Dear B’nai Shalom members, friends, and families:
Even as you are reading this synagogue bulletin, we will be in the midst of “Counting the Omer”—counting the days and weeks between the festive holidays of Passover and Shavuot.
Calling the concept “Counting the Omer” is really a misnomer; the term “omer” is really a measurement of grain. But calling it by this name has comfortably found itself within the lexicon and understanding of the Jewish people as the time linking the time between Passover and Shavuot. It was at this time between the two holidays during the days the Temple stood that we Jews were commanded to bring a daily grain offering – an omer’s worth — to the Beit HaMikdash (the Holy Temple) as a sign and representation of thanks to our creator, G-d.
With the destruction of the Temple, twice, we can no longer bring our omer offerings. Yet we continue the counting of days and weeks between these two festivals as commanded in the Torah in order to keep alive this ritual until the time of the building of the third, and final, Beit HaMikdash in Jerusalem.
One might ask why we link these particular two holidays? What is it about them that is worth connecting them through this “omer” period? We do not connect the holidays of Purim or Chanukah, or Tu B’Shvat and Lag B’Omer. Why these two celebrations?
Passover is the time of our freedom: “Zman Cheyruteinu.” Without the freedom to come and go, choose and decide, think and act for ourselves, there would be no sovereign Jewish people as we exist today. Undoubtedly, we would have disappeared years ago under the hardship of slavery at the hands of Pharaoh and the Egyptian taskmasters. With the holiday of Passover, we gained the privilege of autonomy and being able to exist within a framework of freedom of movement, action and decision.
However, we learn that this is grossly insufficient. So we are free to act as liberated individuals? So what? If not directed with wise guidance and counsel, we could be as directionless as the most rudderless anarchists. We would exist…but would have no purpose or focus in our lives. It takes the framework of Torah and its 613 commandments—PLUS all of their corollaries, subsets and interpretations—to direct us within the framework of freedom that we gained on Passover. It is the holiday of Shavuot, at the far end of the 49 days of the Omer, that we celebrate for our having received G-d’s most precious gift, his Torah, OUR Torah.
With the freedom we acquired on Passover to be able to observe the folkways, mores and values of the holy Torah we received on Shavuot, our lives are made complete by the combination of the two: a holy and precious doctrine to help guide our lives, and the freedom with which to comply with, and conform to, the prized mitzvot—the commandments found therein.
It is the Counting of the Omer, the 49-day period from Passover to Shavuot, that links these two holidays for us, reminding us that without either of the prizes we gained on these two holy occasions, we could not be the Jewish nation we are today, together with the responsibility of the holy leadership with which we have been imbued, and the privilege of doing G-d’s work at all times, all of with which we have been blessed.
With Torah blessings always,
Rabbi Dr. Yaacov Dvorin