Parshat Emor

17 Iyar 5764

May 8, 2004
Daf Yomi: Chulin 106

Guest Author:
Rabbi Ari Jacobson
Young Israel of Monsey and Wesley Hills, NY

 

Counting and Making it Count

April 15th is (hopefully) a fading memory, but our version of creative accounting has just begun, and it's perfectly legal.

The story is told of R' Zundel, a simple Jew traveling through a small eastern European town. All was well, until our traveler decided to visit the local cemetery. R' Zundel knew that reading tombstone inscriptions was traditionally frowned upon, but he couldn't help but notice the young age of the twelve year old buried right beyond the Beit HaChaim's entrance. Nebach. His sympathy quickly turned to fear, however, as he noticed the adjacent matzevah of a seven year old, and than that of a ten year old. The twelve year old was the most senior member of a cemetery of hundreds! Perhaps the town's water supply was contaminated; maybe the village was simply cursed. Either way, he wasn't waiting to find out. R' Zundel hastily made a beeline to the road leading away from the village- nearly knocking over an elderly gentleman in the process. "But..", he hesitated, "I didn't think your village had any senior citizens. After all, the cemetery-".

The oldtimer interrupted: "Let me explain. That twelve year old lived to be eighty, the ten year old eighty two. But of those long years, what percentage of the days were utilized productively, and what percentage frittered away on excessive eating, sleeping, pettiness, and frivolty? Here we tabulate lifespans in days and not years, and hence, although the actual lives may have spanned many decades in years, we are able to identify barely a decade of productive days."

Jews traditionally bless one another with wishes for "arichat yamim v'shanim". We desire not just longevity, explains Rav Yechiel Michal Tukachinsky zt"l (See Gesher HaChaim V. 3, Ch. 2), but shanim that are filled with yamim. We aspire to years filled with months, months filled with weeks, weeks filled with days, days filled with hours, hours filled with minutes, and minutes filled with seconds. A masmid, the saintly Netziv of Volozhin would note, is not a scholar who studies countless hours, but rather one who studies sixty minutes each hour. For a year, or hour, to be counted, it has to count.

This is why the righteous are generally described throughout Tanach as "getting on in their days"- as opposed to the colloquial "getting on in their years": �V�Avraham v�Sorah zkaynim bayim bayamim� - "And Abraham and Sarah were elderly, getting on in their days" (Bereishit 18:11); �V�HaMelech Dovid zakain bah bayamim� - "And King David was elderly, getting on in his days" (Kings I 1:1). Their years were not hollow ones, but rather effectively filled with productive days.
The Midrash suggests that in counting the Omer, we are not simply commemorating the commandment to count each day from the harvesting of the Omer measure of barley on the second evening of Pesach through the new meal offering- the Shtai HaLechem- of Shavuot. Rather, we are eagerly anticipating and preparing for the impending Mattan Torah of Shavuot. Thus, although most authorities maintain that the obligation of Sefirat HaOmer is only Biblically mandated during the Temple period, the imagery of the barley and meal offerings is ever appropriate. Our challenge during this period is to prove ourselves worthy recipients of the Torah by gradually refining our character, step by step, over the course of seven weeks. We are to progress from the base tendencies represented by the Omer's barley, animal fodder of antiquity, to the refinement embodied by the finely ground wheat of the Shtai HaLechem. In light of the above, it appears that the Torah also provides the key to meeting this rather daunting challenge: "You are to count from the day that you bring the Omer measure offering seven complete weeks; until the day after the seventh week (ie: Shavuot) you shall count fifty days and then offer a new meal offering (the Shtai HaLechem)" (Vayikra 23: 15-16)

Why the repetition? Isn't it obvious that counting the day after seven complete weeks would total fifty days? Perhaps the Torah is instructing us how to achieve the character refinement symbolized by the Shtai HaLechem: One must ensure that the weeks are temimot, complete, and the only way to do so is to make each and every day count. The seven weeks can only be considered complete and productive if each week consists of days- "t�sapru chamishim yom�.

The Maharsha (Moed Katan 28a) adds that the fifty days of Sefirah correspond to the fifty years of adulthood. The Psalmist allows for an average lifespan of seventy years, �y�mei shnosenu bahem shivim shana� (Tehillim 90), and many maintain that at least some forms of Divine retribution are limited to those over twenty (See Pitchei Teshuva Y.D. 185:9).
Thus, the average human being is left with fifty years for which he or she is fully responsible. Our mission is to make this body of years meaningful by making each of the days therein productive - "t�sapru chamishim yom.�

�Ki be yirbu yamecha v�yosefu lacha shnos chaim� - "Through Me your days will be numerous and they will add years of life" (Mishlei 9:11). By filling our days with significant enterprises, whose ultimate goal is service of HaShem, in ways obvious and sublime, "they" - the days themselves- neccessarily add years, for when all is said and done, only those years comprised of days count.

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