This Isn’t A Countdown - Parshat Emor - Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky

Hi, this is asking with the parsha in five where in five minutes we try to give you an insight into the parsha. And could we do better than this this week? Because we have of course in parshas Emor the parsha of the mo'adim. There's only two places where we cover all of the holidays. It's over here in parshas Emor and it's in parshas Pinchas. With the sholosh regalim we have in Mishpatim, we have it in Ki Sisa, we have it in Re'eh, but uh all of the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Kippur included are only in parshas Emor and in parshas Pinchas. And in parshas Emor is called the parshas of mo'adim where we define what all the holidays are. And we have a holiday. Uh it's called Sefirat HaOmer. Very strange. It's a holiday. It says you'll celebrate Pesach. And on the second day of Pesach you will bring an offering of barley. And then you will count seven weeks. And then you'll come to the 50th day and you'll bring a new offering of wheat. So this period of Sefirat HaOmer is seen as being a holiday. We're told to count these days. The Ramban famously says that it's one long chol hamoed from Pesach till Shavuot. One long continuity. Yeah, interesting concept. But Sefirat HaOmer is the time that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us to focus on the connection between coming out of Egypt and receiving the Torah. Uh and to prepare ourselves for that. And we're supposed to count every day. I don't know which wit came up with the expression. It wasn't me. Yeah, I've used it but I didn't think it up. Uh you can't every day of the Omer because every day counts. Brilliant. Yeah? But what it means is I'm supposed to be working every single day to perfect myself in order to be mekabel Torah. That's what I'm working on. That's what I'm trying to accomplish. And so I count it. Because when I count I have to try to keep my consciousness on what I'm doing. I've told the story before. Uh Reb Bach Baer was in America. And he was staying with a baal habayit. And he says, "What would the Rosh Yeshiva like for lunch?" He says, "Fleishigs." Right? Basari. Meat. Every day. And after a while he said, "The Rosh Yeshiva never wants milchigs?" Now you appreciate this cuz when I was in South Africa every meal was fleishigs. Uh I I I landed in Cape Town and they took me to a restaurant called the pie shop where they make meat pies. It's too early in the morning for a meat pie. I said, "Do you have any that's not meat?" They said, "We have an apple pie." I said, "I'll take that." So can I get a cup of coffee, you know? The guy looked at me and goes, "I guess, you know." Mixes up a little instant coffee and has those little powder packets that you put in. And they clumped together. It was not It was not a fun time. And by the way, they make very good pies. Just to give a shout out. I don't know if they're still open anymore even, but uh I came back to Eretz Yisrael I brought a bunch of pies from the pie shop for my kids. Yeah. Everybody had a good time. But anyway, um uh he says, "You only want fleishigs?" He says, "When I eat fleishigs for at least six hours I have to remember that there's a God." Well, we tend to forget. And we need to be able to keep ourselves focused. And that's very important. And that's the that's the secret. That's the secret of of Sefirat HaOmer. Is that for seven weeks we maintain a sense of consciousness I'm going to be receiving the Torah. And I'm building up to this event. Yeah. Uh when I was a kid the last month of school people would make a calendar and cross off each day till they finally had vacation. We do something similar. We climb up every day until we reach that height. Some people count down. Very interesting. Before a launch you know, they count down. 10 9 8 7 you know. T minus 3 hours and 22 minutes till lift off, you know. So what what is that for? It turns out it was in a science fiction movie. The guy who made it wanted to blast off the rocket and they realized the audience wouldn't know when it was going to take off. If they start counting up they don't know what they're counting up to. So they started counting down and that um created the concept of a countdown. NASA took it from there. That was interesting. So uh you count down to something. But for Sefirat HaOmer we count up because every day we're moving up. We're not moving down. We're moving up higher and higher until we're on a level that we're zocheh to be mekabel the Torah and to be mekabel the Shechinah. So during these days this is the time that we should be preparing ourselves for this very very special opportunity. And im yirtzeh Hashem we'll be zocheh to an emes kabbalas haTorah. Shabbat.