Emor
Leviticus 21:1-24:23
Ezekiel 44:15-31
As a child, I was consumed with fear when racing at breakneck speed from an evening summer camp activity to the security of a well-lit cabin. Comparably, many children can only go to sleep in the glow of a nightlight because darkness fuels active imaginations.
Children’s literature is replete with night intrigue — tales of being carried off to strange, wonderful and terrifying lands upon slipping into dreamland: Wynken, Blynken and Nod sailing off in a wooden shoe, Peter Pan of Never Never Land, and so many others.
An excerpt of a favorite poem, “Seeing Things At Night” by Eugene Field (1850-1895), exquisitely captures the nighttime terror of a child left alone in a darkened room:
I Ain’t afeard uv snakes, or toads, or bugs, or worms, or mice,
An’ things ‘at girls are skeered uv I think are awful nice!
I’m pretty brave, I guess; an’ yet I hate to go to bed,
For, when I’m tucked up warm an’ snug an’ when my prayers are said,
Mother tells me “Happy Dreams!” an’ takes away the light,
An’ leaves me lyin all alone an’ seein’ things at night!
Sometimes they’re in the corner, sometimes they’re by the door,
Sometimes they’re all a-standin’ in the middle uv the floor;
Sometimes they are a-sittin’ down, sometimes they’re walkin’ round
So softly and so creepylike they never make a sound!
Sometimes they are as black as ink, an’ other times they’re white–
But the color ain’t no difference when you see things at night.
The opening account of Genesis depicts the pitch-black, gloomy darkness shattered by the words “Let there be light,” reminding Torah students that God’s light is present even in lives overcast with gloom.
On the shores of the Jabbok River, Jacob struggled with an unseen apparition, a night creature; with the arrival of dawn, Jacob prevailed, symbolized by a name change: Jacob had become Israel.
Another man, like Jacob, struggled with personal darkness. Stranded on a deserted island, he prayed, but despaired of ever being rescued. One day, he knocked over a lantern that set his home afire, and when the world seemed darkest to him, a voice said, “We saw your smoke signal and we sailed here because we knew that someone needed to be rescued.”
Everyone has dark moments and bouts of depression, as did a grief-stricken mother who went to a prophet to ask him to bring her dead son back to life. He told her to fetch a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow. He said, “That mustard seed will drive the sorrow out of your life.”
She came to a beautiful mansion, knocked on the door, and asked the respondent if this was a home that had never known sorrow. The woman was told that she had come to the wrong house and was given details of the tragedies that had befallen the residents of that home. The mourner thought, “Who is better able to help this poor, bereft person than I who have had a misfortune of my own?”
She stayed to comfort the homeowner and then went on to other places, only to find that each home had its own sadness. The woman became so involved in helping others deal with their grief that she forgot about her own grief and even her quest for the magical mustard seed that had, indeed, driven sorrow out of her life.
Emor, this week’s Torah portion, recounts the Israelite ancestors’ establishment of a ner tamid — an eternal light (Leviticus 24:1) that can drive darkness from people’s lives. In every synagogue, this symbol of hope illuminates darkness with a never-ending, glowing light of God that shines on all who can see through their darkest moments.