Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Counting the Omer and Seeking Purpose

Hey everybody, shalom and good to see you all and thank you for coming. Uh a lot of announcements to make today. Obviously, we have just begun the day before Yom Ha'atzmaut, which is Yom Hazikaron, a time when all of us remember the sacrifices of the that have that have given their lives for the state of Israel, for Eretz Israel, and for the Jewish people. And I know that everything in Israel is mired in political controversies and there are various issues with the army and the yeshiva students and they have to be worked out in various ways. But whatever those political issues are, and some of them are important, I think this is a time when all of us have to have a very deep deep hakarat hatov, gratitude, for the magnificent sacrifices and mesirat nefesh of our over many many years. Young people young people somebody told me that when they're on it a train in Chicago and they have a policeman with a gun, they get scared. But when they see a with a gun here, they feel safe. You know, there's a little bit of a difference of the difference of the orientation. A little story. The great was on an Orbach was once talking to a talmid and a talmid said he was going up to Tzfat to pray at the graves of the great tzadikim in Tzfat, the Arizal, the Yosef Caro, right? Amazing amazing kabbalah in Tzfat. And Orbach, whose yeshiva Kol Torah, is was and is in Bnei Brak again said, "I don't know why you have to schlep up 3 hours to visit the graves of Sadiqim. Whenever I feel the need to pray to Hashem, not to the not to the dead people but to Hashem at the graves of the Sadiq I just go to the military cemetery and Mount Herzl and I daven there because people who gave their life for Hashem and for Eretz Yisrael and for Am Yisrael have the status of holy people. Now, there is a machlokes in the story did he even include even a soldier was not keeping mitzvahs but the very fact of his giving his life is kedusha. Or he was referring to shomer mitzvahs. There are two versions of the story. But either way it just reminds us of the imperative of hakaras hatov. I also want to mention the fact that Israel, all the we've grown a lot, we're still a small country. And almost everybody knows somebody who lost a close close relative in one of our wars. Lost a child, lost a parent, lost a sibling. So you really feel it much more. You know, the United States also has Memorial Day. Of course keep in mind look at the the difference. You know, Memorial Day is the day of all the all the sales in the stores and everything else. Here we understand that it is a day of a loot a day of sadness, things are closed down. But we we do have to have hakaras hatov. That's the first thing I want to make it very very clear. The second that all of Israel also we lost an individual person who was a great great teacher, a great rabbi, a source of tremendous inspiration. He may not be well known here among various circles but rest assured that he is very very well known particularly in the United States and this is Rabbi Zechariah Wallerstein Zichrono Livracha. Rabbi Wallerstein died uh unfortunately at a relatively young age, at least from my perspective, young age. He was not yet He was not yet 70. And Rabbi Wallerstein was an extraordinarily uh inspirational person. And he was a person who at a time when many people were ignoring the problem, zoomed in on the phenomenon of teens at risk, particularly teenage girls, who were going off the derech, some of whom were actually going on drugs and alcohol addiction, others were simply They had lost their way in life. And they felt that nobody understood them. Uh they were not functioning well within the traditional religious school system. And they felt that they didn't have a voice and nobody really knew the pain that they were going through. And uh Rabbi Wallerstein was one of the first people and really one of the best most effective people to kind of help uh these uh people. And he became over the past few years, he became actually a major presence on YouTube and Torah Anytime uh and the like. And if you haven't heard about about him, uh I would urge you to uh maybe check out some shiurim of his. And you can see that uh we indeed lost a tremendous tremendous force for good. And as is always the case when we lose people of greatness, that creates a responsibility on our part to step forward and try to fill uh fill the gap. Uh as is often the case, our shiur tonight is also dedicated in the memory of Binyamin Yisrael ben Halevi, uh zichrono livrocha, a very courageous and righteous young man that we davened for for a very long time. And so we appreciate his parents both being here and supporting the shiur on a regular basis. And we hope that uh the shiur will be le ilui nishmato, along with all of the other very wonderful endeavors that you engage in uh for our Kodesh Baruch Hu. Uh also a Leah Nishama for Anita bat Adam. And may once again the sheer be ilui nishmata as well as a refuah shleima for Breya bat Chava. And really all of the cholei Yisrael. Those who are healthy should remain healthy and those who are ill be Hashem should have a refuah shleima bekarov. Uh finally, our host and I asked me to publicly thank all of the people who contributed to the kimcha depischa, to the moschitim, to uh providing food and financial assistance to families uh before Pesach. Uh really it's it's interesting there were many many small contributions all of whom are valued. And there were some handful of contributors who actually gave major amounts of money. Uh and that we're especially grateful for but as chazal say echad hamarbeh vi'echad hamameet u'vovachi chaven libo lashamayim. That means whether you give a little or you give a lot if your heart is pure and you intend to fulfill God's mitzvot and help people in need Hashem treasures, cherishes uh that uh contribution. So uh a tremendous yasher koach for all of those who participated in the tzedakah. And may Hashem give a bracha to you and your families in the merit of the tzedakah that you showed uh for the kimcha depischa funds. So uh it's interesting that uh this is uh a nice week in the sense that the parsha and the period of time of the year have a perfect correspondence. And that is we're in the period