KLM Making the Omer Count by Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] welcome to the klm foundation where we are tackling a challenge that faces all of us on a day-to-day basis and what's that to stay fresh and engaged and growing with the mitzvahs which we do day after day after you know what can happen right so that's a big challenge and how are we tackling this through kavanagh having a focus and intention on the mitzvahs and you know what they say now it's becoming very popular this idea intention creates a tension intention creates a attention which is a very scarce commodity these days i think everybody knows that right so the actual act of trying to have intention does that it focuses you so the one way we're tackling this daunting challenge is by working on our focus and intention on the mitzvos and we're also trying to work on connecting to hashem bringing hashem into the picture that's that's what we're doing is the best as we can so now let's tackle spherus omer okay uh we're gonna praise spirus omer i've used this uh idea of appraisal before which is you have a dusty antique i did some research on this they really encourage you if you have old furniture and things like this take it to an appraiser because you never know it says sometimes it could be thousands hundreds and thousands right so you look at the mitsospheres omer and it looks simple looks like a blessing and then you count you'll see it's so much more than that so that's what we're going to do but first i want to start off with a riddle okay now i'm tempted to offer a million dollars for anyone who can solve this riddle uh the only reason i don't is because if they know the hazal that i'm based on they're gonna get a million dollars and i and i don't yet have a million dollars please god all for kill him okay so what's the riddle okay what does spirus omer okay chakras honoring your parents and onigshavas have in common you're that that's a tricky one no i'll repeat i'll maybe throw in one taking a lulav spirusa omer chakras diving the morning service honoring your parents and oneg chavis okay send send in your answers the answer according to the to ferris cisvel the yakin who is a one of the most amazing commentaries on the missionaries right so he says all of those are easy mitzvahs to do now let's go to the list and see if that makes sense to us okay nutilis lulov i think so you know all you have to do is really lift it the waving is a bonus right okay spurious homer seems pretty easy okay honoring your parents that doesn't seem easy chakras if you have teenagers you know it's not easy for them right so chakras your parents those are toughies onyx chavez okay that we can see that's easy so what does it mean that these all right so first of all let's let's know where we're talking it says in uh perique avos fourth parrot second mishna ben azai ben assay says rats limits you should run sprint to a mitzbakala now the word kala could mean minor okay a minor mitzvah like a important mitzvah but the ferroces does not it's not what it means amidst the kala means easy to do easy run to do it easy mid spell like you would a very im important a very difficult to do mitzvah okay that's what he says now he says easy there are different expressions of easy now the first one lifting the the love obviously easy spherus omer easy okay onyx chavis okay we'll get to owning chavez in what way is chakras the morning service easy okay and it's a beautiful insight okay he says like this because you do it every day it's a habit when you accept and this is famous you know modern uh psychology everybody's saying that if um if you create a habit it's gonna work on its own right so the if if you compare diving the morning service if you accept to do the chakras you're gonna get accustomed to it and you can do it you're just you're in in that sense right it's not like rosh hashanah moose off which you're not used to right so it's easy in the sense you're used to doing it okay that's chakras honor your parents now it seems to be a contradiction with the gemara the gemara says it's one of the most difficult myths as you can because what you're expected to do for your parents for bringing you into the world and because your parents are representatives of kadesh for who there's no end to what the expectation so it's very hard in that sense but what sense is it easy because it's intellectually compelling people that gave birth to you and cared for you they nursed you they you know changed your diapers they fed you they send you to school all you know again in our society unfortunately we're not so strong in gratitude you know but if we have a clear mind then it makes so much sense how could you not how could you not pay back and try to do show some respect as people were so good to you so that's another category of an easy mitzvah is that it's intellectually compelling good all right so now now it's going to get easier uh we tackled chakras okay because that's something you're used to we tackled cuba aim because it's until it makes sense to you finally owning chavez is that simple it's a pleasure right who doesn't enjoy having some fine food and delicacies and wine etc right own a no-brainer okay so that's the list okay the riddle has been