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Welcome to Kolot, the podcast of The Ark Synagogue, a bold, experiential and caring Progressive Jewish community in Northwood, London.
Through sermons, reflections and conversations from across our community, Kolot explores Jewish life, learning and values in the world we live in today. Rooted in tradition and open to new perspectives, these episodes bring together voices that inspire thought, connection and belonging.
Whether you are Jewish, exploring Judaism, or simply looking for meaningful reflection, you are warmly welcome.
To learn more about The Ark Synagogue, visit arksynagogue.org.
Between the rules for the purity of the priests and a disconcerting story about the stoning of a blasphemer, Parashat Emor gives us the calendar of sacred time: Shabbat, Pesach, the counting of the Omer, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah—here called zichron teruah, a remembrance through the sound of the shofar—Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret. Apart from Shabbat, these are the chagim.
Again and again, the Torah repeats the same language: mikra kodesh—a sacred occasion.
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But the holiness of these days is not presented as something that simply descends from heaven. God says:
asher tikre’u otam mikra’ei kodesh
“which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions.”
God gives the times. But we proclaim them.
God offers the possibility of holiness. But we are the ones who mark it, name it, enter it, and make it real in our lives.
That is already a radical idea: sacredness is not only something we receive. It is something we are responsible for creating.
Abraham Joshua Heschel understood this deeply. In The Sabbath, he wrote that Judaism is not a religion of space but of time—that the great cathedrals we build are not made of stone, but of hours and days.
“The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals.”
Through them, we learn to sanctify time itself. These mo’adim—these appointed times—are not retreats from life. They are the architecture of a life lived with intention.
Earlier in the Torah, Israel is called mamlekhet kohanim v’goy kadosh—a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Not only the priests are asked to live lives of holiness. The whole people are invited into that task. We are, in some sense, a peoplehood of priests—a community called to take the ordinary materials of life—food, work, rest, harvest, memory, grief, joy, and time itself—and lift them toward the experience of the sacred.
Holiness is not an escape from the world. It is the discipline of separating something from the flow of ordinary life and saying: this matters. This day is different. This moment asks something of me.
Right in the middle of this calendar, the Torah gives us a mitzvah that is not exactly a festival, but a bridge between festivals:
u’sefartem lachem
“you shall count for yourselves.”
From Pesach to Shavuot, from liberation to revelation, we count. Not because God does not know the date, but because we are being shaped by the act of counting.
The Sifra notices the phrase lachem—“for yourselves”—and teaches: kol echad v’echad, each person must count individually. The journey from Pesach to Shavuot cannot be outsourced. No one else can count your days for you.
And yet, this movement—from freedom towards covenant, from being released from Egypt towards becoming responsible before God—is not travelled alone. Individual steps find courage and strength in community. And together, this year, the Ark community is counting, growing, changing.
Counting… ordering… The Omer turns the passage of time into spiritual practice. Each day is a step; each night a small act of attention. Counting does not merely measure time—it refines the one who counts. That may be one reason the Torah insists the weeks be temimot—complete. Sacred time asks for wholeness. Not perfection, but presence. A complete week is one we have noticed.
And then, immediately after the laws of Shavuot, the Torah says: when you harvest your field, do not reap all the way to the edges. Leave the corners and the gleanings for the poor and the stranger.
Why interrupt the festival calendar with this ethical law?
Because holiness that remains only in ritual is incomplete. Sacred time must create sacred responsibility. If we truly count our days before God, we must also notice our surroundings: who is hungry, who is vulnerable, who is standing at the edge of the field.
We separate time from ordinary time so that we can return to the world more awake, more generous, more God-conscious.
The Shalosh Regalim began as agricultural memory, became historical experience, and only finally theological reflection. A congregation needs a calendar. Before there were printed calendars, there were shared communal festivals—and those festivals are what made us a people.
The Omer is perhaps the simplest way to hold a community’s attention: fifty days that link Pesach to Shavuot, threading liberation and revelation into a single, lived experience.
Parashat Emor teaches that holiness begins with God, but it does not end there. God says: these are My appointed times—but you shall proclaim them. You shall count. You shall rest. You shall rejoice. You shall leave the corners of your field.
Experiencing the sacred is our responsibility. And it is also our possibility.
We are not passive recipients of holy moments. We are partners in making them visible. By separating sacred time, we make ourselves more sacred. And by making ourselves more sacred, we become more able to bring time, community, and the world itself closer to God.
Shabbat shalom.
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