of time called the counting of the omer. And the mitzvah of counting the omer happens to be in the parsha that we're reading. So I'm So in a sense, sometimes I talk about the parashah and sometimes I talk about the time of year. Today, I can talk about the same topic and cover both bases. We have a mitzvah. Now, let's look at the actual language of the verse to get a sense of what's going on. It says, "Usfartem lakhem you shall count mimaharath hashabbath." The count starts from the day after shabbath. Let's look at literally first. Miyom havi akhem et omer hatnufah from the day that you begin that you bring the omer offering. I'll describe that. So, there are two starting points. They're both the same time. Starting point number one is mimaharath hashabbath. Starting point number two is from the day that you bring the omer offering. And you have seven weeks and you count up to 50 days and then you celebrate the day of shavuoth. So, first of all, and we'll talk about why this is so. The issue of mimaharath hashabbath was a major major controversy that lasted hundreds of years between the sadducees, the tzedukim, which was a movement at the time of the second temple that denied the authority of the oral law, and the perushim, the pharisees, who are our sages. The tzedukim took the torah very literally. And they said, "Shabbath means shabbath. Shabbath means Saturday." And if shabbath means Saturday, mimaharath hashabbath means Sunday. And therefore, the tzedukim took the position that the counting of the omer starts on the Sunday after the first day of pesach, meaning the first Sunday after pesach, meaning the first day, you count the omer. That's when you start counting the omer for for days, which means Shavuot will be Well, now the truth of the matter is, this year the Stukim and the Perushim come out the same, because this year, since the first day of Pesach was on Shabbat, Mimochorat ha Shabbat started on Sunday. So, this day, maybe that's a a good sign of achdus. All Jews are together on this one. But, in other years, the Shavuot of the Stukim would tend to be later, because they would not start the second day of Pesach, they would start the Sunday after the first day of Pesach, which might be later in the in the week, because they say that Shabbat is Saturday. The Perushim go through a whole involved pilpul and different proofs, and they assert that the meaning of the word Shabbat in that pasuk is not Saturday, but Shabbat refers to the Yom Tov of Pesach, which is also called the Shabbat, because there is shvita, there is cessation from melacha, and Mimochorat ha Shabbat is the second day, the second day of Pesach. And again, this was a long-standing debate between the Stukim and the Perushim, and the Gemara in Menachos goes through all of the proofs that the Perushim used to establish this as a halacha. You see from the Mishna and the Gemara in Menachos, apparently though, that the Stukim's position had widespread acceptance. The Chachamim had to go through extraordinary lengths to refute the position of the Stukim. Why was the position of the Stukim so accepted? So, some would deposit that the Stukim had a political factor in their favor. That is, when you start counting the Omer, if day one of the Omer is Sunday, that means Shavuot, which is day 50, is going to be Sunday. Like like this year, it's always going to be the same day. Ah, in Eretz Yisrael, that's great, because that gives you a two-day vacation. You see? Because we don't have the diaspora the second day of Yom Tov diaspora, so we have a vacation on Shabbat, we have a vacation on Yom Tov, but the only time we get 2 days off, putting aside Rosh Hashanah, is when Yom Tov is on Shabbos. Uh and then you have Shabbos Sunday, or Yom Tov is on Friday, so you have Friday Shabbos. So, the Tzedukim attracted a populist position, because they got everybody a two-day annual two-day leave for the holiday of Shavuos. By the way, just a little a little aside, just just for general knowledge, do not confuse the Tzedukim and the Karaites. The Tzedukim and the Karaites, they have a very similar religious philosophy, but they are actually two different movements that are not directly related. The Tzedukim were a movement during the Second Temple period, before the Mishna, and they're called Tzedukim simply because the founder of the movement was a man called Zadok. And their main teaching was they did not accept the rulings of the Torah Shebaal Peh, and they are actually connected to the Essenes, and they're connected to the Dead Sea Scroll people, etc. All of them were kind of Sadducees. Now, the Tzedukim became extinct for various reasons, meaning the movement simply died out. And by the time of the Churban Bayit Rishon by Bayit Sheini, rather, we really don't have Tzedukim anymore. Now, the Karaites is a resurrection of that movement much much later, and that is after the Gemara. This is around the 11th century, during the period of the Gaonim. And it's interesting, we actually have a direct person who is credited as the founder of Karaiteism, and that is a man called Anan ben David. And Anan ben David started off life as a rabbi and a Talmud chacham. And he was in line to get the position of Gaon, which was the highest authority. But it went to Rav Saadia Gaon instead. And Anan ben David didn't get the job he wanted, so he kind of invented his own religion. Uh in which he did not accept the authority of the Gaonim in Bavel. And that was called the religion of the Karaites. Now, Karaite means I mean Karaite, they only look at Mikra. They look at the biblical verses. They don't look at the Torah uh she baal peh. Yeah. Did the Pharisees, I'm sorry, did the Sadducees totally assimilate and become non-Jews? Or did they fall back in line under the Pharisaic uh Yeah, I mean, the short answer is that uh you don't have a single answer. Uh some were killed off. Uh some assimilated into the non-Jewish populations. In fact, uh a lot of the Essenes were the precursors of Christians. And and the like. And uh some did teshuvah. Some came back, right? So, we don't know. Now, Karaites are still around even today. Uh Karaites are still around. Yeah, there's interesting halakhic controversies. Do we regard them as Jews who are simply not religious in our fullest sense? Or do we consider them already