Emor - in The Liturgy

In The Liturgy

Some Jews refer to the 24 priestly gifts deduced from Leviticus 21 and Numbers 18 as they study chapter 6 of Pirkei Avot on a Sabbath between Passover and Rosh Hashanah. (Menachem Davis. The Schottenstein Edition Siddur for the Sabbath and Festivals with an Interlinear Translation, 587. Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 2002. ISBN 1-57819-697-3.)

The laws of a priest’s family eating meat from sacrifices in Leviticus 22:11–13 provide an application of the eleventh of the Thirteen Rules for interpreting the Torah in the Baraita of Rabbi Ishmael that many Jews read as part of the readings before the Pesukei d’Zimrah prayer service. The eleventh rule provides that any item that was included in a generalization but was then singled out to be treated as a special case is not governed by the generalization unless Scripture explicitly returns it to the generalization. Leviticus 22:11 states the general rule that a priest’s entire household could eat meat from sacrifices. But Leviticus 22:12 then says that if a priest’s daughter married a non-priest, then she could no longer eat meat from sacrifices. What if she was then widowed or divorced without children and returned to live with her father’s household? Reading Leviticus 22:12, one might think that she still could not eat meat from sacrifices, but Leviticus 22:13 explicitly returns her to the general rule that she could eat meat from sacrifices. (Davis, Siddur for the Sabbath and Festivals, at 245–46.)

The Passover Haggadah, in the concluding nirtzah section of the Seder, ties together a reference to Abraham’s hospitality to his visitors in Genesis 18:7 with the reading for the second day of Passover that includes in Leviticus 22:27 a discussion of a bullock offering. The Haggadah reports that Abraham ran to the cattle to commemorate the ox in the reading for Passover, deducing the season from the report in Genesis 19:3 that Lot fed his visitors matzah. (Joseph Tabory. JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, 126. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8276-0858-0.)