Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Nature of Shabbos and The Counting of the Omer

Okay, well, hello everybody and again I apologize for being a little late. It's good to see uh the an in-person uh Khaburah. I appreciate it. Uh today we have a lot of dedications. First a Refuah Shleimah to Chaya Shifra bat Galila Yocheved and Galila Yocheved bat Devorah as well as our continued tefilos uh for Binyamin Yisrael ben Chanita. Uh we hope that all of them as well as the all Cholei Yisrael and especially I think we're going to be thinking about the uh people that are hospitalized as a result of what happened in Meron on Lag BaOmer. Uh they should all have a Refuah Shleimah betoch Sha'ar Cholei Yisrael. Uh in addition, uh an anonymous friend uh uh contributed uh some support uh in the merit that Binyamin ben Shachin should find a shidduch and we hope Bezras Hashem that he should find his a zivug and a shat tov u'mutzlachat. And then uh friend of mine from New York, Rav Yosef Kalimi uh is dedicating a share in in honor of our our friendship as well as uh Rav Yishai Wasausky who is actually a former talmid of Ohr Someayach and uh tzakar l'tov uh that his mother, Baruch Hashem, made it well through a surgery recently and she should continue to have a Refuah Shleimah. You know, I just happened to pick up um an old edition of Yated Ne'eman from last week. It was like a little and the headline said a big big headline "Meron will be open as normal this year." This was a pre-Lag BaOmer. And it's so haunting. You know, on one hand this newspaper article said "Meron will be open. Wonderful. Life will be normal." And of course we know that in the aftermath of this great tragedy, uh life is very very far from normal certainly for 45 families uh that lost loved ones and certainly many more many more people and all of us are very very deeply affected. Uh I'm not going to talk about this at length tonight uh but certainly uh in our hearts we should be thinking about uh the people that are suffering and we hope that uh the family should have Nechama and the Cholem should have Refuah and uh all in all this type of tragedy should be a Kaparah for Am Yisrael and bring us closer and closer to the ultimate uh redemption. A lot of people are circulating Yes, I just have to mention a lot of people are circulating uh a passage from the Zohar. Uh this is a passage in the Idra Rabbah. Now, the Idra Rabbah, which is part of the Zohar in Parshas Naso, is considered to actually be the most mystical part of the Zohar. It's the deepest part of the Zohar. The Ramchal wrote a special commentary on the Idra. And the Idra does make a reference to the ramparts of a roof collapsing and 45 people dying and some people want to connect it and the connection is very intriguing and very spooky, but but if you just look at the context of the package of the uh passage it is actually talking about a past event of Eliyahu Hanavi freeing some great rabbis from imprisonment and the 45 people seem to be seem to be the the ones that were imprisoning them. So, it's a bit of a stretch to connect it to this particular event. It is a past event, not a future prediction. Uh the 45 people that are mentioned seem to be the that were imprisoning and persecuting the Jews as opposed to the Jews themselves. But still the idea of the 45 and a collapse of a portion of the roof is a bit unsettling. So, who knows? Uh as I say uh in Eretz Yisrael in particular people are very very quick to look for explanations. They always find some Midrash, some Zohar, some something. And you know, in the absence of Nevuah you know, who are we to really know? Uh but the one thing that we do have to do is we do have to have empathy and compassion uh for the people that are suffering and we have to resolve to do teshuvah for whatever it is that we needed to do for and each person has to look at it, whether it's lashon hara, whether it's ahavas Yisrael, because as I say doing teshuvah is a no-loss proposition because if somehow that was the reason, so Baruch Hashem, you're addressing the reason. And if it's not the reason, you're you know, you're doing teshuvah. That's good anyway. So, there's really no downside in uh looking into what we need to fix and uh Well, okay, I I don't I don't want to really address this in in in in in full. By request, uh I spoke in the OU on Sunday about it. But perhaps perhaps perhaps if the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva died because they did not show proper kavod and respect they didn't show they didn't acknowledge boundaries they didn't give people their space. I'm using this metaphorically. Perhaps Hashem is showing us metaphorically what type of world you get when people trample on other people when there's no boundaries when there's no kavod. Now again, I want to be absolutely clear. I am not absolutely not saying that the particular people who were victimized were guilty of anything at all. I mean, you get caught up in a crowd. I I remember myself being in Meron where I had this sensation of just being in an unstoppable mass of people. So, this is not an issue, God forbid, of of describing any particular sin of the individuals. But metaphorically, it creates a world of trampling, a world of pushing, a world of not acknowledging boundaries, a world of not respecting the individuality. And Hashem is showing us that when you create such a world it is not only spiritually lethal it is quite literally physically lethal. Also perhaps there's a bit of a message that Yiddishkeit, maybe particularly in Eretz Yisrael has become very bound up with a kind of Okay, I hate to use the word I shouldn't be using these words. Uh kind of a gimmicky type of nature. A lot of segulos, holy water going to graves and uh kind of tzaddik worship. And maybe Hakadosh Baruch Hu is showing us a little bit that that too can become a form of idolatry and a form of avodah zarah when we move away from the internals and the fundamentals. And Hashem is basically telling us, you know, maybe we need to recalibrate our understanding of what it means to be a Jew and what is fundamental to Yiddishkeit and what might be peripheral and what might be secondary. Because sometimes we seem to be taking the secondary and elevating it and don't bother with the fundamentals of middos and tefilah and Torah learning and the like. So, these are things to think about. As I say, I'm obviously not a navi because I'll say that Nevuah after the uh beginning of the Bayis Sheini only exists with ketanim, little children and shotim uh crazy people. Well, I'm for sure not a little child. Am I crazy? May maybe so. That that's a possibility. