If there is any doubt about which sense of time is captured by the Jewish holidays – whether it is chronos or kairos, the old distinction between quantitative versus qualitative time – the fact that the word for a temporal point (moed) also refers to a meeting or gathering (va’ad) should make it perfectly clear. If there is va’ad taking place, it is a qualitative encounter, rather than just a moment in time.
But there is also something quite profound that emerges from the fact that the word for time incorporates both temporal and social meanings, and it is an idea that is found in the work of sociologist Émile Durkheim. In his Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim writes that “a calendar expresses the rhythm of the collective activities.” Our notion of the yearly cycle is already grounded in our annual activity. Put differently, for Durkheim, time is experienced in the context of our association with others. Here as well, the moed is experienced through the va’ad. In other words, we only relate to and perceive that particular time within the context of our collective experience of the holidays.
Of course, that can also mean that our sense of time is also shaped by the more important encounter – the one with G-d.