to be a safek of And it may depends on what country. For example, the Egyptian the Karaites from Mitzrayim Rav Ovadia Yosef testified had a clear mesorah that they were still halakhically Jewish. Karaites in other countries may not be so. Now, Karaites have a website. And indeed Karaites follow this Omer practice of starting the counting of the Omer the Sunday after Pesach to this very day. It's interesting about Karaites that uh Karaites wear tzitzit. So, if you walk into a Karaite synagogue they wear tzitzit because tzitzit is in the Chumash. But they don't wear tefillin. Because they claim that when you read, you shall tie these words to your heads between your eyes and on your arm, these are poetic metaphors for internalizing the words of Torah in your mind and in your heart. And it's not meant to be literal. It's interesting. Here the Karaite are adopting a non-literal interpretation in which they regard tefillin as a symbolic statement as opposed to what you physically physically do. So, yeah. I just quickly ask you. I was in the middle of town this week and I saw someone walking around, a man with tefillin on his head, the box on his head and I I couldn't believe it. I said, "Why Why would he have that on his head walking?" Oh, so that's a totally different thing. That's not from the Karaite. This is the other way around. This is a restoration of a custom that was practiced in the time of the Gemara and that the Vilna Gaon himself practiced and that is ideally men are supposed to wear tefillin the entire day. They go to work in tefillin. They take them off when they go to the bathroom, but they go to work, etc. Because tefillin is part of a Jewish garment. Now, what happened to Well, well, he did have it. He must have had it on his arm. I can I can assure you that maybe the sleeve covered it up, but those who wear tefillin the whole day do it both on the head and on the arm. Now, it is true that over the centuries that custom has become largely discontinued and very very few people do it, but some people do. Some people do and particularly if you've heard of these Zilberman group, which is a group of it's all educational system centered in the old city that follows the It's actually it's a beautiful curriculum. They they make Before children learn Gemara, they master Tanakh and they master Mishnayos. They really go sequentially. I mean the kids really master everything before they go on to the next level. But one of the things the Zulman group does is that they try to go back to the custom of the Vilna Gaon and these Bar Mitzvah boys wear tefillin the entire day. I'll tell you too, it's very angelic. I was once there for Kabbalat Shabbat and they wear that they're all dressed white, gleaming white shirts in honor of Shabbat. And these little boys are wearing tefillin that they take off. No, no, no, no. They wear it to the last minute. They wear the tefillin until it's time for Shabbat, then they take it off. So there actually was an angelic sense like these little angels running around with films. So that's what you saw. But again, it's going to be rare. You're not going to see it very often. Rav Scheinberg was a great Rosh Yeshiva wore tefillin all day, but he but he did it in a very concealed way. He wore his hat so it was under his hat. etc. So you wouldn't know. He had a few humras. He wore like a hundred pairs of tzitzis. Nobody really knows why he did that. It was kind of a secret. And he also wore tefillin the whole day even on an airplane or whatever. So that was that. But that's the opposite. The the Karaites don't wear tefillin at all. They don't they don't consider it to be legitimate. Interesting you know, I remember that when I was in the Harvard University Library which has you know, a huge amount of Seforim. Very, very amazing. So I came across the section on Karaim. And there was a Karaite Siddur. So I I wonder what what what what do Karaites say in their Siddur? So of course they don't have the Shmone Esrei, right? Because that's rabbinic. They do have Krias Shema and they do have the Psalms of Psukei Dezimra. But then they have their own prayer that their rabbis wrote. So the idea that the Karaites don't believe in oral traditions. You know, really it's impossible. They don't believe in our oral tradition. But they created their own. They invented their own because by definition they have rabbis, they have teachers. One other thing about the Karaites, again I'm digressing a little bit, but I'll I'll get back to point in a minute is because the Karaites were not involved in Talmud and Mishna, they became very very expert in grammar and dictive because their text was Tanakh. So in truth, if you look at commentaries like the Ibn Ezra or the Abarbanel, they will often cite Karaite interpretations to understand the grammatical structures of language. And that was considered to be legitimate. Not only that, but one of the best anti-missionary seferim ever written that goes through all of the verses in Isaiah Yeshayahu that the Christians used to establish Yeshua, uh and uh and the book that goes through those verses and shows what those verses mean and shows how the Christians were taking it out of context, it was a safer written around 300 years ago, Chizuk Emunah, strengthening of faith, that was written by a Karaite. That's actually a Karaite book. He doesn't quote gemaras, he just goes through the biblical verses and shows how the biblical verses do not support the idea of a Christian the Christian Messiah and the like. So in a sense, our relationship to Karaites is a little funny. On one hand, the Judaism they're practicing is not an authentic Judaism. grammar books? