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Emor: The Daily Count · A Thought for the Week

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to a Thought for the Week, a Torah in
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  Speaker 1: Motion podcast. I'm Jake Hellman, founding director of Torah in Motion,
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  Speaker 1: and it's a pleasure to have you here with us.
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  Speaker 1: I think most people were taught that spirit Omer the
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  Speaker 1: Counting of the Omer, links the exodus on Passack and
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  Speaker 1: the receiving of the Torah on shovel with the very
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  Speaker 1: nice idea, and it's beautifully expressed by Seafern, the wonderful
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  Speaker 1: medieval work that discusses all six hundred and thirteen meets
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  Speaker 1: Foot and as he explains the purpose of the exodus
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  Speaker 1: was to receive the Torah. Physical freedom is important, but
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  Speaker 1: it's not enough. There has to be a goal to
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  Speaker 1: the freedom, and that, of course, is the receiving of
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  Speaker 1: the Torah, our spiritual or spiritual freedom. This all may
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  Speaker 1: be true in terms of, yes, that the goal of
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  Speaker 1: the exodus ultimately may have been to get the tour
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  Speaker 1: then move on to the land of Isuel, but it's
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  Speaker 1: very very difficult to argue that this is what spirous
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  Speaker 1: Omer is all about. For sure, not in its original context. Firstly,
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  Speaker 1: the Toren never mentions that we receive the Torah on Chavot,
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  Speaker 1: so that's it's very nice, but the tour doesn't connect
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  Speaker 1: at all anything to receiving The tour doesn't tell us
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  Speaker 1: when it is because we re see the tour every day.
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  Speaker 1: Said the say for Chino himself notes that if we're
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  Speaker 1: counting to Kapala Tora, we're counting backwards. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: we should count another forty nine days till we get
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  Speaker 1: the tour forty eight days forty So you count down
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  Speaker 1: when you're looking forward to something. You have a goal.
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  Speaker 1: You don't count from like some other place. You count
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  Speaker 1: towards the goal. That's A and B if it's counting
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  Speaker 1: from the exodus to Matantra. So we should start counting
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  Speaker 1: on day one, on the day we left Egypt. We
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  Speaker 1: don't do that. We start counting on day two. So
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  Speaker 1: while the safer, you know, it provides answers to those questions,
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  Speaker 1: it's clear. I think it's clear. It's clear to me anyway,
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  Speaker 1: that this is a later day explanation, one that makes
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  Speaker 1: perfect sense. After the destruction of the temple, when we
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  Speaker 1: no longer have the omer, when we no longer bring
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  Speaker 1: the sacrifices, as the tour describes, that we don't have this,
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  Speaker 1: so we need new meaning and new explanation. This is
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  Speaker 1: very beautiful. Keeps the tour relevant and meaningful in an
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  Speaker 1: age when the initial application may no longer be be relevant.
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  Speaker 1: If you look at the tour itself, the omer opens
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  Speaker 1: up what we call a new party. You know, the
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  Speaker 1: tour's dividea. I don't mean partial m more of a
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  Speaker 1: harbical code. I mean basically paragraph breaks in the tour
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  Speaker 1: itself where you have empty space and the story. The
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  Speaker 1: tour tells us in partial mre this main section of
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  Speaker 1: the holidays is this of the main area. And then
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  Speaker 1: the tour tells us that after talks about pessach opens up,
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  Speaker 1: like I said, a new parsha. When you come to
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  Speaker 1: the land of Israel, then you should bring the harvest,
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  Speaker 1: the beginning of your harvest, the oh mayer if oh
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  Speaker 1: mer rashik kits your hem elha kohane, It has nothing
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  Speaker 1: to do with Egypt. The torre just tells us that
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  Speaker 1: when we enter the land, we're to bring an omer
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  Speaker 1: amount oh meer rashid kits your hem elhakohane. The co
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  Speaker 1: ain then takes the barley. But by the way, it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't mean every person means one on behalf of the
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  Speaker 1: entire Jewish people. This is like a communal, communal sacrifice.
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  Speaker 1: Then the coen would take the barley and it was
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  Speaker 1: made of the barley. The toy doesn't say that they're specifically,
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  Speaker 1: and he would wave it. And along with that you'd
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  Speaker 1: have to bring a ram ram under a year old
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  Speaker 1: with flour and wine. And when we do that, the
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  Speaker 1: tor tells us that we can eat the new grains.
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  Speaker 1: That's what we call the prohibition of kadash, that anything
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  Speaker 1: planted after PSA cannot be eaten until the carbon omer
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  Speaker 1: is brought on the following passak. Because this is a
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  Speaker 1: general principle. Before we benefit, we always acknowledge God the
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  Speaker 1: first of everything, our first child, even kijana bain b kareem,
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  Speaker 1: the first of our shearings of our animals. So the
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  Speaker 1: way the tour describes the sacrifice of the omeri, of course,
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  Speaker 1: has nothing to do with Pessa Shibuis or any other holiday.
