From the second night of Pesah and throughout this month (and the next!) we count the Omer (it says so in the Torah, check it out in Leviticus 23:15). Each evening we tick off another digit as the day passes. Why do we do this?
The most obvious answer is that we are counting up (the reverse of a count-down). In this instance, we are counting off forty-nine days; the number of days that our ancestors walked their way to the mountain in the Sinai desert to receive the Words of God.
The language we use to count goes like this: : Blessed are You, HaShem, our God, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and has commanded us concerning the counting of the Omer. Then you say: Today is ___ day[s] of the Omer.
Generally, what do we count? We count things that are meaningful. When a birthday is getting close, we count. When a rocket ship is about to be launched, we count. When we find out about a pregnancy, we calculate the time remaining. We number the days until vacation. And here we count the days until Revelation, the anniversary of Torah. Counting is about the joy of anticipation.
Long ago it was different than it is today. When the Temple stood in Jerusalem, Jewish people used to bring handfuls of barley (the handfuls were called “omer”s) to the kohan’im every day.. If they missed a day of bringing the Omer, they were not permitted to make it up which is why we try hard to not miss a single night of counting nowadays. Also, the omer was supposed to be cut at night which is why we count in the evening in our time.
One scholar, Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenberg, noticed that the commandment to count actually says, “You shall count for you…” What this saintly rabbi said was that when we count the omer, we are actually doing something that has deep soulful personal implications. In counting off the days to the holy day of Shavuot, Torah Day, we are heightening our internal register of joy. By making the time to mentally prepare for the greatest event of human history we create powerful anticipatory internal emotions.
What does this mean to you? When we count the omer we create an internal hunger to feel the majesty of the moment of the Torah being given. When the anniversary arrives it will be momentous.
At the same time, it also means that we craft the emotions we carry. What we put into life is what we get out of it. Whether it is the love that we continually nourish in our family, or the Shabbat candles that we faithfully light on Friday nights, or the ongoing effort we place into learning Torah, or simply counting up the days to Shavuot – what we take from life is what we invest into it.
Is there any greater truth than this?