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's Karaite There There is a Karaite literature. There is a Karaite literature. Grammar book of grammar? They wrote books of grammar. They both They wrote books of biblical commentary, a lot of which we wouldn't accept, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Many years later Spinoza tried Yeah. to write a book of grammar Yeah. and he couldn't finish it. Well, as Spinoza had Spinoza had other things on his mind, but uh he had to deal with that excommunication thing. That was a big uh that was a big deal. No, the Karaites wrote Yeah, sure. I mean, if you if you get any um any study of Jewish literature, uh there'll be a chapter in in typical books like Waxman's book. There are, you know, books of uh history of Jewish literature. Meyer Waxman's, a classic five-volume uh work. There is a chapter on Karaite literature. So, there actually is a very extensive literature. And in fact, there were Karaites who were actually engaged in Talmudic analysis, too. They kind of looked at it like a comparative religion type of thing. They would actually go into Okay. But be it as it may, uh we do have this concept that uh we believe that we count the Omer from the second day of Pesach. So, here's the question. Why does the Torah use a term that is so conducive to confusion? The normal meaning of Shabbat is Saturday. So, you're telling me, well, it doesn't mean Saturday in that pasuk, it means uh first day of Pesach and mimochorat means the second day of Pesach. So, why doesn't the Torah say mimochorat hapesach? Why does it say mimochorat hashabbat? It ought to say mimochorat hapesach. And that eliminates ambiguity. So, the Even Ezra says, "No, it would not. Mimochorat hapesach is actually more confusing. Because here's the problem. What does the term Pesach mean? The holiday of Pesach. You might think it means the 15th of Nissan because that's when the holiday begins. No. Pesach actually means the 14th of Nissan when you bring the korban Pesach. And the proof of that is because the Torah itself says when it talks about when we left Mitzrayim, which was the 15th of Nissan, it says me machar as a Pesach yatzu bene Yisrael. Bene Yisrael left Mitzrayim the day after Pesach. So the Ibn Ezra says, if it would have said you start counting the omer me machar as a Pesach, you wouldn't have started counting on the 16th of Nissan, you would have started counting on the 15th of Nissan. Therefore, the Torah has to tell me that you count the day after a shevi'i shel Pesach, the day after a prohibition of melacha, which would be the 15th, and therefore me machar as a is the 16th. This is what the Ibn Ezra says. Me machar as a Pesach wouldn't have done the job. And that's emes because Pesach in the Torah, the date of Pesach in the Torah is the 14th of Nissan. It is not the 15th of Nissan. But the Ibn Ezra's teretz, the Ibn Ezra's answer is not complete because all you've done is you've substituted one ambiguity for another ambiguity. If me machar as a Pesach would mislead you, me machar as a Shabbos also mislead you because maybe Shabbos means Shabbos. So you may ask, what could the Torah have done? Give a date. Don't say me machar as Pesach, me machar as Shabbos, don't say anything. Just say be yom shisha asar la chodesh ha rishon cuz Nissan is always called the first month, on the 16th day. This is very easy to eliminate any interpretive ambiguities. Give you a date instead of me as Shabbos. Pesach. So, question number one is why does the Torah go out of its way to utilize an expression referring to the first day of Pesach as Shabbos which is prone to ambiguity as opposed to giving you a clear date? Now, question number two. Why does the Torah say you start counting the Omer the second day of Pesach? Why not the first day? Because let's think about this. The safer teaches us, and this is really a simple in the Omer, that the notion of counting the days between Pesach and us is in order to connect the two holidays of Pesach and us linked together by a counting. Why? Because Pesach is the holiday of freedom. is the holiday of Torah. And by connecting them, we want to affirm that freedom without Torah is meaningless and even destructive. And freedom is not an end in and of itself. Freedom is the freedom to serve him. Uh to quote Eric Fromm, who was not religious, although he happened to be Jewish, he said we make a big mistake when we define freedom as freedom from things, from something. Freedom has to be towards something. Free to be what? Free to become what you need to become. A freedom without a goal, without a direction, without a purpose is not only meaningless, but it's destructive. In fact, there's there's no accident that the suicide rate for teenagers tends to be higher in affluent countries. Meaning a country where you have to spend the whole day looking for bread, you know, well, you don't have time to think about the meaning of life. Uh you're too busy looking for food. But once you have the freedom, once you have the food that you need, and once you have the economic conditions, all of a sudden it hits you like a ton of bricks. Why am I alive? What's the purpose of my life? Human beings, and especially Jews, especially Jews, all human beings, but I think Jews even more so, are hardwired to look for meaning, to look for purpose. In fact, I've heard it said even a Buddhist once said that a lot of his great students are Jews, and unfortunately, but Jews don't really fit in the long term because with Buddhism the idea is you reach a state of Nirvana where you no longer are doing anything. And when the Jews reach Nirvana at the highest levels of meditation, they say, "Okay, so what do I do now?" And the Buddhist says, "You don't understand. The point is not to do anything." And the Jew says, "What do you mean not to do anything? I have to do something. I have to do something. What's the next step?" So, "There is no next step." So, the Buddhist says, "Go back to Judaism, you know, uh you're not really part of this." And there's there's a lot of truth to that. A Jew seeks meaning, seeks purpose. So, the ultimate is linkage of freedom and commitment. I think I mentioned before, forgive me for repeating it, the beautiful metaphor of Tagore, an Indian poet, who said a human soul is like a violin string that can express beautiful music. But when it's totally loose, a a loose string on the table, you'll get no music. It has to be tied down. Right? So, that's the linkage of freedom and Torah. If that's the case, though, then we ought to start on the first day. Start counting at the Seder. No, in the first Seder. In Eretz Israel, the only Seder. Okay, so we have two questions. Question one is why does the Torah refer to Pesach as Shabbos, which is so prone to ambiguity? And number two, why does the counting of the Omer begin mimochoras, the next day? Why don't we do it on that first day? Right? I mean, because again, if thematically you want