 The title of tonight's lecture is Counting Up to Shavuot, the Intermeeting of the Counting of the Omer. So we're now standing in a period of time between the festivals of Pesach, Passover and Shavuot, sometimes known as Pentecost, literally translated as the Festival of Weeks, and it's also the festival in which we celebrate the giving of the Torah. And now in truth, Pesach and Shavuot, these two festivals, they share the same inner content, the same inner meaning, because it is Shavuot that actually gives meaning to the freedom of Pesach. In fact, when Hashem, when God sent Moses to Pharaoh, his message to Pharaoh is, let my people go, and that's the phrase that everybody remembers, let my people go. It became very popular in the 80s when people were campaigning for the Russian Jews who were stuck behind the Iron Curtain, but the part so that they may serve me, which is the end of that phrase that people kind of forgot. However, when God sent Moses to Pharaoh, he told them straight up what his intent is. He told the Jewish people to be free, let them go so that they can serve me. Furthermore, we read in the book of Exodus chapter 3, verse 10, where God is having this whole debate with Moses. Moses really didn't want to be the one to take the Jewish people out of Egypt. He wasn't sure of himself. He says, so now come and I will send you to Pharaoh and take my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should take the children of Israel out of Egypt? God says to him like as follows, and he said, for I will be with you, and this is the sign for you that it was I who sent you. When you take the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. That you and the whole Jewish people will come ultimately to the mountain of Sinai, and that's where they will worship God. So we see clearly that Pesach and Shavuos are very much connected. The whole meaning and purpose of the Exodus and the redemption from Egypt was for the express purpose of becoming God's covenant people in which he is our God and we are his people who worship and serve him. So in and of itself, freedom is meaningless if it's not invested with inner content. We all know of some people who are technically free, they're technically free, but for all intents and purposes, their freedom is void of meaning. I'm not one to do movie reviews, and I don't really watch many movies at all, but many years ago someone really pushed me to watch Shawshank Redemption. And one scene I just can't get out of my mind is when, I don't remember who the actor was, but anyway, whoever it was was released from jail after 30 years. He didn't know what to do with himself. And the next day they found him hanging in his apartment because he just didn't know what to do with himself. In other words, freedom, if there's no meaning, ultimately it could be a meaningless thing and can cause sometimes more problems than it solves. And so when we come to Shavuas, it's the time when we receive the Torah. And so it's, so to speak, the goal, the destination, or the climax of the Exodus. And in fact, the Ramban, Nachmanadi states that Pesach is the beginning and Shavuot, which is also given, the Hebrew name Atsaret, is the end. And the days in between, the days we're standing in right now, he calls Chol Hamoed, they're like Chol Hamoed, they're like the inter, the in between days, the interval days between the two ends of what is essentially one festival. And so what this means is that we are currently living in a very special and meaningful period of time, a period that connects Pesach and Shavuas. Now one of the things that highlights this direct link, meaning that this period is connected to the Pesach and Shavuas, is that every evening Jewish people count the days and weeks that have passed since the first day of Passover. And this counting is called Svir to Omer, the counting of the Omer. So tonight what I want to do is I want to take a closer look at the Omer, look at the source of the counting of the Omer, and then address an issue that's bothered me ever since I was a child. So let's start with the obvious question. Why is everybody counting? Why are we counting days and weeks that have passed since Passover? What's the point? So the answer that I was taught as a young boy came in the form of a song. Shavuot is coming, nearer and nearer, that's why we count the Svirah. That's what they taught me. And so we're really excited about coming to this festival of Shavuot, where we're going to receive the Torah, and that's why we count the Svirah, which is called the Counting of the Omer. The Ram, Rabbeinu Nisim ben Ruben, who's from the 13th century, so he writes at the end of the tractate of Psachim, which deals with Pesach, the Passover, he cites over there a Medrush, which says that the current practice of counting of the Omer can be traced back to the original counting that was done by the Jewish people in anticipation of receiving the Torah as they left Egypt. So here you have someone writing in the name of a Midrash that the origins of this Mitzvah, the origins of the counting of the Omer that we do today goes all the way back to the time when the Jewish people left Egypt, and in their great anticipation they counted the days to receiving the Omer. The Seferah Chinuch, which is a work written in the 13th century in Spain, which discusses the 613 commandments, first linking the Mitzvah to its biblical source, and then it addresses philosophical underpinnings of the commandment. The Chinuch writes as follows. I'm