By: Brandon Rattiner
Senior Director, Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC)
This week’s parsha, Parshat Emor, lays out the holidays and rhythms that structure our year. What stands out isn’t just the specificity of the Jewish calendar, but the idea behind it: Judaism teaches us to sanctify time.
Abraham Joshua Heschel makes this point powerfully in his book The Sabbath. While much of the world is focused on mastering space—building, acquiring, controlling—Judaism is focused on elevating moments. Holiness isn’t something we find in places or things; it’s something we create by how we show up in time.
That’s why the first thing the Torah ever calls holy is not a place, but a day: Shabbat.
Parshat Emor teaches us that meaning comes from distinguishing between moments—deciding when to pause, when to pay attention, and when to act.
That idea feels especially relevant right now. Everything feels urgent. Every issue, every statement, every moment seems to demand a response.
But if everything is urgent, nothing is set apart. And we lose the ability to act with clarity, focus, or impact.
That’s the hardest part of our work at JCRC—deciding when and how to engage in a world that constantly demands a response. There are no easy answers, and we don’t always get it right. But we try to be disciplined: focusing where our community is most directly affected, where our values clearly call us in, where our voice can actually shape outcomes, and where engagement strengthens rather than fragments relationships.
If Heschel is right, holiness isn’t about doing everything. It’s about showing up—intentionally—in the moments that matter.
That’s the discipline. And, in its own way, the work.
Shabbat Shalom.
Please email Brandon Rattiner at brattiner@jewishcolorado.org with questions or comments.