“And you shall count for yourselves, from the morrow of the rest day from the day you bring the omer as a wave offering seven weeks; they shall be complete. You shall count until the day after the seventh week, the fiftieth day,”
The obvious difficulty here is: that the phrases contradict. The first posuk states that you shall count seven full weeks which is 49 days. Yet in the second posuk it states you shall count 50 days? Now if we begin to count from the first day of Pesach we have 50 days until Shavuos. If we begin to count from the second day of Pesach we have seven weeks until Shavuos. The key here is the days of Sefira - counting the Omer, which are very holy days and according to the Ramban they are on the same holiness as Chol Hamoed. What is the secret of the Sefira days? The Arizal and the talmidei Baal Shem Tov have revealed to us that on the night of Pesach we are elevated to great heights in spirituality. Then Hashem takes it away from us and the Avoda and Tachlis of the Sefira days for seven weeks, is to regain that spiritual level on Shavuos. The seven weeks of Sefira are seven Sefiros or Middos. Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferes, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malchus. These Middos are the channels how Hashem controls this world. Being so, each day of the Sefira is important and has the level of Chol Hamoed. Now to answer our question: The counting of 50, is from Pesach. Then we recieved the elevation of Kedusha from Hashem, The 49 days are the Chol Hamoed for which each day is against another spiritual Sefira; and our task is to rectify that Sefira. Then we finally come to Shavuos the day of Kabalas Hatorah after cleansing our souls and rectifying the Heilige Sefiras and Middos.
(Yehuda Z. Klitnick)
