Rabbi
Doniel Staum, LMSW
Rabbi,
Kehillat New Hempstead
Rebbe/Guidance
Counselor – ASHAR
Principal
– Ohr Naftoli- New Windsor
STAM
TORAH
PARSHAS EMOR
5776
“COUNTING DAYS”
Imagine there is a bank that credits your account
with $86,400 each morning. It carries over no balance from day to day, and every
evening it deletes whatever part of the balance you fail to use during the day.
Wouldn’t you try to use every cent?
Every day has 86,400 seconds. Every second used
well is yours forever. Every second wasted is lost forever.
Time waits for no one.
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it’s
called the present.[1]
The clock is ticking.
Throughout my High School years, somewhere towards
the end of May, on the upper right-hand corner of the board in front of the
classroom was posted the countdown of how many days were left until graduation.
I remember watching the decreasing numbers enviously. Finally when I was a
senior my classmates and I enjoyed the experience for ourselves. As the numbers
decreased our excitement proportionately increased. Then on the morning before
graduation there was a big number 1 that stood proudly in the box – just one
more day; we had made it!
Truthfully, I loved High School, including my
classmates, the student body, my rabbeim, and the atmosphere that pervaded the
yeshiva. It was a special four years and an experience I knew I would miss. But
graduation is an exciting milestone and so I couldn’t help but get swept up in
the graduation fever and the final countdown.
Unlike all other holidays, Shavuos is not
identified by a calendar date, but rather as the fiftieth day of the Omer count[2].
“You shall count for yourselves… seven weeks they
shall be complete. Until the morrow of the seventh week you shall count, fifty
days; and you shall offer a new meal-offering to G-d.[3]”
The Sefer Hachinuch[4] explains the purpose of the
counting of the Omer: “We are to count from the day after the first (day of
the) Yom Tov of Pesach until the day of the giving of the Torah (i.e. Shavuos)
to demonstrate in our souls our tremendous desire for the honored day, for
which our hearts pine like a servant yearns for shade. He should count
constantly in anticipation ‘when will that desired time come when I will
achieve my freedom?’ Counting demonstrates to a person that all of his hope and
desire is to arrive at that time.”
There is a glaring question that emerges from the
Sefer Hachinuch’s beautiful explanation of Sefiras Haomer: If the point of
counting is to demonstrate our passionate and unbridled excitement for Shavuos,
the anniversary of the day we received the Torah, why are we counting upwards? If
our focus is only on our destination in time then the time that passed is seemingly
irrelevant[5]. Would it not be more logical
to count how many days are left?
Rabbi Shimshon Pinkus zt’l explains with a
parable: If a desperately impoverished man wins the lottery and is informed
that in thirty days he will receive a million dollars in one lump sum, those
thirty days will feel like an eternity to him. The only thing between him and
the money is the passage of the requisite amount of time, and so he will
impatiently wait for those days to pass.
However, if the impoverished man who won the
million dollar jackpot was told that he will receive ten thousand dollars a day
for a hundred days, to him the days will pass all too quickly. The experience
of getting such a significant amount of money each day is so enjoyable that he will
savor the experience. Each day equals another ten thousand dollars in his
pursuit of the full million. To him the days aren’t a mere period of waiting
but a continual process of receiving his newfound fortune. Every day is
invaluable to him.
The forty-nine day count to Shavuos and the
receiving of the Torah is not merely a countdown of time. Rather, each day is a
period of growth, a continuous amassing of spiritual greatness in preparation
for our reacceptance of the Torah. The days of the counting of the Omer
represent forty-nine days of spiritual treasures.
Rabbi Avigdor Miller zt’l[6] noted that Sefiras Haomer
teaches us that we must count our days for each day is invaluable. “Every day
is a precious bauble. Whether it is raining outside or snowing, the day is a
precious opportunity. There is no such thing as spare time. If a person should
live to the age of one hundred and twenty, when he reached his last day, he
would still believe it had come too quickly. Think – what would you do if you
only had one day of life? How valuable would that one day be?”
Rabbi Chaim Volozhiner zt’l would say that the
greatest mussar shmooze (ethical discourse) in the world is a ticking
clock. The clock continues to tick moment after moment, indicating the constantly
fleeting passage of time.
Dovid Hamelech beseeches G-d[7], “Teach us to count our days,
then we shall acquire a heart of wisdom.” He who knows how to take
advantage of his time truly possesses a wise heart.
During the 1500s a Jewish man was arrested on
trumped up charges. Despite the brutality of the prison the warden offered to
grant him any one day to leave jail to pray in a synagogue.
The prisoner’s first thought was that he should
choose Yom Kippur so he could spend the holiest day of the year in shul. Then
he thought perhaps Pesach the holiday of our national freedom and the night of
the Seder presented the greatest need for community. On Purim he might not have
the chance to hear the Megillah unless he was in a synagogue.
The prisoner sent his question to the Radvaz[8]. The Radvaz replied that he
should request his amnesty for the following day! There is no greater
opportunity than the present. If he has the chance to daven with a minyan he
should do so at the next available chance he has[9].
Rabbi Shach zt’l[10] commented that from when he
reached the age of fifty he would say to himself every morning, “Lazar,
remember today may be your last day. Make the most of it.”
The lesson of Sefiras Ha’omer is timeless: “Don’t
count your days; make your days count!” After a week of weeks trying to
internalize the incredible value of every day and every moment, then we
are ready to receive the eternal transcendent Torah anew.
“You shall count for yourselves”
“Then we shall acquire a heart of wisdom.”
[1] A different
version: "Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note;
today is the only cash you have - so spend it wisely" (Kay Lyons)
[2] which begins on the second day
of Pesach, when the Omer offering was brought upon the altar
[3] Vayikra 23:15-16
[4] Mitzvah 306
[5] Such as when we were counting
towards graduation we didn’t start fifty days before and count upwards to
fifty, we counted how many days were left!
[6] “The Path of Life”, parshas Emor
[7] Tehillim 90:12
[8] Rabbi Dovid ben Zimra (1480 –
1573) Chief Rabbi of Egypt
[9] The Radvaz bases his response on
the rule of “Ayn ma’avirin al hamitzvos – we do not pass over an
opportunity to perform a mitzvah”. Therefore one must take advantage of the
first available opportunity to perform a mitzvah that becomes available to him;
also see Chacham Tzvi 106 who questions the Radvaz.
[10] Rabbi Eliezer (Lazer) Shach zt’l
was the acknowledged Ponovezher Rosh Yeshiva and leader of the Yeshivah world who
lived to 108 years old.
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