This week’s reading, Emor, discusses the laws which pertain to Kohanim (priests), and various laws which relate to sacrifices. These are followed by a lengthy discussion of the festivals. The portion concludes with the story of a blasphemer who was put to death.
Count Omer day 18.
Let’s read for our Parsha:
Lev 23:10 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest,
Lev 23:11 and he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.
Lev 23:12 And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the LORD.
Lev 23:13 And the grain offering with it shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, a food offering to the LORD with a pleasing aroma, and the drink offering with it shall be of wine, a fourth of a hin.
Lev 23:14 And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
Lev 23:15 “You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering.
Lev 23:16 You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the LORD.
Based on an article by Yossy Goldman
Why the command to count time? Time marches on whether we take note of it or not. What value is there in counting the days? One possible answer is to remember. During these days of the Omer, the resurrected Messiah walked with and taught His disciples. At the end of the counting we remember the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 when the Holy Spirit of God was poured out upon 3000 people. But, a more basic answer is that we count these days to make us conscious of the preciousness of every single day. To make us more sensitive to the value of a day, an hour, a moment.
How many of us can honestly say that we don’t put off important things we know we should have done yesterday? We all know people who are super-efficient and always punctual and organized and always in control. They make us mad – at ourselves because we are not more like that.
I read an analogy this week on this theme in the name of Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan (1838-1933). Life is like a picture postcard, he said. Ever had the experience of being on vacation and sending a picture postcard home or to a friend? We start writing with a large scrawl and then think of new things to say and before we know it we’re at the end of the card and there’s no more room. So what do we do? We start writing smaller and then when we’re out of space we start winding our words around the edges of the card to get it all in. Before we know it, we’re turning the card upside down to squeeze in the last few vital words in our message.
Sound familiar? Isn’t life like that? We start off young and reckless without a worry in the world and as we get older we realize that life is short. So we start cramming and trying to squeeze in all those important things we never got around to. Sometimes our attempts are quite desperate, even pathetic, as we seek to put some meaning into our lives before it’s too late.
So the Torah tells us to count our days – because they are, in fact, numbered. We each have an allotted number of days and years in which to fulfill the purpose for which we were created. Hopefully, by counting time we will appreciate it better. So, whatever it is that is important for each of us to get done, with God’s help, perhaps we will all get around to it.
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