to link freedom and submission to God, so that linkage should belong to the first day. So, when you say zman cheiruteinu, we think about the the Torah. So, let's take the first question first. The first question, why is Pesach referred to as Shabbos? Yeah, it's a day of shvitah. Okay, that's true, but still, it's not a common term. We normally don't refer to the Yom Tov as Shabbos. So, uh the Meshech Chochmah, Me'ir Simcha HaKohen, uh offers a very, very beautiful answer that's a bit intricate. And he says the following. If we look at the halachic difference between Shabbos and Yom Tov, we see two differences between Shabbos and Yom Tov. Difference number one is ochel nefesh. What is ochel nefesh? That on Shabbos we have 39 melochos that we're not allowed to do. And on Yom Tov, we're also not allowed to do these melochos, but we are permitted to do them for the preparation of food or other Yom Tov needs. There is This is called a heter, a dispensation of ochel nefesh, food preparation. Now, the truth is, the laws of Yom Tov are actually complicated. Food is love dafka. There may be other legitimate Yom Tov needs as well. So, for example, you can carry things you need on Yom Tov, like keys, without an even if there's no airuv, because that's also called a tzorech. That's a Yom Tov purpose. So, Shabbos has no such heter unless it's a matter of life and death, unless it's pikuach nefesh. There is no heter of ochel nefesh. That's difference one. Difference number two is what determines the sanctity of the day. Shabbos is an automatic cycle. Six days, then Shabbat, another six days, then Shabbat. You don't need a base din to sanctify the time. And indeed, even if God forbid, there were no Jews in the world who were keeping Shabbos. First, the Orach Chaim says if that were to be the case, the world would be destroyed. But but putting that aside, Shabbos is Shabbos. You know, the people ask the famous philosophical question, what sound does a tree make when it falls and nobody's around to hear it, right? Famous uh question. Well, uh is there Shabbos if there's nobody around to keep it? The answer is yes, there is Shabbos. Shabbos is an intrinsic holiness that does not depend on me at all. Even the thing that I recite that's called kiddush, which is sanctification, that doesn't mean I sanctify Shabbos. It means I'm acknowledging the holiness of Shabbos. By contrast, Yom Tov is a very different process. In order to have the holiness of Yom Tov, we have to have a Sanhedrin that proclaimed a new moon. And then you count the chaggim or x number of days from the new moon. Okay, Rosh Hashanah happens to be the day of the new moon. Sukkot is or Yom Kippur is the 10th day from the new moon of Tishrei, and then you have Sukkot as the 15th day. Pesach is the 15 days from Nisan, meaning it is the sanctification of the Sanhedrin that represents the Jewish people that creates the holiness of Yom Tov. And even today, even today, when we don't have a Sanhedrin, so people might ask the question, if you don't have a Sanhedrin, then why do we keep Yom Tovim at all? The Ramban explains that the last Sanhedrin under Hillel Hasheni, the second Hillel, they calculated all of the Rosh Chodeshim in advance until the year 6,000, because by that time Mashiach will come. And they sanctified them. This is a very fascinating point. We do not keep Pesach because our calendar tells us it's Pesach. We keep Pesach because a Sanhedrin almost 2,000 years ago sanctified that day based on the calendrical calculations. And that is why theoretically, that's the meaning of the famous statement that the Jewish calendar only goes up to the year 6,000. Now, at some level that actually doesn't make sense. What do you mean goes up to the year 6,000? We have a system, we have a calculation. I mean, I could extrapolate what day Pesach is going to be 50,000 years from now based on the formula of the calendar. What do you mean that the calendar only goes up to the year 6,000? It doesn't mean that the calculations can't be extrapolated beyond the year 6,000. They certainly can. But it means that when the Sanhedrin proclaimed the sanctity, they only went up to the year 6,000 because they were so batuach that Mashiach will be here. Which means, counterfactually, this is counterfactual, if Mashiach would not arrive by the year 6,000, we would no longer have Yamim Tovim. There would be no Rosh Hashanah, no Yom Kippur, no Sukkot, no Pesach, no Shavuot, because without the sanctification of a Sanhedrin, there is no holiness of Yom Tov. Unlike Shabbat that comes of its own accord. And this, of course, is why the blessing for Shabbat is Baruch Ata Hashem Mekadesh Hashabbat. You, God, sanctify the Shabbat. When it comes to Yom Tov, we say Baruch Ata Hashem Mekadesh Yisrael v'hazmanim. You sanctify Yisrael and they, in turn, through the Sanhedrin, are able to sanctify the holidays. That's why the doubling is very exact. When it's Shabbat and Yom Tov, so what do you say? Baruch Ata Hashem Mekadesh Hashabbat v'Yisrael v'hazmanim. You don't say Mekadesh Yisrael v'haShabbat v'hazmanim. Rather, Yisrael precedes the holiness of Yom Tov, but Shabbat is independent of that. Okay. So, these are two differences between Shabbat and Yom Tov. Number one, Shabbat does not have the permissibility of food preparation. Yom Tov does, that's called Okhel Nefesh. And number two, the holiness of Shabbat is independent of anything we do. The holiness of Yom Tov, even today, requires the sanctification of a Bet Din, of a Sanhedrin, which is acting as a representative of Am Yisrael. The Meshech Hochma then says that the two distinctions between Shabbat and yom tov both emanate from a third distinction. In other words, a third distinction will explain the other two. And that is shabbos commemorates an event that has nothing to do with the history of Am Yisrael. What does shabbos commemorate? Shabbos commemorates the fact that God made the world in six days and he rested on the seventh day. There were no Jews at that time. I mean there was Adam, right? Etc. Uh so the point is shabbos really has nothing to do with Hashem's special relationship to the Jewish people. Now, it's a gift. The special relationship is the fact that God took a universal idea of shabbos and gave it to us. That, of course, is a special relationship. But