disclosed i didn't receive any answers so but the so so that's it is that there are easy misfits now the tana tells us run run to do them okay so why are you told to run to an easy mitzvah like you would to a challenging one so the yaking that's ferrous as well as two explanations all right and both of us both of these will help us with spherus omer okay and by the way just this principle in this thing of an easy mitzvah it's very fundamental and i intendedly netter in the next classes to explore all those types of easy and how we can grow and be excited and engage from it but okay right now let's start with serious omer so what does it mean why run so the simple idea of running when you run to something you're excited about it right so it's saying that um do these mitzvahs with energy as resist energy and simcha right and it's easy to do that so you can start training yourself it's like a mitzvah training uh session that all the myths you'll start to do them with energy and simcha now let's let let's look at sphero's omar in that sense okay um and by the way even though it's an obligation for men right uh but for women they get a miss if they do it okay it is something they can do there's questions about whether they make a blessing but this is an easy mix of women and i hope after this class you'll realize how much you can gain by doing it all right so now think about it i i times someone saying the blood so again it has two components making the blessing and counting the omer there's a little prayers afterwards but let's focus blessing counting so i timed someone i asked them make the blessing of course it was like a dry run so they didn't say hashem's name but i say make the blessing you know slowly not not overly slow just do it with care and then count right so they did it and they and they did it kind of slowly 20 seconds the whole mitzvah the blessing and the counting 20 seconds so that in that sense it's easy so why not you you you have 20 seconds to when i talk about doing things with simcha and also really uh zhizus is i came up with a little uh english acronym u-y-m up your mood up your mood you can up your mood for 20 seconds no and we we talked in the past about smiling we said that smiling releases these neurotransmitters it not only gives you sense of relaxation it lowers your heart rate and your blood pressure it's amazing right so 20 seconds lift up up your mood up your mood right so if you do that just and then that counts for a lot because it also is a miss as we've discussed to serve hashem the simpler right so do this one 20 seconds okay so in that sense running to the mitzvah spirits of omar is to do it with enthusiasm and excitement for 20 seconds okay stage one okay that's the first aspect of uh cavanaugh for spirits omer uh this easy mitzvah okay stage two is is has more depth to it okay and that's this one reason is he say i'm suggesting this based on ferris israel he's saying it's a training ground if it's easy do it now and then you're going to be doing everything eventually that way but the other thing is he's saying specifically easy mitzvahs you need to be told to run but what does run mean here means treat it carefully you have to invest in it ready because here's the principle the easier it is the more you're gonna do it without focus okay without you'll do it for the wrong reason or you'll do it mindlessly the opposite of mindfulness mindlessness right so it's very risky when you can at 20 seconds you're gone and you weren't there you hear it so the time is saying take care you you have to really run to focus in on this misra okay because and and the terrace is real i i think that he was an earl i'm going to call him an early founder of klm okay because i want you to hear what he says about cavanaugh mitzvos he says like this um zahir tehran means uh zahir the kadesh kavanaugh so be careful and this is so beautiful sanctify your intentions when you have kevana for a mitzvah you're sanctifying your intentions he says do it because hashem commanded you and not because it's easy it makes sense to you you're used to it et etc et cetera caught why the mitsubishirika's kavanaugh mitzvos need kavanagh and he says this is beautiful he says only by in inserting intention will you perfect your soul you hear the thought you put into hashem's commandments perfects your soul we are capable against the look we know perfectionism isn't healthy but we are meant to strive for and achieve perfection one step at a time and intention leads to perfection that's what he's saying okay it's very powerful now so let's now let's do this what we're going to do is it takes 20 seconds to make the blessing and count like i said women ask your local rabbi whether you make the blessing but you can certainly count okay so if we add to these 20 seconds another 5 to 10 seconds we are going to end up and this is why i'm encouraging women as well you're going to get more attached to hashem and that's really why we're here to get closer to hashem and in the world to come you're going to find out that these little seconds of thought and feeling that you attach are going to lead to palatial estates new ones extra ones okay i think that's a fair promotion for this okay so first step miss the first cabana oh