Shabbat Forshpeis
A Taste of Torah in Honor of Shabbat
PARSHAT EMOR
UNRAVELING PARADIGMS OF HOLINESS
THROUGH THE COUNTING OF THE OMER
MAY 9-10, 2003 / 8 IYAR 5763
Why do we count the days from Passover to Shavuot?
(Leviticus 23:15) My son Rabbi Dov Weiss suggested that three paradigms of holiness help explain this unusual mitzvah, holiness of place (kedushat makom), holiness of person (kedushat gavra) and holiness of time (kedushat zeman).
With respect to holiness of place, we must bear in mind that the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot are important harvest seasons. The bringing and waving of the barley may be viewed, as Rashi points out, as a request of God to restrain harmful winds. (Rashi, Leviticus 23:11) Sforno adds that on Shavuot the wheat is brought as a means of giving thanks that the harvest has gone well. (Sforno, Leviticus 23:14) Note that the Hebrew word fifty (hamishim), the amount of time of the harvest between Passover and Shavuot, is similar to the word hamzin, the hot, often destructive wind. When working the land and receiving benefit, thanksgiving is due to God for the blessing of land.
With respect to holiness of the person, Passover is a celebration of our physical victory over the Egyptians. Yet, if we had become a people without a spiritual mission, it would have been a body functioning without a soul. It would have been a revolution without meaning or purpose. Hence, fifty days after the Exodus, the Torah was given. In the words of Sefer Ha-Hinukh we were commanded to count the days from the morrow after the festival day of Passover, till the day the Torah was given, to show with our very soul our great yearning for that distinguished day for which our heart longs. And, of course, the distinguished day is the day the Jews arrived at Sinai and heard the voice of God. (Sefer Ha-Hinukh 306)
Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, of blessed memory, offers a third reason, holiness of time. In his words: The basic criteria, which distinguishes free-man from slave, is the kind of relationship each has with time.... When the Jews were delivered from the Egyptian oppression and Moses rose to undertake the almost impossible task of metamorphosing a tribe of slaves into a nation of priests, he was told by God that the path leading from the holiday of Passover to Shavuot, from initial liberation to consummate freedom (revelation) leads through the medium of time. The commandment of Sefira was entrusted the Jews: the wondrous test of counting forty-nine successive days was put to them. These forty-nine days must be whole. If one day be missed, the act of enumeration is invalid. A slave who is capable of appreciating each day, of grasping its meaning and worth...is eligible for Torah. He has achieved freedom. (Rav Soloveitchik, Sacred and Profane: Gesher Journal) Thus counting allows us to understand and truly treasure the gift of time.
The upshot: counting the Omer is an all-embracing mitzvah. Through it we thank God for the bounties of the land and thereby sanctify place; through it we recognize that Torah values give meaning to life, thereby sanctifying person; and through it we remind ourselves of the importance of every moment, thereby sanctifying time.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Avi Weiss
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