Dear friends,
One of the more unusual aspects of counting Omer is that it’s so different than the kind of ‘counting till the Big Day arrives’ that I grew up with in Brooklyn. In those days, Flatbush Avenue was the Place To Be when it came to shopping. Macy’s was the best of the best, and their adverts began about a month before the apex of consumerism would arrive. Only 30 more days until. Followed by only 29 etc. Lihavdil (a word which I am sure that most of you know, but if you don’t, envision a large cement wall), Sefira tells you how many days have passed until you reach the magical 50, which is the day of Shavuos.
The reason is similar to the reason that in That World birthdays are extremely important. Take note – the only birthday mentioned in the Torah is Pharaoh’s. The reason is that you don’t have to do much to be born. Everyone you will ever meet has done it, and some of the folks out there are not worth writing home about. The person you are at the end of the days Hashem gives you is the person you created day by day through your choices.
We didn’t consciously choose slavery in Egypt. It was a backdrop that together with the exodus turned us into a people unlike any other people.
Everything in nature struggles to live. Every mineral, plant, and animal is created with whatever it needs for basic survival, and is instinctively going to use what it has. An ant has everything it needs to maintain itself, to continue as an ant, and to live. It doesn’t have what a frog has or what a petunia has; it has only what it needs to be itself. The same holds true with everything else in the entire universe. When the Torah narrates creation, it tells you not only the story of each thing, but the fact that it is created to live, and has the drive and ability to be itself. Humans were created last.
You have what it takes to be a human. For us, that includes a mind that searches for meaning, emotions that demand connection, and a physical body that can do what the mind and the heart command. The spiritual force that drives the mind in its search is called neshamah, the force that births the entire spectrum of emotions (which ultimately all relate to the desire to connect or the fear of being harmed), is called ruach, and the spiritual spark of the body’s urge to follow the dictates of the mind and the heart is called nefesh.
When Avraham questioned his descendants’ desire to follow the path that he charted out he was aware that they had all of the components to allow their minds and hearts to lead their bodies towards meaningful dedication to Hashem and connection to Him, but he also knew that part of being human is the ability to self-destruct through making bad choices.
Hashem told Avraham that He would intervene, and force them to figure out who they are and what they want through facing people who are the opposite of what they want to be, in a society that chokes their spiritual essence. In fact, the word Mitzraim means “constrained”.
The Arizal calls the Egyptian exile “the exile of speech” …. What you say, your speech, reflects what you know and feel. We were alienated from ourselves. Yes, we had connection (which is why we didn’t change outward appearance, speech, and names), but the inner reality that makes you yourself, your middos, were in exile.
Pesach night opened the door. The next day it closed. Each day of Omer is a day that should ideally lead you to confronting your middos. Each day is a step forward, something worth acknowledging.
The 33rd day of the Omer is Lag B’Omer, a day of celebration. Of what?
The two answers may seem unrelated, but they aren’t.
The first is that this is the day that the catastrophic epidemic that swept through Rabi Akiva’s students, killing almost all of them finally abated. The symptom that killed them was called Askara. The root of the word is Sekar, which literally means a dam. They were unable to speak or to breathe… It was a physical version of Mitzraim. What did they do to deserve this kind of tragedy? The Talmud says rather cryptically that they didn’t show each other respect.
No, that doesn’t mean that they used expletives when talking to or about each other. It doesn’t mean that they were throwing dishes. It means that they somehow didn’t look at each other and see the holiness and uniqueness of each and every one of us. The word in the Talmud’s text is that they didn’t give “kavod” to each other. What does that entail? What does it have to do with being choked and losing identity? Most significantly, what does it have to do with you?
Maharal defines kavod as “hitrommemus” – being exalted, being elevated. He quotes the Gemara as saying that G-d gave the eagle “kavod” by making it able to see what the other birds could not. What blunts your vision is being overwhelmed by transient reality. No. Not all reality is transient. Anything that emerges from your mind, your, heart, and speaks to your nefesh has a spark of the part of life that is not transient.
When you do things for Kavod Shabbos – nice clothes, great food (okay, good food), and more, it shows that you have a bit of eternity in the way you see time at least once a week. When you give some kavod to another person it means that you see something of the eternal side of them – it could be the way they connect or the way they value meaning, or the way they can laugh at the foolishness of life.
When you give someone else kavod, you change. The part of you that is real and enduring comes forward.
Another reason for Lag B’Omer being a day of celebration is that it is the anniversary of the death of Rabi Shimon bar Yochai. Yes, that it is, celebrating the anniversary of a death…. His greatness was such that even when he had to go into hiding for 13 years in a dark cave, he was genuinely alive. He told the people who were with him at the time of his death, that they could come to him at his burial place, and he will be there for them to share his merits and to elevate their prayers. He could say this because he understood how worthy of kavod each Jew is. He said to come with joy, the kind of joy that isn’t transient.
I won’t be going up to Merion this year – but my heart will be there, and with you …
Love, Tziporah
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