how many misses are there um it all depends how you uh i don't want to say skin the cat or the mitzvah but all it depends on how you break it down i'm gonna teach us five okay so five mitzvahs and so that's why i praise this at five minutes now the first one is the mitzvah of counting right so mitzvah number one is i'm doing it for him him means have in mind have in mind a mitzvah of spirus haomer now it's a big debate rabbits will tell you is it a rabbinic commandment is it a torah commandment there's major major rabbis on both sides but you can cover your bases and say the shame myths i'm doing this for the sake of counting the umber as hashem commanded me step number one that's the one that's the first one but even that people if if you're in troll right if you're chill they'll say kaddish and sometimes they'll just boom okay and what about stopping for even a couple seconds see now something that's very important for people to realize people think that the blessing of on the mitzvah counts for kavanaugh for the mitzvah not ideally you still have to have for the sake of the mitzvah the and then make the blessing and then count okay so this is no small feat okay if you've always been just going broke hashem and counting and now you add the shame it's the spirits of omer that's in a big advance and you'll see the dividends please god in this world in the next world okay but there's four more let's take a look okay let's take a look at all that's present in the mitzvah spherosa omer and if you look on top um this is the catch this is this easy mitzvah spherus omer has five mitzvahs in 25 seconds i would say maximum 30 seconds depending on how long it takes you to think a little thought a little feeling five torah commandments five commandments okay so let's take a look at this as an overview and then i'm gonna explain them first of all what we discussed the misfit to count the omer you have counting the days and the weeks so that's actually one mitzvah days and weeks it's one midsole with two parts that's the first thing and i said if for years you've just run into the blessing and then made the mitzvah you can enhance yourself by having him in mind and in the sake of the midst of counting the omer as hashem commanded so that's one plus three there are three mitzvahs of zekker remembrance okay when hashem commands us to remember a mitzvah in effect to remember him he is setting us up for a deep connection to him okay it's a very powerful mixes of zechar are not to be taken lightly and what are the zackers one of them is going to be a surprise we'll get to it but first zephyr that the counting of the omer was the omer was a minha offering a barley offering that they bought on the 16th of nissan to the base of mgdosh and then they counted and counted until they could bring a minha dasha the shay alechem those were sacrifices in the base of ming dash and we don't have a base of mgdosh and it should break our heart remembering the base of mig dash is meant to be pining to hashem to please bring back the base of mgdash the there's a famous the famous source this comes from denver kabbalah from the tanakh which means it's a strong rabbinic it says right where you hear that if i forget jerusalem may my right hand lose its ability where is that in weddings right what happens it's such a beautiful part of the wedding that uh they've made the blessings everyone's filled with love and inspiration and then you have somebody unlike me who can really sing go even and everyone's so moved and then they in many places they take a cup right a glass and go boom and what does everyone do mazel tov mazel tov and they've forgotten the base of mcdosh the whole thing is to not let uh any joy go past the the the joy that we could have with hashem in the basement so it's meant to be a remembrance so i just encourage you the next time you're at a wedding and you hear that beautiful song or they step on the glass before the big muzzle tub of joy feel a little sadness hashem you're not with us the way you could be we don't have the incredible on english to come close to you okay so zechariah so when you're counting the omer right you're talking about corbin's we can't bring so your heart should be filled with learning for the base of mig dash and we even say a prayer after it yaksa orlando basically being here right so that's another mitzvah but again besides doing it have intention right have intentions hey i'm doing that i'm adding that on so that's one two okay now there's three zippers here so okay the the middle one i'm covering it up for now because i have a big revelation for many of us it was for myself about this another zephyr here which um was brought to my attention by a safer on the columbus club bear yosef who brings the midrash rabba and al-shaf big big beautiful surprise awaiting us the fourth one let's cover this now is we know that the mint uh this the safer hennik very famous commentator on the target myths this says that um the omer ca the accounting of the omer is in effect counting towards harsinai there's uh questions about the way it's done but this re this authoritative rabbi says it's about counting to shabbos where the greatest revelation of all time occurred right zephyr the moment harsinai so if