shabbos as a commemoration has nothing to do with the Jewish people. Yom tov, on the other hand, is very different. Yom tov is a celebration of the unique relationship that God has with Am Yisrael. Pesach celebrates God taking us out of Mitzrayim. Shavuos celebrates God giving us a Torah giving us a Torah. Sukkos celebrates Hakadosh Baruchu protecting us in the desert by sheltering us with the clouds of glory or or just keeping us alive uh with the in the huts that we had in the midbar. So the shalesh regalim certainly are uniquely connected to Hashem's historical involvement in the Jewish people. Some of the other chagim are a little less certain. Uh Yom Kippur which is a Yom Tov, too. Like Yom Kippur is like Shabbos, uh uh, but Yom Kippur is still, well Yom Kippur is a little complicated. Yom Kippur does not have a heter of work on Yom Kippur. Obviously, you can't unless unless it's pikuach nefesh, you don't cook on Yom Kippur. That's true. On the other hand, Yom Kippur does depend on the Sanhedrin sanctifying Rosh Hashanah because Yom Kippur is the 10th day. But Yom Kippur, too, is a celebration of Hashem's unique relationship to Am Yisrael because after all, why is Yom Kippur Yom Kippur? Because that is the day that Moshe came down with the second tablets. And Hashem forgave the sin of the golden calf. Where I think you run into a little trouble. Yeah. A little question about the the Sanhedrin sanctifying all the holidays ahead of time, right. Right. do we do two days in in Chutz La'aretz? Yeah, so the truth of the matter is that, uh, the Gemara itself says that the requirement of of a two-day holiday in Chutz La'aretz Is everything is fixed about Yeah. It is rabbinic. It is indeed a rabbinic takanah because in the time of the Temple, there was uncertainty when Rosh Chodesh was in in the Golah because they didn't know which day the Sanhedrin designated. So, even though today we no longer have that uncertainty, but the rabbis enacted Yeah. The the Sanhedrin already sanctified these things. And and we know and we know what days. Yeah. Yeah, you're correct. So, it basically says it's it's a it's a rabbinic enactment because if Mashiach comes early, the calendar will get nullified and we'll go back to the, uh, Sanhedrin's individual determination and then we would have that confusion again. Uh, Rosh Hashanah is the problem. In In other words, if you ask the question, what is uniquely Jewish about what Rosh Hashanah commemorates? I think you run into a little bit of a problem because Rosh Hashanah was the day that God created Adam. Adam Harishon was created on Rosh Hashanah. It was the day of the creation of man. And because of that, on the anniversary of man's creation, God sits in judgment as to whether each and every one of us are worthy of having another year of life. But that is not uniquely connected, so to speak, to the Jewish people. So one might ask the question, why is Rosh Hashanah classified as a Yom Tov? But putting Rosh Hashanah aside, for the Shalosh Regalim, it's absolutely clear that unlike Shabbos, which commemorates an event that has no direct connection to the Jewish people, Pesach, Shavuos, Sukkos are intimately bound up with our historical connection with God. Now the Meshech Chochmah says that third factor explains the other two. Because here's the thing. Without the Jewish people, there wouldn't be a Pesach. Without the Jewish people, there wouldn't be a Shavuos. Without the Jewish people, there wouldn't be a Sukkos. These days exist only because of us. So number one, that's why they yield to our needs. We need to cook. The Yom Tov bends. The Yom Tov defers to what we need. Because without us, there wouldn't be that Yom Tov. And by the same token, we control these man. We sanctify these man. Because since the Yom Tov exists only because of us, we have a shlita. We have a control. We have a dominion over it. Shabbos, which has nothing to do with Hashem's relationship with me, I have to bend to Shabbos as opposed to Shabbos bending to me. And I don't determine the holiness of Shabbos. It's God that determines the holiness of Shabbos. So, this third factor explains the other two factors and the like. That since Shabbos exists independent of Hashem's relationship with me, there is no heter of food preparation and I'm not in control of the establishment of its uh time. All right, so that's the basic idea of two differences, two halachic differences between Shabbos and Yom Tov explained by a third difference, that Yom Tov emanates from Hashem's relationship to Am Yisrael. By the way, this explains the halacha that a Yom Tov, although you're allowed to cook, you're not allowed to cook for a non-Jew. Right, you can only cook for a Jew. You cannot cook for a non-Jew. The reason is very simple, because the heter of cooking on Yom Tov is because Yom Tov comes into existence because of the Jewish people. So, it's only for the Jewish people that we have such a dispensation, not for a non-Jew. All right, this gives rise to the whole halacha that the Gemara actually says you shouldn't even invite a non-Jew to a Yom Tov meal lest you come and cook. So, lemaysah, we have many, many heterim to invite the if you pre-cook all the food, but that's just a heter to invite him. That is not a heter to cook. Cooking for a on Yom Tov is actually an issur d'oraysa. Okay, don't confuse this. That even if you're given a heter to have a non-Jew at a seder for whatever and there there are different reasons. I don't know I don't know I don't want to go into all of that. That is not a heter to cook for the non-Jew. At least especially especially cooking. That is only a heter to invite the non-Jew and then serve him the general food that you're cooking. So, if the non-Jew has a special vegan diet or whatever it would be, uh you would not be allowed to make special food on Yom Tov if you can prepare it before Yom Tov. And and the like. Okay. So, now, if we understand that the difference between Shabbos and Yom Tov is that Shabbos kind of transcends Hashem's relationship to Am Yisrael. We didn't do anything, so to speak, to get that holiday. But Pesach, Shavuos, Sukkos is Hashem's unique relationship with Am Yisrael. So, here's what the Meshech Chochmah says. Of all of the holidays, Pesach is the closest to this idea of Shabbos. Why? Because Pesach