by Rabbi Russ Resnik

                         
"And You gave us, HASHEM, our God, with love, appointed festivals for gladness, festivals and times for joy . . . For You have chosen us and You have sanctified us above all the peoples, and Your holy Festivals in gladness and joy have You granted us as a heritage. Blessed are You, HASHEM, Who sanctifies Israel and the festive seasons." (Artscroll Siddur p. 659)

Leviticus opened with the Lord's call to Moses out of ohel moed, the tent of meeting, which is the focal point of the final chapters of Exodus and most of the book of Leviticus. Now, in Leviticus 23, the focus shifts to mo'adim, the plural form of moed, which refers to the appointed festivals of the Lord. The focus shifts from the tent of meeting, to the times of meeting. Israel encounters the divine not only in the tent, but also in the seasons of the year. As we are currently counting the days from one of these seasons, Passover, to another, Shavuot, let's review their significance. The appointed festivals will give us insight into the meaning of Tikkun Olam, Restoring the World, the theme of our prayer campaign this year leading up to Shavuot (see www.umjc.org for details).

The tent of meeting in this context is another name for the tabernacle, which is a model of the restored, ideal creation. Jewish law sees a parallel between the work of creation and the work of building the tabernacle, and derives from this parallel the ruling that the thirty-nine categories of work in building the tabernacle are the categories of work forbidden on Shabbat. Just as God abstained from the original work of creation on Shabbat, so Israel is to abstain from the work of re-creation on Shabbat, and to rest from building the tabernacle that models the restored creation.

The tabernacle—ohel moed—therefore is a symbol of restoration in the midst of the camp of Israel. In the same way, the festivals—mo'adim—are moments of restoration in the midst of the ordinary days of the calendar of Israel.

The festivals have three levels of meaning. Each marks a stage in the agricultural cycle of the Land of Israel; each has an historical connection with the departure from Egypt; and each has a prophetic meaning connected with the life and ministry of Messiah, including His return at the end of the age. Each festival enacts Tikkun Olam—the conditions that will be realized through Messiah in the age to come.  In celebrating the festivals, we declare in advance "the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21).

The word mo'adim first appears in Genesis 1:14. "Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons [mo'adim] . . .'"  >From the beginning of creation, the Lord ordains the holy times to remind us for all generations of the original integrity of the creation, and of God's purpose of renewing the creation.

Thus, in Parashat Emor, Shabbat precedes the list of festivals, because it is a memorial, or reminder, of creation (Ex. 31:17). On Shabbat, we also look forward to "the day that will be all Shabbat" (Soncino Talmud, Tamid 33b), when the goodness of creation will be restored, and humankind will at last be at rest within it.

Every festival partakes of this prophetic quality of Shabbat. So, we are told on Shavuot,

"When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the LORD your God" (Leviticus 23:21–22).

Moses had already given the same instruction in Leviticus 19:9–10, so why does he repeat it here? Because it is essential to the proper observance of Shavuot as the festival of the grain harvest. For the harvest to truly be holy, the Israelites must conduct it with respect for the poor and the stranger in their midst. The poor have a rightful share in the harvest, even though they have no land of their own, because they too are created as the image of God and have dominion over all the earth. In the age to come the divine image will be restored in every human being. Shavuot anticipates the conditions of that age, when there will be no more hunger and poverty, and no one will be a stranger, but all will have a share in the abundance of the Lord.

In addition, Shavuot is the anniversary of the giving of Torah on Mount Sinai, which was also a restoration of divine order. On the Shavuot following His resurrection, Messiah poured out the Spirit upon all of His followers gathered in Jerusalem for the festival (Acts 2:33). This outpouring anticipated the age to come, when the Spirit of God will be abundantly available to all, young and old, male and female, Jew and Gentile, and "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).

When the Spirit was poured out on Shavuot, Jews were present, "devout men, from every nation under heaven" (2:5). As members of the priestly nation Israel, constituted at Mount Sinai at an earlier Shavuot, these Jewish men were the representatives of all the nations, which will partake of the Spirit in the age to come. The infilling of the Spirit is not primarily an individual experience of divine power, but a share in the powers of the age to come, already present through Messiah Yeshua.

In the same way, the instructions for another festival, Sukkot include this:

On this day of joy, all are to be included in rejoicing. The conditions of this age—servanthood, poverty, bereavement, and alienation—are overcome by the abundant joy of the age to come.

The festivals remind us that the God of Israel desires to meet with us, and provides points of meeting. The elaborate preparations of the tabernacle, and the demanding sacrificial ritual connected to it, were not designed to keep Israel at a distance, but to draw Israel near.  Likewise, God provides the festivals to draw us near.

Every such divine-human encounter restores the original intent of the Creation, when the Lord walked with human beings in the garden in the cool of the day. In the messianic future, we will be fully restored to the Lord through Yeshua the Messiah, but even in this age, the meeting with God is a restoration of God's original intent at Creation.  Therefore, each festival not only pictures the age to come, but invites us to bring the powers and conditions of the age to come into this age. In this spirit we continue to pray through the counting of the omer until Shavuot (beginning Tuesday evening, May 22; alternate Saturday evening, May 26). May we experience a foretaste of restoration in our own lives and congregations, throughout the Messianic Jewish community, and within the whole House of Israel!

Shabbat Shalom!
Russ Resnik
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Adapted from "Creation to Completion: Your Guide to Life's Journey from the Five Books of Moses," by Russell Resnik, published by Messianic Jewish Publications, www.messianicjewish.net.