you're if you realize as many of you do that the umer count is connected to counting towards sinai have in mind remembering mom at harcina remembering when we stood before hashem it was the most incredible event it was clear to us the existence of god it is clear to us that what we have in the torah comes from god it's such an important event the rambam says in the ageras teman that you should be driving this into your kids on a daily basis and driving it into yourself on a daily basis and every time you do think about it you have a torah commandment okay one have in mind the mitzvah to count the omer as hashem commandment have in mind that this is a reminder the base of migdash that we don't have these offerings to bring have in mind the standing before hashem at harsinai that we're counting towards okay and now let's explain the middle sector okay so far we've explained and revealed that the myth of spirit omer is much more than a blessing and accounting we said there's actually three zekers as well remembrances and we've covered two we have zechar to the base of mikdash and the corbanos and pining towards the shen and zek heard to mohammed harsinai that we're counting towards kabbalah satara and that's a mitzvah when you think about that so have it in mind the middle one is i found this amazing and so important about spirits omer as i said the barry joseph in his commentary explains and let me kind of build it up the way he does the omer offering is a minha offering like a flower offering and it's uh it's made of barley now in the torah minha offerings are really oh sorry and now what is the word omer it's a measure uh it's a measure of uh uh that was used in the mid bar now normally when the torah talks about a minute offering he calls it a mentor or it says a serious a series haifa a tenth of an apha that's the measure okay now that the torah always by mankind offerings describes it that way except for here it says minhas omer so question number one why does it say why doesn't it say a series of aphra why does it say omer that's number one number two we said that there's the idea counting towards sinai yet if you look at the verse i i want to read you the torah verse because then it'll become clear so listen to the tar verse it says you should count for you from the day after shabbos which means the day after pesach from the day you bring the omer wave offering cheva chabossos to mimos tiene for seven full weeks okay your it doesn't say you're counting two cyanide you're counting from the bringing of this omer and and it says you should count uh 50 50 days until you bring this new corbin so what's interesting here and by the way how how when did they bring the omer one day the 16th the day after pesach they brought the omar offering and that's it so we're counting from that we keep day x to the omer day y to the omer to the omer that was on the 16th we're making a big deal out of this right we keep counting back to the omer not forward to sinai so we have to say that this omer whatever it is referring to is something very important and not only that the the the midrash that makes it very important some of our greatest rabbis of all time said rabbi yochanan says don't take the umer lightly okay that's that's rev yokonan and rachel office also uh says don't take it lightly and what is reviewing's reason he says avraham avinu was given heritage israel in the merit of the omer offering okay big deal number one rachel lockhees says peace between man and woman a barley offering okay gideon heskey melika heskel were all saved because of bringing an omer offering and here's one that's amazing the gemara magilla haman is looking for mordechai he sees the boys learning and what are they studying about the omer offering and the haman who was an evil spiritual genius he says i'm finished he realized that if the kids are focusing on that so this omer is amazing right and we see we're putting a big big deal on it right why is it so important why is it so amazing so the al-shaykh kurdish the bariosa brings the al-shakh and says like this you know what else is called the omer the mon the mon that fell omer the gogales that's the only other time you'll hear this expression now the omaha offering we're celebrating and this is the midrish by the way the midrish rava connects this to the man i'm not just giving you some later rabbi his view midrish rabbah omer offering that we bring this barley offerings connected to the mind listen to this moshira benu dies on the seventh of adar the monster stops falling from them this is when we're about to go into heritage israel stops falling when does the mon that they had they had a supply it actually lasted until the 16th of nissan when we bring the omer in other words when the omer of the monstart bring this barley offering and call it a omer because they're linked why what was the mon the man was in a tremendous lesson that our food and our sustenance and our livelihood come from hashem for 40 years it was no doubt hamotzi left him they used to make on shabbos hamotzileka minishumayam right so now it's about to get dangerous why they're going to enter its israel and they're going to so they're going to take seeds and sow barley and reap and we et cetera and what's going to