Kindling the Regular Light

May 1, 2026

The Jewish People loves holidays. This week’s parashah, Emor, reminds the Israelites of the yontif schedule: Shabbat every week, of course, and then the big ones: Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. Dayenu, that would have been enough. But those are just the holidays in the Torah. Later generations added Purim, Chanukah, Tisha B’Av and Tu Bishvat. And if you’re really machmir, really serious, then you also include the fast days of Tzom G’daliah, Ta’anit Esther, Asarah b’Tevet, and Shivah Asar b’Tammuz. And I won’t even list the modern Israeli holidays. Take a look at the Hebrew calendar and you’ll see that every month of the year, with one exception, has a holiday. That one empty month is Cheshvan, which the Sages called Mar-Cheshvan, “Bitter Cheshvan.” Rabbis today, noting that it comes after the holiday-heavy month of Tishrei, call it “Sweet, Sweet Cheshvan.” But every Cheshvan, and after every holiday, there is a bit of a letdown (even for rabbis). It’s human nature to look forward to the climactic moments, to focus our attention and energy on these most special, holy days, just as we anxiously prepare for and look forward to weddings, birthdays, graduations, and Super Bowls. We do love a good special occasion. (I remember when my son Maverick was around three, I was explaining what a special occasion was. After my explanation, I asked him, “So can you think of an example of a special occasion?” And he said, “When the garbage man comes.” So it seems that special is in the eye of the beholder.)

Special occasions are wonderful, and Judaism has an embarrassment of riches in the special occasion department. But our tradition also reminds us that we can’t live on holidays alone. After the description of the holidays in our parashah, we read, “GOD spoke to Moses, saying: Command the Israelite people to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly. Aaron shall set them up in the Tent of Meeting outside the curtain of the Pact [to burn] from evening to morning before GOD regularly; it is a law for all time throughout the ages” (Lev. 24:1-3). The people are commanded to bring clear, pure olive oil to light the menorah as a ner tamid in the Tabernacle. In honor of the original, synagogues usually have their own version of the ner tamid hanging over the ark. We often call it the “eternal light,” but it is more accurately translated as the “regular light,” since the menorah only burned through the night and was relit every evening. So really, if we wanted to be historically accurate, every morning, we should turn off our ner tamid and then turn it back on at night. 

I think this commandment about the ner tamid is placed here after the description of the festivals to demonstrate that Judaism isn’t just about how we spend our holy days; it’s actually more about how we spend every other day. Consider the talmudic disagreement between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai about the order of blessings on a festival evening. Beit Shammai says a person should bless the day and then bless the wine, and Beit Hillel says one should bless the wine and then the day (Ber. 51b). Since Hillel is almost always right, we follow his ruling: as we will tonight, first we say “borei p’ri hagafen” over the wine and then we recite the rest of the Kiddush, which concludes by blessing God for sanctifying the holy day. This might seem like an obscure, not particularly interesting halakhic dispute, but the reasoning behind the decision is significant. The Talmud explains, “The blessing over wine is recited frequently, and the blessing over the day is not recited frequently, and there is a general principle: When a frequent practice and an infrequent practice clash, the frequent practice takes precedence” (ibid.). The frequent practice takes precedence. In other words, we might think that meeting the obligations of the special occasion is more important than fulfilling the mitzvot we perform every day, but the halakhah says the opposite: even on holidays, our daily practices should still remain our primary concern. 

The origin of this principle comes from the order of sacrifices that are prescribed in the Torah, which we don’t need to get into tonight. But the bottom line is that the most valuable offerings to God are the regular ones, the mundane, everyday goats or sheep that were offered on the altar as the olat tamid, the regular daily offering. Devotion to God is demonstrated by the regular--both in the sense of recurring and in the sense of ordinary--acts of devotion, the offering of the olat tamid and the lighting of the ner tamid. Likewise, today, a relationship with God is often only achieved through repeated attempts for connection. That’s why we call it a prayer practice--we don’t often get it right the first time.

What is true for the relationship between God and Israel is also true for our human relationships. It’s relatively easy to show up for our loved ones when there’s a crisis: a bad diagnosis, a death in their family. We bring a meal, send a card. It’s much harder to remember to check in months later, when our attentions have drifted elsewhere but their pain is still very real. Even in the absence of a crisis, true friendships are only maintained by repeated and continual acts of care and affection. Likewise, marriages are built day after day, not just at the wedding or on an anniversary. Wedding vows have to be kept over and over again. Even plants have to be watered regularly if they’re going to grow and thrive. Commitment, faithfulness, covenant--none of these can be achieved just on special occasions. Who we are and what we care about isn’t measured by what we do on Yom Kippur--it’s measured by what we do every other day of the year.

In this week’s parashah, we are commanded to count for ourselves seven complete weeks – שֶׁ֥בַע שַׁבָּת֖וֹת תְּמִימֹ֥ת – between Passover and Shavuot; it’s known as “counting the omer.” At first, it seems that the purpose of the counting is to eagerly anticipate Shavuot, the holiday that celebrates accepting the Torah. But as 18th century scholar Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim notes, the weeks must be t’mimot, complete or whole. He says, “[The word] sh’lemut would be more appropriate since shalem denotes quantitative fullness and tamim qualitative perfection….Thus the quality as well as the number of the days is important in the counting of the omer.” So, he says, “‘And you shall count for yourselves’ implies introspection and stock-taking in order to choose the true good…when counting the seven weeks [one] must make sure to complete the number and preserve the quality of each day.” In other words, we are commanded to both count each day and to make each day count. These mundane, in-between days provide us with an opportunity to recommit ourselves to the ner tamid, to regular acts of faithfulness and devotion, to our families, to our communities, and to God. For when we add them all together, the sum total is a life well-lived, a life worth living.

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 1. New Studies in Vayikra, Vol. 2, Leibowitz, pg. 426.