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  Speaker 1: And there's no date. There's no date given. It's when
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  Speaker 1: you come to the land kita vol arts us artem xira,
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  Speaker 1: when you do the harvest, that's when you bring it,
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  Speaker 1: but there's no actual date brought. Then the tour does
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  Speaker 1: begins a new paragraph, a new parsia. So we've got
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  Speaker 1: sort of two units talking about the omer. And here
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  Speaker 1: we have the midstva. We call a sphere to omer
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  Speaker 1: of counting the omer we're supposed to count from the
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  Speaker 1: day that we bring this ome air shava shaba toatimtiena
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  Speaker 1: seven complete weeks kamishimo on fifty days. Of course seven
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  Speaker 1: weeks is forty nine days. So it's understood on the
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  Speaker 1: fiftieth day until day fifty. And then we bring a
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  Speaker 1: new flower offering I mean kaka dasha, consisting of two loaves,
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  Speaker 1: and the torre here emphasizes not for now, but comeates
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  Speaker 1: has to be made of comates. It's brought with one bull,
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  Speaker 1: two rams, seven sheep, along with its libations i e.
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  Speaker 1: Wine and oil and bread, and along with a goat
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  Speaker 1: as a sin offering, and two lambs this is special
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  Speaker 1: for this fiftieth day. Two lambs as a core bunch
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  Speaker 1: lamme and again these they we wave it with the
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  Speaker 1: loaves of bread. This fiftieth day is a mikra a
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  Speaker 1: kuddaesh is a holy day, and no mala, no work,
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  Speaker 1: no work like another young utobe is allowed. And then
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  Speaker 1: this paragraph a Parsia ends with the command to help
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  Speaker 1: the poor ubuku to him. When you do your harvest
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  Speaker 1: blow to harvest the entire field, you have to leave
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  Speaker 1: a corner pay as well known law. But lack at
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  Speaker 1: kitzer Khan left in lecket. If you drop something up
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  Speaker 1: so much, can't totally drop it, you have to leave
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  Speaker 1: it anivea la gertas O leave them for the poor,
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  Speaker 1: the stranger. And I'm the Lord your God. This is
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  Speaker 1: an agricultural count that has nothing to do with the exodus,
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  Speaker 1: nothing to do with the giving of the Torah. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: Pessok is nowhere mentioned. The Toreh here says the count
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  Speaker 1: starts on very interesting Mi Maharat Hashabat on the day
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  Speaker 1: after the Sabbath. Now this of course became a huge argument,
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  Speaker 1: one of the major argument between the Sadducees and the Pharasites.
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  Speaker 1: When do we count the omer That's not that's for
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  Speaker 1: for another time. But it seems pretty clear, and maybe
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  Speaker 1: that's why the tour does it. The tour wants to disconnect,
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  Speaker 1: disassociate Sphira and Pessa. It's Macarashabat, it's not even the
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  Speaker 1: Macar Pessa. So it's very nice. So we have this
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  Speaker 1: agricultural count, and we have this agricultural sacrifice recognizing God's
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  Speaker 1: mastery over nature, and then we have to count fifty days.
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  Speaker 1: We have another holiday where we bring from the grains
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  Speaker 1: also to the temple. So what again, is the purpose
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  Speaker 1: of the omer? Why do we have to count here?
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  Speaker 1: We you know, we don't count beating RuSHA Shana young kipper.
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  Speaker 1: I mean we we say that Sara to make truba,
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  Speaker 1: but there's no misfit the count todays. We only here
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  Speaker 1: you have this mysfathic count. So what's this all about?
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  Speaker 1: So I think if we take a look at the
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  Speaker 1: first time the omer is mentioned in the Humush that
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  Speaker 1: perhaps can shed light on this, and that is by
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  Speaker 1: the mana where each and every day amount of mantel
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  Speaker 1: there was one omer. That's what that torre tells us,
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  Speaker 1: the daily portion. The man was an omer. That was
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  Speaker 1: the measure they got. And the mana will come from heaven.
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  Speaker 1: The idea that the Jews in the desert should know
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  Speaker 1: that our cussenzens comes from God. It would directly fall.
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  Speaker 1: And you also know that you know, you can't hoard
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  Speaker 1: that God provided enough for them, and they can't take more.
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  Speaker 1: You can't think more than what's for you, because if
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  Speaker 1: they took more of the Mana, it would spoil overnight.
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  Speaker 1: And we know the farmers, farmers and non farmers work
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  Speaker 1: very very hard to provide for our families, but especially
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  Speaker 1: for a farmer. Nature doesn't cooperate. All the work we
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  Speaker 1: do goes down the drain. And the Mana was the
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  Speaker 1: time to teach the Jewish people sort of at the
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  Speaker 1: beginning of her history that God is the master of
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  Speaker 1: nature and God is our ultimate provider. Yes, we work,
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  Speaker 1: it's a partnership, but without God's help, we're finished. Our
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  Speaker 1: stages equate farming and faith that a muna is Saytyr's rhyme.