going to read over here from what the Chinuch writes. Now again, this is not the whole thing, this is just a small section from within what he writes about Seferah to Omer. He says as follows, since the essence of the Jewish people is the Torah, and because of the Torah, the heaven and earth and Israel were created, as the verse states, if not for my covenant of Torah, day and night, I would not have appointed the laws of heaven and earth. This is from Jeremiah chapter 33 verse 25. So he writes, we were commanded to count from the morrow after the festival day of Passover till the day the Torah was given, why? To show with our soul our great yearning for that distinguished day for which our hearts longs like a slave yearns for shade and constantly counts and reckons when the longed for time will come when he will go out to freedom. And he says, for counting demonstrates about a person that all his hope and all his desire is to reach that time, okay? And this is what he says, this is what is expressed in our counting of the Omer. So what's clear from all of this is that the counting of the Omer is an expression of excitement and yearning to come to the time of Shavut, the time when the Jewish people received the Torah. But then the question, the obvious question is, why do we call it Omer? What's Omer got to do with anything? Why do we call it the counting of the Omer? Seems like a strange name. What is an Omer? What is this all about? And so the answer to this question appears in next week's Torah portion, Parshis Emor. In chapter 23 of the book of Leviticus, the Torah lists the Jewish holidays, the Jewish festivals. And following the commandment to keep the Passover holiday, the Torah states the following. This is in Leviticus chapter 23, verse 9 through 11, and then again from verse 15 through 16. He says as follows, so God spoke to Moshe, to Moses, saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, when you come to the land that I'm giving you and you reap the harvest, you shall bring the Omer of the first of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the Omer. An Omer is a measurement. Before God to be an appeasement for you, on the day following the Sabbath, the first day which we now know is the first day of Pesach, refers to the first day of Pesach, the coin shall wave it. Then it continues in verse 15 and 16, you shall count for yourselves from the day after Shabbat, which refers to the first day of Pesach. From the day that you brought the Omer of the waving, seven weeks, they shall be complete until the day after the seventh week, you shall count 50 days and you shall bring a new flower offering for God. So now, I mentioned that the Omer is a measurement. It's a biblical error measurement, which is equivalent to approximately 43 ounces. But on the second day of Passover, which was the 16th day of the month of Nisan, in addition to the regular offering, which was a lamb, there was offered also an Omer of barley. Now, although the Bible doesn't say explicitly barley, we know that it is a law that was given to Moses at Sinai, that the offering should be from barley from the first harvest of the land of Israel. And an interesting thing to note is that it was forbidden to eat or even reap any newly grown crops of the five species of grain, which is wheat, barley, oats, rye, and spelt, before harvesting the Omer. Okay? Now, how would this work? So Maimonides spells out the whole procedure, which is a fascinating procedure, which I didn't learn in school as a child. But it's nevertheless important for us to know what would happen. And also, when Moshiach comes, hopefully soon, speedily in our days, we will do this following, we'll do this procedure. So he says as follows, on the day before the festival of Passover, the agents of, the agents of the court, meaning of the Sanhedrin, would go out to the field and tie the barley into bundles while it was still attached to the ground so that it would be easy to reap. Then on the evening after the first day of Passover, all of the inhabitants of all the neighboring villages would gather so that it would be reaped with much fanfare. They would have three men reap three saw of barley in three baskets with three sickles. That's what they would do. After reaping, they would bring the barley to the temple courtyard where they beat, winnowed, and roasted the kernels over the fire in a cylinder. The kernels would then spread out in the temple courtyard, and the wind wafted through it. The barley was then brought to a mill and ground to produce three saw, again that's a measurement, approximately 6.5 gallons, and after it had been sifted with 13 sifters, an Isaron, one-tenth, was removed. This measurement of fine barley was taken and mixed with oil, and a handful of frankincense was placed upon it. It was waved in the eastern portion of the temple courtyard in all four directions, up, down, right, left. It was then brought close to the tip of the southwest corner of the altar, like the other meal offerings. A handful of the meal was taken and offered on the altar's fire. The remainder was eaten by the priests, like the remainder of all other meal offerings. So that was a procedure that was done with the barley flour that came from the first harvest. So that's where the name almer comes from, from this measurement of barley flour that was offered up on the second day of Passover. Now as we read in the verse above, we were told that the Torah commands us to count 50 days from the day that we