Emor deals with two kinds of holiness: of people and of time.
Chapter 21 relates to holy people: priests, and above them, the High Priest. Their close contact with the Sanctuary means that they must live with certain restrictions: on contact with the dead and whom they may marry.
Chapter 22 recaps similar laws relating to ordinary Israelites when they seek to enter the Sanctuary, as well as defects in animals that bar them from being offered as sacrifices.
Chapter 23 is about holy time, the festivals of the year. Chapter 24 speaks about the Menorah, lit daily, and the show bread, renewed weekly, and ends with a story – one of the only two narratives in Leviticus – about the fate of a man who blasphemed in the course of a fight.
Covenant & Conversation
Parshat Emor
Emor deals with two kinds of holiness: of people and of time.
Chapter 21 relates to holy people: priests, and above them, the High Priest. Their close contact with the Sanctuary means that they must live with certain restrictions: on contact with the dead and whom they may marry.
Chapter 22 recaps similar laws relating to ordinary Israelites when they seek to enter the Sanctuary, as well as defects in animals that bar them from being offered as sacrifices.
Chapter 23 is about holy time, the festivals of the year. Chapter 24 speaks about the Menorah, lit daily, and the show bread, renewed weekly, and ends with a story – one of the only two narratives in Leviticus – about the fate of a man who blasphemed in the course of a fight.