THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL
By Roy S. Neuberger
I love Sefiras Ha Omer, because it is elevated above ordinary days. It feels like a Moed!
The Ramban (Vayikra 23:36) explains that Shavuos is related to Pesach as Shemini Atzeres is to Sukkos. Sefiras Ha Omer is the “Chol Hamoed” linking Pesach to Shavuos.
The description of the Yomim Tovim begins with the words, “Eleh moadai Hashem … these are the appointed festivals of Hashem ….” (Vayikra 23:4), and ends with the words, “And Moshe declared the appointed festivals of Hashem to the Children of Israel.” (Vayikra 23:44) Sefiras ha Omer is included within this sugya as an integral component of the Yomim Tovim.
I understand that these are days of tragedy, beginning with the death of Rabbi Akiva’s twenty-four thousand talmidim, a catastrophe almost impossible to fathom. How we have survived the tzouris that has befallen us over the millennia is a story of nissim upon nissim. The amazing thing is that we endure. And that brings us to L’ag B’omer.
What is the secret of this great day? We can learn from it that, following overwhelming catastrophes, Am Yisroel goes onward. “For though the righteous one may fall seven times, he will arise; but the wicked ones will stumble through evil.” (Mishlei 24:16)
Think about Adam and Chava following their expulsion from Gan Eden.
"Can you imagine their burden on that day, the hot tears flowing as their feet walked out of that perfect world and passed the … angel guarding the entrance through which no man has ever returned? Can you imagine what rested upon their shoulders? Already then they must have felt the guilt of thousands of future generations of their own children, the accumulated pain which was to befall every individual who would ever exist in the future world. It would all come about as a result of their one ‘tiny’ error in Gan Eden. How could they bear it? How could anyone bear the responsibility for such untold suffering?
“The truly amazing thing is that they did bear it. Their greatness is shown perhaps more by the way they bore their exile than by their actions inside the Garden. Adam and Chava did not commit suicide. That same Adam and Chava – whose introduction to life outside the Garden included the murder of one son by another – walked onward through life. They did not give up! They lived to become the parents of yet another son, Seth, who carried the knowledge of G-d onward to the next generation and through whom the hope of the world was to survive.” (From my book, Worldstorm: Finding Meaning and Direction Amidst Today’s World Crisis)
Following Churban Bayis Rishon and Churban Bayis Shaini, we did not commit national suicide. There appeared to be no hope. None! But we went onward. And the Torah Nation survives today. Following the Shoa, we did not commit national suicide. We went onward. And the Torah Nation survives today.
Recently, those who study Daf Yomi began Seder Kodshim. There is something monumental in the fact that tens of thousands of Jews are studying these Tractates of the Gemora whose only focus is upon the laws governing the operation of the Bais Hamikdosh, which does not exist! This only makes sense if we know that it will exist again! We have to understand that this is where we are heading.
I was recently davening at the Kosel. It struck me how utterly hard and impenetrable those huge stones appear. Can our tefillos really penetrate such stone? Of course, tefillos are supposed to go upwards, but I am looking at those stones and they seem so hard. And then I realized: that is exactly the point! The stones are indeed impenetrable. We are on the wrong side! Hashem is going to take us soon to the other side!
We have to understand how vital it is that Hashem should bring the Bais Hamikdosh back to us. There is no other priority. Right now Golus is as hard as those stones. We have to daven with intense kavana that our eyes should soon “behold Your return to Tzion in compassion.” That is where we are going with Sefiras Ha Omer. We are going back to the Bais Hamikdosh, to the other side of the Wall.
Shavuos is the Day of Dovid Hamelech. Think about his words. “The Builder of Yerushalayim is Hashem. He will gather in the outcasts of Israel. He is the Healer of the brokenhearted and the One Who binds their sorrows.” (Tehillim 147) Is that not amazing? If we don’t have the strength to rebuild Yerushalayim, Hashem will build it. Soon He is going to rescue us, because we are the Children of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. Soon He will bring “a redeemer to their children’s children, for His Name’s sake, with love.” (Shemoneh Esreh)
We read in Megilas Rus that Boaz is sleeping on the threshing floor in the middle of the night. He awakens to find Rus lying at his feet. She explains why she has come. Boaz says: “And now my daughter, do not fear.… While it is true that I am a redeemer, there is also another redeemer closer than I. Stay the night. In the morning, if he will redeem you, fine! Let him redeem. But if he will not redeem you, then I will redeem you, Chai Hashem!”
The words of the Ben Ish Chai: when Boaz speaks to Rus, it is as if G-d were speaking to the Children of Israel, saying, “Stay with me through the night. Stay close through the terrible darkness of Golus. The morning of Redemption is coming. If your own deeds and mitzvos – Ploni Almoni – can redeem you, well and good. But even if you lack the merit to save yourselves, I promise that I will save you!”
Dawn is near. If we stay close to Hashem, He will save us!
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Roy Neuberger, author and public speaker, can be reached at roy@2020vision.co.il.
© Copyright 2018 by Roy S. Neuberger
1 comment:
Beautiful as usual!!!
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