brought the almer, and on the fiftieth day, another grain offering was brought. However, unlike the one brought on the second day of Passover, which was from barley, this offering, which was known as the steal, like in the two loaves, were brought from the new wheat, the harvest of the new wheat, not barley, but wheat. And so this counting between these two offerings is known as the counting of the almer. Now according to this, it would seem that the counting is directly associated with the two offerings one brought on the second day of Passover and the other one which was brought on Shavuas. But really, there doesn't seem to be any clear indicator that this has anything to do with the anticipation of the receiving of the Torah. So how do we make sense of all of this? So in order to try to make sense of all of this and try to connect the two, there's something that is unique about the korban almer, the offering of the almer, that might give us a clue to help us understand what's going on. So we mentioned that the korban almer, which was offered on Pesach, was actually an offering of barley, while the special Shavuot offering is made from wheat. What's the difference between wheat and barley? So barley is generally considered to be a grain fit for livestock, for animals, as opposed to wheat, which is considered fit for humans. Now, the Torah tells us that all the offerings that were brought in the temple, they all came from wheat, all the flour offerings, and there were many that were brought. They were all brought from wheat, besides two. There were only two that were not brought from wheat, they were brought from barley. One of those two, we're told one of them was the sota, the offering that a sota, a woman who was suspected of having an affair with another man, she, as part of her procedure, would have to bring a barley offering, an offering that came from flour that came from barley. The other one is the almer. The almer is the only other offering that came from barley. Now, the Talmud, intracted sota, gives us the reason why the sota would bring an offering from barley. And the Talmud tells us is since we view that kind of behavior as one of an animal, both the adulterers were behaving like animals, therefore her offering should also be like that of the animal food. What's the difference between a human being and an animal? So the difference between a human being and an animal is not intelligence. We know that animals also have intelligence, okay? There are some very smart animals out there. It's that animals are driven by their desires, by their emotions, and any intelligence that the animal may have is used by the animal to fulfill its own basic instincts and its desires. A human being, on the other hand, has the ability to rise above their desires, to rise above their basic instincts, and to choose based on reason how to behave. So what happens when a person chooses to follow their desires and their basic instincts and ignore all reason and all rationale? Well, we compare that person to an animal. So sometimes when you see somebody lash out, we ask them, why are you behaving like an animal? Or somebody eating like an animal? Why are you eating like an animal? What are we really saying? We're saying you can be a little bit more composed. We're not saying that you don't desire to eat. We're not saying that you're not hungry. You are hungry. But what makes you different to an animal who is hungry is that you don't have to react the way an animal would react when they're hungry. If that's the case, so we understand why the Sotah, the offering for the Sotah was brought from barley. But why was the Omer brought from barley? Why was the Corban Omer brought from barley? And so the commentaries explain that when the Jewish people left Egypt, they were on a very, very low level. In fact, we're told that they were on the 49th level of impurity and that Hashem had to take them out of Egypt before they fell into the 50th because had they fallen into the 50th, they would not be able to come out. And it's interesting when we read about the story about the Jewish people leaving Egypt, we're told Kibora Ha'am, the nation ran away. But where are they running? Why are you running? Parosh said, you can go. Walk. Where are you running? And so the rabbis explained that really what it's saying is they weren't running away from Pharaoh, they were running away from themselves, meaning to say as follows. When the Jewish people were in Egypt, in terms of their spiritual character, there was a severe deficiency. And they were operating in more of an animalistic mode of existence. And so many of the Jewish people didn't even want to leave Egypt. And we read about people who left Egypt and wanted to go back. What's that about? And so clearly what happened was they were on a very, very low level spiritually and it was imperative that God would come and take them out. And so what happened on the night of Pesach is that the Jewish people experienced a revelation of godliness that really overwhelmed them. It overwhelmed them. All of a sudden there was an incredible, I don't know how else to explain it, other than a revelation from God where it was clear to everybody that God is the only God and that He loves the Jewish people and it came down especially to save them. And that caused within them a reaction. And that reaction was an overwhelming desire for them to come close to God. And they had been told by Moses already that when they leave Egypt, they're going to be