Call Them by Their Names
When I鈥檓 at a hotel over Shabbat, I have a set Friday afternoon ritual. I present myself to the restaurant鈥檚 ma卯tre d鈥� and explain that I鈥檇 like to preorder and prepay my Saturday breakfast as my religious practice bars me from spending money on the Jewish Sabbath. Despite consternation over working around normal procedure, my request is invariably treated with no-questions-asked respect once I characterize my need as 鈥渞eligious.鈥� While the ma卯tre d鈥� might not know Yom Tov from Yuletide, 鈥渞eligious鈥� is a category that鈥攊n certain contexts anyway鈥攇ets categorical deference. The particulars of religious practice are not subject to question, except inasmuch as Americans want to know how to respectfully accommodate one another鈥檚 religion. In the religiously diverse United States, everyone鈥檚 religion occupies a generic space called holy, making it easy to practice according to our tradition.
The experience of particularity in the religiously diverse (and increasingly secular) context of the United States comes to mind in light of an insight drawn from Saadia Gaon (Egypt, 10th century) on Leviticus 23:4. Here is the verse and the comment:
These are the set times of the LORD, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed time. (Lev. 23:4, New Jewish Publication Society)
The festivals each have a distinct name and it is obligatory that you call them by their names in their seasons.
The verse (and Saadia鈥檚 comment) announces Leviticus鈥檚 catalog of festivals over the course of the year, beginning with the festival of Pesah. (Actually, Leviticus introduces Shabbat just before the verse in question, in 23:3.) While the various festivals as presented here have many particulars in common, such as refraining from work and offering sacrifices, each of them is fundamentally distinct. Their relationships to the agricultural cycle, offerings brought, opportunities for atonement, and attention to the marginalized in Israelite society are just some of the distinctions from one festival to the next that emerge in our chapter鈥檚 account. (Other listings of the holidays in the Torah introduce the holidays鈥� historical significances, which predominate in our contemporary expression of Judaism.) Through attention to the seasons of the year we sanctify time in specific, mandated ways, and so establish and maintain a sacred society aligned in holiness with God.
In his own context, Saadia鈥檚 comment might have emphasized the distinction between the Karaites鈥� practice of Judaism and that of rabbinic communities like his own, or perhaps between Judaism and Islam, whose holidays migrate across the seasons due to its strictly lunar calendar. But in today鈥檚 context, Saadia鈥檚 comment strikes me as a call to live inside the Jewish calendar even鈥攁nd especially鈥攊n our pluralist, religiously diverse society. We need to know the names of our holidays and their functions; we need to understand their timing in the year and their relationship one to another as the seasons flow in their natural sequence. A Pesah seder should feel a world apart from the pre-fast and break-fast meals that frame Yom Kippur, even if the same family and friends are gathered around our table. The prayer for tal (dew) on Pesah should stir distinct emotions from that for geshem (rain) on Shemini Atzeret. Even the silliness that descends (from a combination of celebration and exhaustion) by Musaf on Simhat Torah is distinct from that which reigns on Purim. And so on through the year, from the texts we read in their seasons to the foods we eat, to the prayers we add and omit as the seasons come and go. The categorical deference shown to things holy calls on members of each religious community to cultivate and maintain specific knowledge of, and distinctive associations with, the content of our own traditions.
When we recite kiddush on Leil Shabbat or Yom Tov (Sabbath or Festival Eve), we name each holy day by its name and association: for Shabbat, Zekher li鈥檡etziyat Mitzrayim (a memorialization of the Exodus) and Zekher l鈥檓a鈥檃seh v鈥檙eishit (a memorialization of Creation); for Pesah, Hag haMatzot ha-zeh, z鈥檓an heiruteinu (this Festival of Matzot, the season of our liberation); for Shavu鈥檕t, Hag haShavu鈥檕t hazeh, z鈥檓an matan torateinu (this Festival of Weeks, the season of the giving of our Torah), and so on. It鈥檚 not enough to know that it is a holy day, a Jewish festival. We need to cultivate our awareness of each 鈥渟et time鈥� we鈥檙e proclaiming, distinctively, in its season. Vital, too, is that we ask again each year what new associations are drawn in by the sacred pull of the holidays. For Pesah, what are this year鈥檚 fetters, and how does Pesah offer a key to unlocking them? Come Shavu鈥檕t, as we assemble again at Sinai, what voice of Torah will most urgently call us into covenant? And with each Shabbat, have our labors in the week past honored the godly, creative potential instilled in us to join God in creating the world anew?
To be sure, stirring ourselves toward kavanah (mindful intention) is easier said than done. With the deference granted us to observe, the Jewish calendar is an unending opportunity to lift up the everyday into the sacred and to live in concert with the distinctive calls of each season in its turn. And with the increasing commingling of religious communities in our pluralist society, the integrity of our respective traditions merits that learning and loving attention draw out the sacred seasons of the year in their fullness. As we count the days and weeks toward Shavu鈥檕t, let us strive to know the sacred seasons well enough that we can meaningfully heed Saadia鈥檚 counsel to call each of them by their distinctive names.
The publication and distribution of the 91快活林 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (锄鈥漧) Hassenfeld.
