D'var Torah for Parashat Emor

by Brendan Howard

for week of Shabbat 5/9/25

I talked to someone at a synagogue whose board is on the hunt for a new rabbi. This congregant told me that a couple of members told her that they don’t come right now because … they’re waiting for a new rabbi.

We get it: A rabbi or hazzan or cantor brings much to a Jewish community. A rabbi is an arbiter of Jewish law and ritual when you’re not sure. A rabbi is an enthusiastic and well-rounded teacher. A rabbi is a prayer leader who can bring confidence and the right balance of enthusiasm and education to services. At the best times, a rabbi comforts in times of pain, lifts us in times of joy, and stabilizes in times of chaos.

People grow used to the comfort of a rabbi.

So … what does a Jewish community do without a full-time rabbi? Can we not do all the fully Jewish things without a rabbi or hazzan?

Do Jews need a rabbi to pray? I am no expert, but I’ve been through my Reform, Conservative and Artscroll prayerbooks. I haven’t checked all the footnotes, but I’m pretty sure we can pray all our prayers without a rabbi present. We need a minyan, nine other fellow Jews to say certain prayers, or to say them out loud. But we can pray without a rabbi.

Do we need a rabbi to bless the extraordinary and ordinary events of our lives? We, tonight, are proof that that’s not so. Any Jews anywhere bless God throughout life and in any service, evening, morning or mid-day. Baruch Atah Hashem, Elokeinu Melech haOlam … we can bless our Shabbat candles, bless our meals, bless our children, bless the world … without a rabbi.

Do we need a rabbi to wed? Rabbi Isaac Klein in A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice says that the biggest requirement for a kosher Jewish wedding are a properly worded marriage contract, a k’tubah, and two Jewish witnesses. Yes, because the witnesses are supposed to be shomer shabbos, observant of Shabbat’s rules against work, Klein writes that it is ideal for a rabbi or chazzan to be those witnesses to avoid embarrassment for others who might not be shomer shabbos. If you want to make sure to do it just right, you want a rabbi who’s dotted the halacha “i”s and crossed the minhag “t”s. But no rabbis, a k’tubah signed with two witnesses, still married.

Do we need a rabbi to bury? There are rules for caring for, and preparing for burial, Jewish bodies. These can be carried out by knowledgeable members of a chevra kadisha, a burial society, a “holy society.” And final prayers and interment absolutely need, not a rabbi, but a minyan, again, to say prayers about God’s holiness in public together.

Do we need a rabbi to be good Jews, to do Judaism correctly?

I propose that our tradition had a choice about that question, and it ties into this week’s Torah portion. In Emor, we see rules for priests. Priests were required for particular functions in the Judaism of the sacrificial temple in Jerusalem.

You cannot make offerings, the Torah tells us, without the priests’ work with the traveling altar in the desert and, later, in the Jerusalem temple. You’re guilty, you’re grateful, you’re obedient, you’re joyful … all these are manifested in various sacrifices of animal and grain through the priests. But when the temple was destroyed, especially the second time, and never rebuilt through to this very day, our tradition had a choice.

We got rabbis and rabbinic Judaism, our Judaism, but we could have gotten a priestly class. Think the Pope and the Catholics! When the temple was destroyed, the rabbis could have waved their legalistic hands and enlisted priests wherever there were Jews to whom you could bring your sacrifices, and smaller altars, all over the world, to continue the work of the great priestly class and their servants, the Kohanim and the L’vi-im.

But our sages decided to deputize, not the rabbis, but the Jewish people.

The sacrifices to God couldn’t be done properly without priests and altar, so those had to be transformed into the words of our mouths, the meditations of our hearts. We had and have teachers, rabbis, essential guides of Jewish law, local custom, and confusingly complex holy tests. These rabbis inspire us. We, the Jewish people, need them. As the collection of advice in Talmud, Pirkei Avot, suggests, aseh l’cha rav, “make for ourselves a teacher,” a rav, a rabbi, in glorifying, respecting, and learning at our rabbis’ feet.

Any Jewish community appreciates a good rabbi or hazzan. But we lost the priests and the temple long ago, and the rabbis said, folks, what you do require is a minyan, what you do require is a community, what you do require, for Judaism, is … Jews.

And here we are.

The Jewish sages of old didn’t yoke us to the rabbis. They could have. Instead, we got deputized, folks. We were all made deputies, with our kippot like cowboy hats, and our tallit prayer shawls with, instead of a tin star, dangling tzitzit to remind us we are responsible for following those rules, we are responsible for doing the work to seek out learning. From rabbis all over the world. From the books, ancient and modern. From the tradition.

It is up to us, deputies, to ask questions of ourselves and the wider world to get ritual and prayer right. It is up to us to learn from each other, as in the monthly mussar book class and future educational film nights. It is up to us to feed the hungry with the Open Door Food Kitchen. It is up to us to fill out the minyan at prayer services like this one. And it will be left to us to comfort in times of pain, share each others’ joys, and keep each other steady in times of chaos.

So, it’s my prayer tonight, that our being together in moments like these tonight continue, and that our love for Judaism and our love for each other and the strangers in your midst make us the “light to the nations” we have been tasked to become. Rabbi or not.

Deputies, let’s get out there and make it happen.