It is It is of course true that Pesach is Hashem's unique relationship with us. But it was not a relationship that we earned. Remember, we were on the 49th level of tumah. We should have stayed in Mitzrayim for another 190 years because God told Avraham 400 years, and we were only there for 210 years. But because we would have hit the 50th level of impurity, we would have been irredeemable, so Hashem had to take us out early. We were undeserving, we were unworthy. Hashem gave us the mitzvah of korban Pesach and bris milah to put us over the top. But Pesach represents matnas chinam, an unearned gift, a gift that we were not entitled to. Unlike Shavuos, where the Torah was given to us after 49 days of spiritual purity and perfection. Unlike Sukkos, that came after the repentance and spiritual work of Yom Kippur. So, Shavuot and Sukkot was something that we earned. Pesach was something that we were given. And that is why it's like Shabbat because Shabbat too is something we didn't earn. We were given. In fact, I would suggest that this is why, you know, the whole heter of ochel nefesh that on Yom Tov you're allowed to cook, it's actually written at by Pesach that we learn the other holidays from Pesach. But the heter of ochel nefesh is written by Pesach. I would suggest it needed to be written by Pesach because Pesach you might have thought would not have a heter of ochel nefesh because it's like Shabbat. So, the Torah had to teach me even by Pesach you have a heter of ochel nefesh and then you make a kal vachomer and therefore sure I that the other chaggim would have that heter heter as well. So, this is the Meshech Chochmah's lengthy, intricate answer of why Pesach is what we would call, to use a uh the Yiddish uh way of speaking, a Shabbat stiker chag. A chag that is most Shabbat stiker. Because matnat chinam we didn't earn it. But now, let's go to the second question because I think you can build on this Meshech Chochmah. He doesn't address He does not address the second question, but I think we can use it to understand the second question. Why the second day? Why don't we start on day one if the goal is to link freedom and Torah? In Likutei Moharan of Nachman of Breslov, Nachman of Breslov was a great grandson of the Baal Shem Tov. He actually brings and he doesn't he doesn't quote the Baal Shem Tov that much, but here he actually quotes the quotes his great grandfather the Baal Shem Tov. That the Baal Shem Tov raised an interesting question. How come it is, and maybe this might resonate with you, that when a person first comes to Yiddishkeit, there is so much excitement. There is so much passion. Every Shabbos is wonderful. Davenning is great. Right? You look around. There's so much kedusha. And then, as a person gets more habituated and more integrated into the frum community, things, you know, you know, you just fall into patterns. I give like they have all sorts of jokes. There's a whole genre of jokes. How do you know when a baal teshuvah is fully integrated into the religious community? Because that's the goal. We want you to be fully integrated. So, all of the jokes say when they stop doing things with kavana, when they can bench in 5 minutes, uh when they walk out early for davenning, uh whatever, when they go to sleep Friday night instead of talking about the parsha, right? Baruch Hashem, you're integrated. It's kind of reminiscent, I think, of a a remark that some people attribute to Ben-Gurion, that we will have a state of Israel when we will have our own bank robbers and criminals, and then we will have made it. I mean, I I mean, I mean, to his credit, I think he made it as a joke, but uh whatever it would be. So, the question is, why should that be? Now, your answer might be very simple. Well, like anything else, the longer you do something, it becomes a matter of rote and routine. I mean, that's the way human nature is. But, that shouldn't work for mitzvahs. It doesn't really I mean, even though you think, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I got to keep on doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it." So, it gets boring. But, how can that be true for mitzvahs? If mitzvahs connect you to God, then the more you do it, the more connected you should be. How can there be diminishing returns in doing the things that bring you closer to Hashem? How can there be? You can't just explain it by the normal psychological processes of habituation. Because mitzvahs spiritually connect you to Hashem. So, how could it be that a person that had so much kish mach, so much passion, so much excitement, loses it? What's going on? So, the Baal Shem Tov gave a lovely mashal. Let's imagine a baby is learning to walk. First of all, a baby learning to walk is actually a very, very inspiring thing. Because there's something in that baby that pushes him or her. You know, they struggle. Oh, they're grunting. And At first, even the crawling is a struggle. I remember when my son was crawling, and it was so hard. He was like, and I was like, "Why are you working so hard? Just you know, stay in the crib, you know." What is pushing you to push yourself that way? It's an amazing thing. Hashem made us hardwired to want to accomplish. A person wants to crawl, and wants to get up, and wants to walk. That you can learn from your child, right? In fact, the Berdichever says, one of the things you learn from a child is, no matter how many times you fall down, you get up again. We kind of lose that as we get older. At some point, we just give up. A kid never gives up. An amazing thing. And you see that that is the natural condition of a human being. The natural condition of a human being is don't give up until you accomplish that goal. If we give up, it's because we learned something that's not our nature. Very, very interesting. So, let's imagine this child the child is struggling and the parents are holding the child by his shoulders. And he puts one foot in front of the other foot and one foot in front of the other foot and everything is so wonderful and the kid is thinking, "Wow, this walking is great." And then one day the parents decide the child is ready. They let go. And what's going to happen is plop. The kid's going to fall down. Now, if the if the child could verbalize their thoughts, they might say, "Why was walking