Our portion this week Emor, specifies this Mitzvah:
בַּחֹ֣דֶשׁ הָרִאשׁ֗וֹן בְּאַרְבָּעָ֥ה עָשָׂ֛ר לַחֹ֖דֶשׁ בֵּ֣ין הָעַרְבָּ֑יִם פֶּ֖סַח לַיהֹוָֽה׃
In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, there shall be a passover offering to יהוה,
And with it, it specifies other times for other holidays:
אֵ֚לֶּה מוֹעֲדֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה מִקְרָאֵ֖י קֹ֑דֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר־תִּקְרְא֥וּ אֹתָ֖ם בְּמוֹעֲדָֽם׃
These are the set times of יהוה, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed time:
Ever since the destruction of our second temple, our tradition is rooted in time rather than in space. What keeps us together is our calendar and not our temple. It is what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called “Sanctuaries in time.”
“These are the set times” our portion commanded; our sages followed with an encouragement to keep these specific times at any cost.
The philosopher of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) suggested so as well:
A time to give birth and a time to die
A time to plant and a time to uproot that which is planted;
A time to kill and a time to heal
A time to tear down and a time to build up;
A time to weep and a time to laugh
A time to mourn and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together
A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek and a time to lose
A time to keep and a time to cast away;
A time to rend and a time to sew
A time to be silent and a time to speak;
A time to love and a time to hate
A time for war and a time for peace
To that, Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai had an answer:
A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.
A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.
A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.
And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.
He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything.
In this poetic “debate” between Kohelet and Amichai, I must say that I am probably more with the latter.
Yes, we Jews are time travelers, we anchor our tradition in time. In our time, we go back to the past and look onto the future, reminding us of the unity of time and of our eternity.
But at each stop we are reminded that what we acknowledge is never exclusive. We insist on mixing Simcha and Etzev, joy and sorrow, at every occasion. When we celebrate, we also mourn; when we mention a victory, we pray for peace — when we atone, we reconcile.
Perhaps this is a good reminder that there is another way to get through our current turbulent times. To know that inside our sorrow, fear, confusion and anger there is a promise, there is hope, there is a calling. These are not separate ideas, but rather, they are all a part of the same oneness which we spend our lives attempting to connect to.