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  Speaker 1: They say the laws of agriculture or ties into faith
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  Speaker 1: because only of only one who has faith that nature
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  Speaker 1: is going to cooperate. Confirm and if you think there's
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  Speaker 1: gonna be a hurricane or bad weather, that's it. You're
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  Speaker 1: wasting months of work all down the drain. At the
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  Speaker 1: same time, sort of count on the opposite end of
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  Speaker 1: the spectrum when things go really well. The tour was
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  Speaker 1: always afraid the faith of the farmer might weaken. Said,
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  Speaker 1: look how hard I worked is all my hard work,
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  Speaker 1: com Mu should paid off. That may be true, but
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  Speaker 1: it's not enough. You should not there one say Koti
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  Speaker 1: Volo said, it's only my strain, my work. You should
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  Speaker 1: know God gives you the strain. God works so that
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  Speaker 1: God allows our work to bear fruit. Literally, so that
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  Speaker 1: was a lesson. The mana had to be taught every
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  Speaker 1: single day. Like I said, there were no left words.
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  Speaker 1: Were gonna have mana for another day. So every day
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  Speaker 1: for forty days, the Jewish people sort of looked up
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  Speaker 1: to heaven or looked on the ground or both to
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  Speaker 1: get their food. So too, apparently each and every day
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  Speaker 1: during the grain harvest time, this is the grain. I
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  Speaker 1: looked up. When is the grain in Israel today? I
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  Speaker 1: looked up on a regular site. So they say, basically
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  Speaker 1: from late March till mid May. That's basically when spirousomer is.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously it changes a little from year to year, but
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  Speaker 1: this is the time of the harvest. So every single
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  Speaker 1: day that you had account to acknowledge God is our
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  Speaker 1: provider of our sustenance. Now I mentioned that the end
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  Speaker 1: of this partia the Torah then has the last verse,
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  Speaker 1: Whi's sort of totally out of place, especially since the
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  Speaker 1: repetitive verse. We had this verse already in partia kadoshime
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  Speaker 1: that you have to leave paya and lekk it for
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  Speaker 1: the poor. Very nice, what's this doing here? So we
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  Speaker 1: usually associate leckt and pay with a third meetsva, that
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  Speaker 1: of shika fad. They go together. If you forget something,
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  Speaker 1: then you have to leave it for the poor. You
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  Speaker 1: have so much I forgot. I got ninety seven feels
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  Speaker 1: and I only did ninety of them. And the next
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  Speaker 1: day I wake up, Oh my god, I forgot to
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  Speaker 1: harvest these three fields. Well, you know what, if you
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  Speaker 1: was very important, if you needed that to live, you
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't forget. So you leave it for the poor, leave
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  Speaker 1: it for the poor. So this third misfah of shift
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  Speaker 1: has not mentioned here, but it's mentioned in Safer Dvarn
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  Speaker 1: and Taurres, says Keith Dixorkrka. When you're harvesting your ground,
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  Speaker 1: your land, you shahafta, oh mayer basada. When you leave
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  Speaker 1: an omer and omer, of course is a measure an amount,
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  Speaker 1: right lota shulka. Don't go back and get it like
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  Speaker 1: early atom bomana. Yeah, it should be for the stranger,
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  Speaker 1: the orphan and the widow. This is the third and
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  Speaker 1: final time the Torah mentions Omer. So we have the
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  Speaker 1: Omer by the mana, the man. We have the omer
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  Speaker 1: here by spireta Omer, and we have the Omer by
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  Speaker 1: the farmer who forgot part of his field to harvest.
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  Speaker 1: Seems that the Taurus teaching, how do we acknowledge the
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  Speaker 1: mana is God provides for us. We remind ourselves of
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  Speaker 1: this sort of once a year for forty nine days.
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  Speaker 1: But the best way to acknowledge that God provides for
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  Speaker 1: us is break providing for others. The month the o
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  Speaker 1: Mare begins, God gives us, but the omer end when
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  Speaker 1: we give to the poor. That's what it means to
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  Speaker 1: be godly, to be divined, to be a partner with God.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, even if we don't forget, we have a
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  Speaker 1: mitzvah to provide for the poor, their other avenues to
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  Speaker 1: provide for the poor. But I would say, especially if
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  Speaker 1: we forget, especially if we forget the message of the
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  Speaker 1: o Mayr, let's say I'll interpret it homolytically, then we
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  Speaker 1: better make sure to help the orphan and the widow
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  Speaker 1: and the stranger. This is how we partner with God
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  Speaker 1: to enjoy the fruit of the Lad Sabat Shalom. We
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  Speaker 1: to learning with you next week.