"You shall count seven complete weeks after the day following the Passover holiday when you brought the omer as a wave offering." (Leviticus 23:15) From the first night following the first day of Pesach, until Shavuot, is the time of our receiving the Torah: "Until the day after the seventh week, when there will be a total of fifty days." (verse 16)
The days of counting are like a ladder, which in the past, we climbed from the exodus until the receiving of the Torah, and which we continue to climb each year, day by day, improvement by improvement, through fulfillment of the mitzvah of counting the Omer.
One way that the theme of improvement is alluded to is by the change in the type of offerings that we bring on the first and last days of the counting. On the first day we bring the "wave offering" made of barley. On the fiftieth day, Shavuot, we bring a wheat offering. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, noting that barley is viewed as a food consumed by animals, points out that the barley offering alludes to Israel's innate emotional faith, a special virtue of theirs. The Jewish People are believers and the children of believers.
Yet following this, and built upon this, comes the academic and intellectual spiritual elevation associated with Torah and holiness. This elevation is alluded to through the wheat offering of Shavuot, wheat being a food consumed by man. The two together, the natural faith innate to Israel and their study of the holy Torah, fuse together during the days of counting between Pesach and Shavuot. Moreover, they exalt and elevate the Jewish People in the aggregate, and each individual Jew, for a supreme, united effort (see Orot 167).
Today, during these days of counting, we emerge from slavery to freedom. In the first stage, we emerge from political slavery to freedom; and in the second stage, we emerge from the forty-nine levels of impurity ? from spiritual servitude and enslavement to our passions ? to eternal freedom with the giving of the Torah. As our sages said, "Read not 'engraved [charut] upon the tablets' (Exodus 32:16), but 'liberation [cherut] through the tablets.'" (Avot 6)
And like then, so too in our day, we are gradually meriting these two types of freedom. In the blessing before the Shema, we pray, "Make us walk upright [komemiyut] to our land. "Komemiyut" may be understood as "in two stages [komot]." The first stage is political independence, the establishment of the State of Israel fifty-seven years ago. Later on comes the second stage, return to our roots, to Torah and to Jewish tradition, which reveals our essence ? that we are a "nation of priests and a holy nation." (Exodus 19:6)
The Jewish People and the State of Israel are different from other nations. We are a light unto the nations. The more our inner essence is revealed, the more we will realize that we are a nation for the world, whose purpose is to benefit and bring light to mankind. Then, through us will be fulfilled G-d's promise, "Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples." (Psalm 96:3)
The days of counting are like a ladder, which in the past, we climbed from the exodus until the receiving of the Torah, and which we continue to climb each year, day by day, improvement by improvement, through fulfillment of the mitzvah of counting the Omer.
One way that the theme of improvement is alluded to is by the change in the type of offerings that we bring on the first and last days of the counting. On the first day we bring the "wave offering" made of barley. On the fiftieth day, Shavuot, we bring a wheat offering. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, noting that barley is viewed as a food consumed by animals, points out that the barley offering alludes to Israel's innate emotional faith, a special virtue of theirs. The Jewish People are believers and the children of believers.
Yet following this, and built upon this, comes the academic and intellectual spiritual elevation associated with Torah and holiness. This elevation is alluded to through the wheat offering of Shavuot, wheat being a food consumed by man. The two together, the natural faith innate to Israel and their study of the holy Torah, fuse together during the days of counting between Pesach and Shavuot. Moreover, they exalt and elevate the Jewish People in the aggregate, and each individual Jew, for a supreme, united effort (see Orot 167).
Today, during these days of counting, we emerge from slavery to freedom. In the first stage, we emerge from political slavery to freedom; and in the second stage, we emerge from the forty-nine levels of impurity ? from spiritual servitude and enslavement to our passions ? to eternal freedom with the giving of the Torah. As our sages said, "Read not 'engraved [charut] upon the tablets' (Exodus 32:16), but 'liberation [cherut] through the tablets.'" (Avot 6)
And like then, so too in our day, we are gradually meriting these two types of freedom. In the blessing before the Shema, we pray, "Make us walk upright [komemiyut] to our land. "Komemiyut" may be understood as "in two stages [komot]." The first stage is political independence, the establishment of the State of Israel fifty-seven years ago. Later on comes the second stage, return to our roots, to Torah and to Jewish tradition, which reveals our essence ? that we are a "nation of priests and a holy nation." (Exodus 19:6)
The Jewish People and the State of Israel are different from other nations. We are a light unto the nations. The more our inner essence is revealed, the more we will realize that we are a nation for the world, whose purpose is to benefit and bring light to mankind. Then, through us will be fulfilled G-d's promise, "Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples." (Psalm 96:3)