וְּסַפְרתֶּם ָלֶכם ִממֳׇּחַרת ַהׁשַּבָּת ִמיֹּום ֲהִביֲאֶכם ֶאת עֶֹמר ַהתְּנוָּפה ׁשֶַבע ׁשַבָּתֹות תְִּמימֹת תְִּהֶייָנה. ַעד ִממֳׇּחַרת ַהׁשַּבָּת ַהׁשְִּביִעת תְִּספְּרוּ ֲחִמׁשִּים יֹום ְוִהְקַרְבתֶּם ִמְנָחה הָוֹהיַל הָׁשָדֲח. (23:15-16)
And you shall count from the next day after the Shabbos, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Shabbasos shall be complete, until the next day after the seventh Shabbos you shall number fifty days; and you shall offer a new meal offering to Hashem. (23:15-16)
One of the outstanding features of the Sefer Hachinuch is the reason he gives for each mitzvah, or as he terms it “the roots of the mitzvah.” As he explains in his introduction, this is directly tied to his goal to make learning the Parsha on a weekly basis more appealing to the youth. (It is perhaps the earliest surviving Jewish book aimed at the uneducated more than the knowledgeable). The Chinuch explains his three-tiered approach to determining the reason for a given mitzvah: “And my intent is to write about each one a hint of the roots of the commandment — when it is revealed in Scripture, I will write it as it is; and when it is hidden, I will say what I have heard about it from the mouth of sages, and that which I understand about the matter.” Although his is somewhat apologetic about daring to take this approach, when greater and wiser men than he have failed at it, the great love that people have for his sefer attests to the success of his efforts.
Here’s what he has to say about sefiras ha’omer:
“Among the roots of the commandment, from the angle of plain understanding, is, since the entire essence of Israel is only the Torah, and because of the Torah the heavens and earth and Israel were created, as it is stated, “Were it not for my covenant day and night, etc.” And it is the essence and the reason that they were redeemed and left Egypt — in order that they receive the Torah at Sinai, and fulfill it. As God said to Moshe, “And this will be the sign for you that I have sent you; when you take out the people from Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” The understanding of the verse is that your taking them out from Egypt is a sign for you that you shall worship God on this mountain — meaning that you shall receive the Torah, which is the great principle for which they were redeemed; it is their ultimate good. It is a great matter for them, more than freedom from slavery. And hence God made their freedom from Egypt a sign for the receiving of the Torah; as we always make what is secondary into a sign for what is the essence.
“And because of this we were commanded to tally from the day after the holiday of Pesach until the day of the giving of the Torah; to show about ourselves the great desire for the honored day, which our hearts yearn for like a slave seeks freedom and always counts toward the yearned-for time that he goes out to freedom. A tally shows about a man that all of his deliverance and all of his desire is to reach that time.” In short, we count to show our great desire to attain our ultimate purpose of receiving the Torah.
The Chinuch is bothered by the question, usually, when you anticipate something, you count down to it, not up to it. He explains, “And that which we count based on the omer, i.e, ‘So many days have passed,’ and we do not count ‘So many days remain to the time,’ is because all of this shows us the great desire to reach the time (of Shavuos). Therefore, we do not want to mention at the beginning of our counting the large number of days...”
There is a very practical lesson in this: we are often presented with lofty, challenging goals. These goals can elevate us, but at the same time, they can overwhelm us. If we start by saying we have fifty days to Shavuos, we will never make it. We need to start with “today is day one.” I did it! I counted a day. The Midrash Rabbah (19:2) in last week’s parsha makes a very similar point: “Rabbi Chanin of Tzippori interpreted the verse regarding a mound of dirt. One who is foolish, what does he say? ‘Who can remove this?’ One who is clever, what does he say? ‘I will remove two basketsful today, two basketsful tomorrow, until I remove it all.’ So too, one who is foolish says: ‘Who can study the Torah? Nezikin is thirty chapters, Kelim is thirty chapters.’ One who is clever, what does he say? “I will study two halachos today and two halachos tomorrow, until I study all the Torah in its entirety.’” Again, one who is foolish allows the enormity of the goal to overwhelm him; the wiser approach is to be inspired by the majesty of the goal, but practically speaking, slow and steady wins the race.
