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Today is Lag BaOmer. Shabbat starts on Friday at 5:00pm and ends on Saturday at 5:59pm.  The weekly Torah portion is Emor. 

Mincha continues at 1pm at A-P GF/459 Collins Mon-Wed, and Thu 1.45pm at L1 Capital using the WhatsApp group to confirm numbers.

Weekly sushi & shiur continues on Wed at 1.10pm (after mincha) at A-P GF/459 Collins – and via zoom. Current topic: fencing law. Details here and on the WhatsApp group.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Ya’akov Waller.

In the weekly reading of Emor, we encounter repeated prescriptions for precision and perfection in the law. The Kohanim are required to adhere to exacting purity laws and may not perform their service in a state of impurity. Sacrifices must be wholly unblemished. Festivals must occur on their appointed days without deviation.

But among those laws, is the law of pe’ah: “When you reap your land’s harvest, do not completely harvest the corner of your field… leave them for the poor and the stranger.”

In contrast to much else in the parsha, pe’ah is striking in its demand for imperfection.

While the law was developed more prescriptively rabbinically, in the Torah’s account, it is notably undemanding. All that is required is that the job of harvesting be left unfinished and free to the poor and the stranger.

That contrast might serve to remind us that while scrupulous observance is necessary, that attitude should not be allowed to interfere with the humanity (unstructured and flexible as it often needs to be) that is necessary in our interpersonal dealings. Indeed, pe’ah demonstrates that both approaches are divinely commanded, and both have their time and place.