happen the greatest danger of all they won't realize that hashem is still the complete source of their pres sustenance it's actually to recognize you know there's an amazing that refreshment brings this there's an amazing gemara where it points out that you know heskey awa melech he merited that while he was sleeping on his bed the san herod's tribes were wiped out like the biggest open miracle in the world and um so he he said to a chef you know let uh you know let me just go to sleep and you take care of it so he had a level of trust in god that that could happen david melech right king david who the messiah is going to descend from he fought wars and and he was obviously brilliant and talented and a warrior and he's sticking the swords in people and it says he had more faith in hashem why because he could do that much effort and still realize it's only because hashem gave me intelligence and skill and agility and everything is from hashem rabbi miller zed sal points out why are farmers uh such bali bittacon so one aspect is they need hashem their dependent they pray but also if you were a farmer see we pick up our our bread in the mccullet right so for us it could be a miracle like hashem just puts the food there what did i do right but imagine you're sowing reaping doing the all the 11 activities to make bread and then you go you're you're sitting your table go broke mean hearts you took the bread out of the ground hashem even though i was completely involved in the process that's incredible muna but it uh just like we needed the miracles of mitzrayim to realize nature is just the word of god we needed to man to realize that our sustenance comes from hashem so hashem says that transition point the 16th right where the mon went out and now you're going to this realize it's all from me right so when you are focusing on the omer it's so big because this is the place where we're going to see can we recognize that it's still a miracle right so that the omer is a mitzvah of zechar lamont that's the revelation and any miracle that was done in the mid bar is a mitzvah derisa to remember the nissim okay and so and one one last point then we'll see this and then wrap up so you have we count the days and we count the weeks all right the gomar minafas stresses this so there were two miracles with the mon okay there were a lot of uh intra miracles but two separate miracles one is that it fell from the heaven right on a daily basis so there's the daily miracle of the mon we count the days right back to the omer back to the month and there is the weekly miracle which was heir of shabbos double portion they would get home they thought they had one portion to get home it's enough for two days another miracle so let's see now how many mitzvahs do we have let's go back and count okay let's do the math my claim is that spherus omer is five misfits in 25 to 30 seconds so let's see here we have the misfit to count the omer days and weeks one mitzvah and i pointed out you can count without having to mind the mitzvah and that's a loss have in mind him have him in mind when that you're doing the mitzvah so you have one plus three equals four three mitzvahs of zachary and now we revealed the middle one so we have zechariah mcdush because we're talking about corbin corbano's sacrifices and closeness to the shim that we can't have right now because we don't have a base in mcdush so remembering the mid on mig dash is for the purpose of yearning for its restore next what we just talked about you're the owner was brought on the 16th and the whole mitzvah was connected to this was the ran out in the 40th year on the 16th before they entered eric's israel and hashem called this minha barley offering omer to remind us that the the mon and the barley all come from me so it's a miracle remembrance remembering the mind two minutes is really in that is to remember the daily count is for the daily following of the month and the weekly the very yosef says is for lethal mishna and appreciate that have in mind the midst of recognition is remembering the double portion of mine then we have the famous safer hennef that is also remembering har sinai remember the heart scene i remind you that hashem revealed himself in the world that the torah comes from it's hugely important every time you think of it you get a mitzvah so have in mind the midst of zechariah when you make this blessing now so we have one plus three how do we get the five so if you do this if you're thinking about the mitzvah before you're doing an intention leading to attention and if you remember the three zechars right that will equal another mitzvah called the vacus to hashem attaching yourself to shem because the mitzvah it's a myth of derisive to cleave to hashem he's not physical he's not really spiritual but we are told right the ramban the say when your thoughts and your hearts and your feelings are focused on hashem you're fulfilled you're cleaving to your soul is cleaning to hashem so ready one plus three zechar's one amidst the cell three suckers four equals five to vegas to hashem hashem should help us from this point on to add five ten seconds and add incredible attachment to hashem and a glorious enhancement to your world to come miss rotherson [Music] it's is