Summary of parashat Emor
The Emor (“Tell Them”) section begins with the special laws of the Kohanim (“priests”), the Cohen Gadol (“High Priest”), and service in the Temple: a Cohen may not become ritually impure through contact with a corpse, except in the case of the death of a close relative. A Cohen may not marry a divorced woman or a woman with a promiscuous past; the Cohen Gadol may marry only a virgin. A Cohen with a physical deformity may not serve in the Holy Temple; nor may a deformed animal be offered as a sacrifice.
When a calf, kid, or ram is born, it must be left with its mother for seven days; it is forbidden to slaughter an animal and its young on the same day.
The second part of Emor lists the annual festivals of the Jewish calendar. These include the Passover offering on the 14th of Nisan; the seven-day festival of Passover beginning on the 15th of Nisan; the barley offering called the Omer on the second day of Passover and the beginning of the Counting of the Omer for the next 49 days, culminating in the festival of Shavuot on the fiftieth day; a “remembrance of the sound of the shofar” on the 1st of Tishrei; a solemn day of fasting on the 10th of Tishrei; and the festival of Sukkot—during which one must live in a booth for seven days and partake of the “Four Species”—beginning on the 15th of Tishrei.
Emor concludes with the incident of a man executed for blasphemy, the penalties for murder and for insulting one's neighbor or destroying his property (monetary compensation).
