EMOR - SAY
Emor means tell! The parasha begins: "Tell the priests, the sons of Aaron, and you will tell them..." Since the priests are closer to the creator, stricter rules apply to them. This means in Kabbalah that the closer we are to the end of our transformation, the more important will be the small details in our relationship with our fellow man.
The parasha begins with an instruction to the priests - kohanim - who are subject to special, somewhat stricter rules than the rest of the Israelites. Priests must not be ritually impure, so they must not come into contact with a dead body, unless it is a close relative. A priest may not marry a divorcee, a widow, or a woman who has been a prostitute. He must marry a virgin! They must be physically flawless, and they must not sacrifice deformed animals.
A newborn animal must stay with its mother for at least seven days before it can be sacrificed. An adult animal and its young may not be sacrificed on the same day.
Next, the parasha talks about the holidays that the Israelites must celebrate. A ratio count is also commanded here.
Then we read about the eternal fire in the temple and about the placing of loaves on the ceremonial table.
We read about the severity of cursing the creator's name, which is punishable by death. The following are instructions related to the Retribution Act.
The parasha is read at the time of the omer and also commands the counting of the omer when we must redefine ourselves. When we have "put the omer through" a few times, the last little things will remain to be corrected - this way we will become completely spotless, so we will be able to serve in the temple, where we will be in direct contact with the creator.
In the continuation of the parasha we read: "Say to the children of Israel..." Saying דבר is for the multitudes, but saying אמר is for the priests. Concretely, this means that only at the end of the process of spiritual transformation will we experience complete revelation and will hear things differently and react accordingly to our situations!
INVOCATION OF THE HOLY
דַּבֵּ֞ר אֶל־בְּנֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ וְאָמַרְתָּ֣ אֲלֵהֶ֔ם מֹועֲדֵ֣י יְהוָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־תִּקְרְא֥וּ
אֹתָ֖ם מִקְרָאֵ֣י קֹ֑דֶשׁ אֵ֥לֶּה הֵ֖ם מֹועֲדָֽי׃
Lev 23:2 Say to the children of Israel, and you will say to them: "The feasts of יהוה, which you will celebrate, are holy celebrations! These are my holidays!”
Parasha Emor is a continuation of the previous parashots: Aharei mot and Kedoshim. We learn in more detail what it means to be holy and how a person who wants to become like a creator and thus achieve infinite pleasure develops this characteristic of a creator. It is essential to develop the ability to differentiate, which is also integration. We can also say that being holy means the ability to segregate ourselves from the profane and transitory materiality, which means inclusion in infinite spirituality.
Holidays are special structures in time during which we can achieve recognizable progress on our spiritual path. When enumerating, we first encounter Saturday, which is considered the most important "calling of the holy", and all other holidays are modeled on Saturday. A holiday, a convocation of the holy, is a day of rest that follows a working day. The holiday thus always represents a malkut that receives light in light of our previous efforts and correction. Malkut is our sovereignty, when we have done everything previously, and now we observe the intervention of the creator - the convocation of the holy, which gives the final seal.
The word call comes from the verb to call /kara/ करा - the book Vajikra itself means "and he called". Now we can rightly say that the entire third book of Moses is dedicated to summoning holiness into our lives. If we understand this as an integration made possible by segregation, then we will not go down the path of pseudo-spirituality.
There is also an emphasis on “referring to references”, which is described by the word for speech. Uniqueness, differentiation or specialness, separation from everyday life, can be achieved through our speech and in general with the chosen communication! So holiness is communicating in a way that distinguishes and connects at the same time. Basically, it is only through linguistic differentiation that we can find out how things are related to each other.
That the parasha is about the importance of speech is evident from the very beginning, since Emor means tell. At the end of the parasha we also read about cursing the (creator's) name.
THE FOUR WORLDS
Almost every parasha begins with "and he said" or the verb is somehow included in the first verses. Most of the time we have the narrative pattern and he told, narrating or and he said, narrating. What is unusual about this parasha is tell them and you will tell them! If we want to understand what the author is telling us, then we need to know the difference between the verbs to say (amar, emor) and say (diber). I am very consistent in my translation of the Torah and I always translate and he said, say, you will say when the verb is "amar, emor". This one is much more common than you said, you will say, which is the verb "diber". It is interesting that the word "diber" also means say, thing, matter - so it fits the translation into Slovenian very nicely, when the word "diber" means you will say and also say (thing). What is important? In Hebrew, amar (to say) sounds much softer than diber (to say). "Accidentally" is also like that in Slovenian. Priests must speak softly, kindly - just as Aaron did, who was peaceful and who pacified the warring Israelites with peaceful words.
The way we talk to others shows how far we are in the process of spiritual transformation. We have to reach the level where we will accompany every challenging situation with calm and respectful words. Let's remember that Aron is also a symbol for the Sephiroth of Hod. In short; humility through nice, calm speech. This idea is also related to parasha Vajikra, where we pointed out the importance of respect in interpersonal relationships.
A priest is therefore a spiritual state in each of us. Although this state is reached at the end of the spiritual transformation, we must prepare for it now. Basically, we can only achieve priesthood if we are ready for it, so it is right that we should already act as if we were priests. We need to visualize this role.
Priesthood is the state when we have entered the spiritual world of Azilut, where we are finally corrected, so our malkut becomes immaculate (virgin), and before that we performed correction in the worlds of Asi (widow), Yezira (divorce) and Beria (prostitute). Asylum correction, when we become holy, is more demanding than the previous ones. In this state, we have to clear up with the past, with our negative manifestations of the ego - these are corpses that we must not touch. We must not return to the egoistic acceptance of pleasure!
On the mark level, it is about the corrective elevation of the lower worlds to the azilut, and on the micro level, it is the elevation of the malkut to the bina. When these structures return to their place, in order for the inverse entry of light into the kelim to be completed, it is necessary to distance ourselves from our previous kelim (not to touch the corpses). The basic message is that negatives (clips) follow us all the way to asylum!