receiving the Torah. Now I don't know how much they really wanted to receive the Torah while they were in Egypt, but when it came to the time of the revelation, when it came to the time of the Exodus, they all wanted to be close to Hashem and they all wanted to receive the Torah. And therefore the Torah tells us, they ran, they were running, they were running to go and to receive the Torah. However, we know that just because a person gets excited, it doesn't mean that that excitement is going to last. It's quite possible that if that excitement comes because of something external to you, it's going to dissipate and the Jewish people were aware of this. And even though it is possible for them to receive the gift of the Torah without any preparation, however, without the appropriate preparation, the Torah's impact that it can have on the person, it wouldn't be as it could be, right? We know that people who, there's an expression that says, people don't prepare to fail, they fail to prepare. And so what happens is, if they weren't going to prepare themselves, they would not be able to receive the Torah in the way that one should. And so the Jewish people recognized that to receive the Torah properly, they need to refine themselves, making themselves more receptive and more sensitive to the Torah. It's interesting that the Talmud tells us that Abraham, Abraham, our forefather, fulfilled the entire Torah before it was given. It's a hard thing for us to understand. How do you keep the whole Torah before it was given? It's hard for us to keep the Torah after it was given. What do you mean, you kept the whole Torah before it was given? God didn't even tell you what the Torah is and you kept the whole Torah. And so some of the rabbis explained that if a person were truly refined as Abraham was, then that person would fulfill the Torah on their own accord without having to receive it from above. Why? Because they're in line and they're synced with what God wants, with God's will. And so the 50 days between the Exodus and the giving of the Torah were not just days of waiting where we're told, okay, we're going on a school trip in 50 days and everybody's just excited, then in 50 days we just have to wait, but in 50 days we're going on a school trip. But rather they realized that these days that they were told they would have to wait until they received the Torah were to be days of refinement, days that they were going to work on all those 49 levels that they had been immersed in of impurity. They would not only leave that impurity, but they would enter in gates of holiness. Now it's important to understand that in terms of how this world was created, everything has something corresponding to it. So everything in holiness has something corresponding to it in impurity and vice versa. And so sometimes you can have kindness in a spiritual and a holy sense, you can have that same kindness in an impure sense, in a not good way. What do I mean? There's an expression that says that a person has to be very careful not to be too kind and not to be too religious and not to be too smart. Why? Because if you're too kind, you become an adulterer. And if you're too clever, you become a heretic. And if you're too religious, you become cruel. And so a person has to be able to find the balance, to be able to know that each characteristic that we have can go in different ways. And we've got to be careful to make sure that they are refined and that they are also channeled in the right way. And so these days between Pesach and Shavuas, the days from the Exodus going to the time that they were going to come to Mount Sinai, they were days which required inner growth and self-improvement. And it was a war against all character traits that blocked one's spiritual development. And so this is how the commentary is explained that the omer of the offering barley which symbolizes, the offering the barley symbolized the unrefined parts of us, they serve, the rabbi say, they serve, it serves as a reminder to us that we need to utilize this time to move forward from the offering of barley to the offering of wheat which we said before is the food of the human. And what is a human? A human is a purpose-driven being. That's what a human being can be, a purpose-driven being. And our purpose as Jewish people, our purpose is the Torah and the Mitzvahs, to have a relationship with God and to follow his Torah and his Mitzvahs. And now in Judaism, we don't just celebrate anniversaries, we don't just commemorate something that happened many years ago, but rather we relive and we re-experience these things every year. And so on Pesach, we experience redemption. What does that mean? It means that at the time of Pesach, there is an extra assistance that we receive from Hashem to break free from all those things that block our spiritual growth. That's what Pesach is all about. And that's what we can tap into during the time of Pesach. Once we're given this launchpad, so to speak, where we can catapult ourselves forward in our spiritual growth, so then with this extra assistance, we embark on a path of preparing ourselves to once again receive the Torah on Shavuot. Again, it's not as if the Torah was only given once, but as we say when we go up to the Torah to be called up, we say Baruch Hatha Hashem, bless the you. Lord our God, noten ha Torah. Not the one who gave the Torah, but the giver of the Torah, as if it's something that's happening right now. God is giving us the Torah right now. And every year