Parshas Tzav/Passover Issue
By Rabbi Dovid Zauderer
During the 49-day period between Passover and Shavuos (“The Festival of Weeks”), we perform the mitzvah (commandment) of Sefiras Ha'omer, the counting of the Omer. (The Omer was the meal-offering that was offered in the Temple on the second day of Passover, kicking off the Sefirah period.)
This means that each night, starting from the second night of Passover (this year we start counting on Sunday evening, March 28th) and continuing for 49 days till the night of Shavuos, we make a preparatory blessing and count the days toward the time when we will receive the Torah on Shavuos, much the same way our ancestors counted the days from when they left Egypt until they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai just 49 days later to receive the Torah from G-d. On the first night we say, "Ha'yom yom echad ba'omer – Today is the first day of the Omer period". On the second night we say, "Today is the second day of the Omer period" and so on ......
The problem is that if this sefirah is supposed to be a count of days in anticipation of the receiving of the Torah on Shavuos, we should be counting down, not up …. just like the countdown on New Year’s Eve! You know … only 49 days to go .... only 48 days to go .... etc. etc.
I believe the answer to this perplexing question is that by instituting a count up to Shavuos, the Sages are teaching us a very important lesson that can greatly impact the way we live the days of our lives.
The Torah, when it describes the lives of the "First Jewish Couple" - Abraham and Sarah - uses some very strange words. In Genesis 18:11, it is written: "Now Abraham and Sarah were old, ba-im ba-yamim ". The literal translation of ba-im ba'yamim is "they came with their days". The Bible commentators explain this to mean that they reached their old age with a rich harvest of days that truly mattered.
If you ask most elderly people to describe their lives, you will probably hear them talk about certain years that were their "best years". Still others might describe their productive years in terms of decades. "My years in med school were my best years". "The last thirty years of my life were the most fulfilling". But you will never hear anyone describe their years day by day! Somehow, the days go by and get lost in the shuffle. We remember that a particular year or decade was a happy one, but ask us about each day during that period, and we're clueless!
And there's a reason for that. My wife always says that we tend to "wish our lives away". On Monday we wish that the week goes by quick so that we can relax on the weekend. When we are anticipating a big trip, we wish that the day would come already, and we can't wait for the days in between to fly by. During our engagement, we wish that the time goes by fast so that we can get married. When we become pregnant, we wish that the day would come when we finally have the baby… you get the picture.
Somehow, it's not each and every day that seems to count in our lives. For if they truly did, we wouldn't be wishing them away so fast! Rather, we tend to live for the “big stuff” - the college graduation, the wedding day, the first job, the new baby, our children's wedding, the trip around the world when we retire - and that's what we remember when we look back at our (hopefully) long lives. It’s the "good years", but never the "good days".
Now I am willing to bet that Abraham and Sarah also had plenty of good memories of happy occasions that they shared in their long lives together. But they didn't wish away one single day! They "came with their days" - not a single one was lost! Incredible!
What was their secret? Each and every day, Abraham and Sarah made sure to do a mitzvah, a special deed (more likely many special deeds!) for another person. Whether it was a special meal that Sarah cooked for her guests, or a word of encouragement that she gave to someone in need, or an act of self-sacrifice that Abraham performed - no day ever went by in their entire lives (!) in which those two amazing people didn't think about someone beside themselves. And when you do something special for a friend, or even for a total stranger, you just know that the day wasn't “wasted”, even if you had to give up some fun trip in order to do it!
When we focus on our own needs, then everything we do during the week pales in comparison to the fun that we're going to have on the weekend - so we wish the week away. And what typical, mundane, day with our family can compare to a week in Aruba, or a trip to Paris? So we wish away all the days till we get there - and then we've lost them.
The lesson of the strange way that the Torah commands us to count the Omer from Passover to Shavuos - "Today is one day" on the first day, "Today is two days" on the second, etc. - is that we should never throw out any of the precious days of our lives. We are not going to count "Forty-nine days left to Shavuos" on the first day, and then rip that day off the calendar come the second day. No! The first day is special because I am going to do something special, something spiritual, on this day in preparation for the upcoming receiving of the Torah - and then that day becomes mine! The next day I count two days, because I am adding another special day to the first one, and so on and so forth..... so that by the end of the Omer period I will have “counted up” 49 memorable days that will stay with me forever.
Let us remind ourselves as we count the Omer this year, how wonderful and meaningful and eternal we can make each and every day of our lives, and may we all merit to live long lives full of not only "good years" but "good days" as well!
HAVE A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND MEANINGFUL PASSOVER!
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=659