so easy 5 minutes ago? And now it's become so hard?" The answer is because 5 minutes ago your parents were holding you up. But now you're ready to do it yourself and make it your own. Now, we're still here to protect you. We're still here to be sure you don't hurt yourself. We're here, but we're letting go a little bit. So, you make it your own. This is walking. Says the Baal Shem Tov, this is a marvelous thing. This is exactly the way truth is. When a person is very far from God, God has to hold them up. God holds them. And when God is holding you up, everything is wonderful. Every Shabbos is great. Every davening is inspiring. Every birkat hamazon and I want to spend a half an hour benching and being sure to eat bread, you know, every meal so I could bench, right? As opposed to the attitude, "I don't want to wash. Listen, I'm not I'm not I'm not putting myself up as a tzaddik. I say the same thing. But, you know, I was I remember I was at the levaya of an elderly woman, and her grandson gave a hesped, and he said, one of the things he said was, "My bubby never understood the idea, I don't want to wash. Why don't you want to wash? Because you don't want to bench. Why don't you want to bench? Why would a person not want to bench? Okay, that's the way it is, right? So, the reason why everything is so exciting is because God is holding you up, because it would be so difficult for you to break away from that past. That Hashem is holding you up. But, at some point, Hakadosh Baruch Hu decides you're strong enough. I'm here to protect you, but I want you to make it your own. I've shown you the mountain. I've shown you what you can become. But, now it's your job to become it. And therefore, the Baal Shem Tov says, counterintuitively, this is the chiddush. When a person has struggles in avodas Hashem, and a person thinks they've lost their level, really, it's a vote of confidence from Hakadosh Baruch. That you're ready for the next step. You don't need the artificial high. You're ready to make it your own. Okay, so it's not a yerida. It's an aliyah. The first stage was the relationship of total dependency. The second stage is the independence of internalizing your spiritual growth into your personality. And of course, God is always there. But, God is letting go a little bit. So, you become. This is the relationship between Pesach and Shavuot. Pesach was a redemption that we didn't deserve. We really were not there yet. We were not ready for it. That's why it's called chipazon. When you leave in a hurry, that means you really didn't have time to prepare. Right? Let's imagine I In fact, I remember once um I had to uh in one of our my trips here, I don't remember if it was from Israel to America or vice versa. Uh you know, I always get mixed up cuz when the when the flights are after midnight, you know, you think you're leaving whatever you Is it the next day or this that whatever. So, basically, um I discovered I had a flight that night like uh an hour and a half before the flight. I didn't even realize it cuz I thought it was the next night, whatever it would be. So, you know, so I had to I had to get get there pretty quick. So, you know, I forgot a lot of things or I didn't take a lot of things. That's chipazon. When you leave in a rush, you're not really prepared. We were not prepared. We were not ready. We were not deserving. BUT HASHEM HELD US UP. AND HE SHOWED us miracles. And he showed us the Red Sea. And what do Chazal say? Even the lowly maidservants saw at the Red Sea a greater revelation of God than even the Navi Yechezkel who saw the Kisei Hakavod of the divine throne and the like. But then, after Hashem brings us to the heights, he puts us back on the ground and said, "I've shown you what you can become. Now, through a laborious, gradual, step-by-step process, 49 steps, it's no longer the charismatic suddenness of revelation, but it's the gradual process of incremental work. Become it. I've shown you what you're capable of. I've shown you what you might become. Now become it. So, Pesach represents the gift of God holding us. The Omer and Shavuot is maybe the less appreciated gift of God letting go. And we struggle to become what he showed us we're able to become. That is why the counting of the Omer is Mimochorath. It's the day after because it's the next step. It's not the same step. Pesach is Hashem shows us the vista. Then there's a tomorrow. There's a next day. A next step in life. The step of maturation. The step of moving forward. And that's why it's Mimochorath Hashabbat. The Baal HaTanya writes that this is the meaning of a passage in the Zohar. In the book Shir HaShirim, which is a metaphor of God's relationship to the Jewish people, so the Jewish people who are described as the woman that is pining for her lover, who is God, says, "Moshcheini acharecha, pull me after you. Narutza, so we can run together." So, the Zohar says, "Pull me after you" is a reference to Pesach. "Narutza, we can run together" is a reference to Shavuot. Because when you're pulled, you're simply passive. You're like a sack of potatoes. I'm just pulling you along. But with Matan Torah, we become partners with God. There's a reciprocity. We're giving to God. God is giving to us. But we're giving back to God. Right? So, that's the idea that the old saying is on t-shirts or t-shirt sayings are usually accurate. Uh what you are is God's gift to you. And what you become is the gift you give back to God. Pesach is what we are. Sefirat HaOmer and Shavuot is what we can become. And now we're no longer these sack of potatoes that God is pulling. Now we run we run together with Hakadosh Baruch Hu in kind of a reciprocity and a kind of equality. So, B'ezrat Hashem, I hope that we should grow during this Omer period. There's some actually very excellent books in Hebrew and in English that talk about spiritual exercises for every day of the Omer. It's based on Kabbalah. Actually, I'll probably actually give give a shiur about this as because until Shavuot, we'll be talking a lot about the Omer and Shavuot. And and the likes. This is only the first of maybe another one or two classes about this. But it is a time of it is a time of great great spiritual growth. And B'ezrat Hashem, may all of us merit to use this time in a wise and and productive way. So, thank you.