Shavuot, we receive the Torah again anew. And so the counting of the Ome reminds us of this and expresses our excitement to be drawing closer and closer to receive the Torah again. And so here we come to what bothered me ever since I was a child. As a child, you know, that when you're excited for something, how do you count? You count down. You count down. It's only two weeks left to my birthday. It's only one week left to my birthday and I'm gonna get a bike or whatever it is, right? So that's how you count down when you're really excited. And so how come, you know, in Shavuot is coming nearer and nearer, that's why we count in the Saphira. So why aren't we counting down? Why are we counting up? Today is one day, today is two days. Today is one week and one day. What is this? Why are we counting up? Why not down? And so one of the answers that I read, which really didn't satisfy me, I'm not saying it's not a good answer, but it didn't satisfy me, is that if we were to count down, it would make us very depressed or downcast that at the beginning of the counting, there's so many days until Shavuot. So if you start off today's 49 days left until we receive the Torah, you feel, oh, come on, what a downer, right? It's so far off. But to me, tell that to a kid. What do you mean? They start counting down anyway, right? So it didn't really sit with me. I'm not saying it's not a good answer or true answer, but it didn't sit with me. But a few years ago, it dawned on me that based on everything that we've mentioned here tonight, it should be obvious. It should be self-understood that these few weeks are extremely precious. In fact, the rabbi say that somebody who utilizes the time between Pesach and Shavuot doesn't need the 10 days of repentance. If you utilize this time properly and you utilize everything that's given to you by Hashem, then the 10 days of repentance are, so to speak, superfluous. They're not needed in the same sense as we... Each day of the counting of the Omer, we have our work cut out for us in developing and refining our inner character. And so to remind us how important it is for us to use each day to its fullest, that's why we say, for example, tonight is eight days, which is one week and one day. When you say that, if you're listening to yourself, and that's a big if, but if you're listening to yourself and hearing what you're saying, what you're really saying is today is eight days. What that means is it's one week and one day. What do I have to show for it? What do I have to show for eight full days, a week and a day, which I was given by God to prepare myself for the coming of, for the receiving of the Torah? How have I developed myself? How have I utilized these days to transform myself? Do I have something to show? And counting down doesn't have that same effect. Counting down is almost as if to say, there's nothing I need to do. It's just a matter of time passing, right? So there's only two weeks left and what do I have to do about it? Nothing, there's two weeks left and then it's just gonna happen. Hashem's just gonna give us the Torah. Counting up tells you there's something I need to do. There's something that's requiring my personal investment and my participation. And when we take this message and we focus on each day and what the day represents, then ultimately we receive Torah in a completely different way. There's no question that when a person comes to a lecture, for example, or an experience like a bar mitzvah or a wedding if they truly prepare themselves for that day and for that experience, that experience is a completely different one to somebody who just rocks up on the day and just says, here I am. And so when a person counts the omen and realizes that there's something we're working towards, ultimately, when it comes to Shavuaz and we hear that nasa venishma, we will listen and obey. It's said and felt in a completely different manner to someone who hasn't really worked on refining themselves. And just to kind of add in over here, tututu, the whole idea of the Torah is summarized in the verse Shema Yisrael Hashem al-Lakayno Hashem al-Khaad that the Lord our God is one. And what that really means is that the center of everything is not me, I'm not the center, Hashem is the center. That's the whole Judaism. That Hashem is the center of everything. Our experience generally is, what's the center of your universe? So for mothers it's their children, but for most people it's themselves. It's like I'm the center of my universe. I'm the center of my universe. And so therefore everything that happens and everything that I do is usually somehow connected with bringing that attention to myself. The time of Smyrsa Omar is to basically turn that outwards and say it's not about me. The whole idea is the chesed that I have, the kindness that I have, it's not about me. The gevorah that I have, it's not about me. The tiferes and so on, all the other characteristics that we have within ourselves, we need to learn to be able to turn it outwards and to make the focus not about us, but about others and ultimately about Hashem. And when we do that, then ultimately when we come to Shavuas and we say nasa venishma, we really mean it. We really mean it, we really say that yes, I'm really ready to accept that it's not about me. It's really about you Hashem and I'm ready to dedicate my life to be a true Jew, a true person that is part of a covenant nation that places you at the front of everything. Anyway, that's basically it in a nutshell.