The Torah tells us ‘And you should count for yourselves from the day after the ‘Shabbat’, from the day you bring the Omer... seven complete weeks... fifty days...’.
Rabbi Shneur Zalman explains that the word וספרתם (usefartem) ‘and you should count’ relates to word ספיר (Sapphire), thus meaning ‘radiant’: you should make yourselves radiant.
One can ask why this ‘making radiant’ is stated to be ‘from the day after the Shabbat’, i.e., after Pesach. Surely the quest to be spiritually radiant is relevant throughout the year? As the Sages say ‘I was only created to serve my Creator’, and the task of man in this world is to make a dwelling for the Divine in the lower realms, which means making the lower realms fit to be the dwelling of the Divine King. That means removing the coarse materiality in daily life, and purifying and elevating the appropriate physical aspects, which in effect means illuminating oneself and one’s surroundings. If that is the case, why is the task of illumination described as relating specifically to the time after ‘Shabbat’, i.e., after Pesach?
Another question concerns the idea that the Counting of the Omer was a preparation for the Giving of the Torah, which took place fifty days after the Exodus. The Sages say that when the Jews left Egypt they were eager to receive the Torah and were, so to speak, ‘counting the days’ with excitement. The Counting of the Omer therefore intimately relates to the Giving of the Torah. But here again there is a question: surely, the Giving of the Torah, in a sense, takes place every day. As the Sages said ‘every day [the laws of Torah] should seem new’, and the text of the blessing on the Torah made by each Jewish man and woman every morning is in the present, blessing G-d ‘Who gives the Torah’ each day. In that case, what is so special about counting of 49 days of the Omer, leading to the Giving of the Torah on the fiftieth day?
We will understand this by considering further the idea that וספרתם (usefartem) means ‘making radiant’, and the ten Sefirot, the Divine emanations, ספירות, also have the same meaning.
There are four aspects to the word Sefirah. One is that it means number, and is therefore specific, limited and defined, for the Ten Sefirot are ‘ten and not nine, ten and not eleven’. The second is from the word sippur, a story, communicating something, as in the verse ‘the heavens tell (mesaprim) the glory of G-d’. The third is from the word Sefer, a book, as in the idea that ‘three books are open before G-d’, on Rosh Hashana, in order for Him to judge the world; and the fourth meaning is from the word Sapphire, a radiant jewel.
Each Sefirah (Divine emanation) combines a vessel and the radiance in the vessel. This combination gives each Sefirah (Kindness, Severity, Mercy and so on) their distinctive quality. The first level listed above, that aspect of the Sefirot which means ‘number’, relates most closely to the ‘vessels’ of the Sefirot. Then at the second level, when the Sefirot express G-dliness, it is a combination of radiance and vessel. The third level, the ‘books’ of Judgement, takes us to a higher aspect of the Sefirot, the Sefirah Binah, Understanding; and the fourth level, the radiant Sapphire jewel, takes us to the pure radiance beyond Understanding, at the level of Chochmah, Wisdom.
This means that the command וספרתם ‘and you should count’, includes all four of these levels. Because at each level there is something significant which is not at the other three levels. So for example, the lowest level, in which the word Sefirah means simply ‘number’, we are able to count in simple terms and fulfil the Mitzvah of counting the Omer.
But at the same time there is the idea of ‘counting’ on higher and higher levels: the first level, just the vessel; the second, the vessel with the radiance, then the higher aspect of Binah, Understanding, and then the fourth level, Chochmah, Wisdom, at which the radiance and the vessel are unified to such an extent that one sees only the radiance.
This is what is achieved by the entire Jewish people in their counting from ‘the day after Shabbat’, meaning the day after the first day of Pesach, when the Holy One was revealed in a very intense way, leading to the going free from Egypt. This great revelation on Pesach empowers the Jewish people to count the forty-nine days, including all the different levels described, till as a people together they reach the day of the Giving of the Torah.
It is true that in a sense there is the Giving of the Torah every day, and that the daily task of each Jew is to illuminate his or her own being, and the world, with spiritual radiance. But this takes place on an individual level, which each person seeks to achieve according to their own personal level of attainment. The advantage of the set period from Pesach to Shavuot, and the counting of the entire Jewish people, is that it enables the Jewish people as a whole to climb together, counting day by day, reaching higher and higher levels.
Through this they reach the point of the Giving of the Torah, when the ‘decree’ separating the spiritual realm from the physical realm is cancelled, and the spiritual and physical are able to be joined in their personal lives. Although this took place at the original Giving of the Torah, each year it is repeated at a yet more significant level.
And this also helps each individual experience the Giving of the Torah every day, throughout the year, and to achieve illumination of their own being and of the world around them.
Through this we will come to the fulfilment of the promise that ‘all flesh will see together that the mouth of G-d is speaking’ – that the physical flesh will perceive the Divine life-force in existence, and not only human beings will experience that, but even the animals, the plants and the inanimate realm.
So should it be for us, with the coming of our Righteous Moshiach, who will teach Torah to the entire people, great and small, ‘and the world will be filled with knowledge of G-d as the waters cover the sea’.
