Emor 5774:     Take Your Time

By Rabbi Joshua (progressively known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

In honor of my niece, Avigayil Hefter, and her fiancé, Yosef Chaim Rabin, on their recent engagement in Yerushalayim.  May they merit to build a bayis ne’eman b’Yisroel, a home that is faithful to Jewish tradition.

The Torah, in commanding the mitzvah of counting the omer, says, ”You shall count from the morrow of the Shabbos from the day you bring the omer of the waving, seven weeks…” (Vayikra 23:15).  The Talmud teaches us that the Shabbos referred to here is not the seventh day of the week, but to the first day of the Yom Tov of Pesach, and that we learn from this verse that Yom Tov can also be called Shabbos.  Many commentators ask why, specifically here, Yom Tov is called Shabbos.  R. Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, in his Kedushas Levi, offers several explanations, which are progressively more mystical.  We will mention only his first explanation, and then suggest another, less esoteric one, as well. 

The Kedushas Levi explains that Shabbos is mentioned here in conjunction with the first verse of the Torah, which says that God created the world “Bereishis.”  The word Bereishis in this verse is explained by the midrash to mean “for the sake of Yisroel, which is called reishis, or the most choice.  The world, then, was created for the sake of Yisroel, but only at the time of the redemption from Egypt was this revealed, and only then was the process of creation completed.  In this sense, Pesach is similar to Shabbos, in that on Shabbos, God, by resting from his physical creation of the universe, revealed the meaning behind His active involvement in the creation, while on Pesach He demonstrated His great love for Yisroel, thus revealing the completion of the thought process behind creation, with the emergence of the Jewish nation.  There are two aspects of Shabbos referred to in kabbalah, the lower Shabbos and the upper Shabbos, and it is to these two aspects of Shabbos that Chazal refer when they say that if the Jews would keep two Shabbasos, they would be immediately redeemed.  We may add that it is appropriate to refer to the other Yomim Tovim as Shabbos, as well, because they, both commemorate the redemption from Egypt.

Perhaps we can suggest another explanation, which follows up on another question about the Torah section on the holidays beginning with a discussion of Shabbos.  Rav Moshe Sternbuch, in his Ta’am VaDa’as, answers that the Torah wished to teach us that the fixing of the dates of the holidays, which is given by the Torah to the rabbis, has the same validity as the fixed date of Shabbos as established by God. Stated differently, we can say that we learn from Shabbos that there is such a thing as sanctity of time, and the sanctity of the holidays, as fixed by the Rabbis, is an extension of this sanctity.  In this context, we can understand why it is specifically in regard to the counting of the omer that we learn about the sanctity of time, because that counting teaches us how to use our time properly.  As the Aruch haShulchan, and may others, explain, we begin this period of time with the bringing of the omer offering, which comes from barley, used as animal feed, and end it with the bringing of the offering of two loaves made using wheat, which is human food. Symbolically, this process teaches us to improve ourselves on a daily basis, by first viewing ourselves as being on the level of human beings. This is done by controlling what we take into our environment, and counting daily teaches us to improve on a daily basis.  In this context, it is very appropriate to learn of the sanctity of time, to help spur us on to accept the Torah anew on the arrival of Shavuot.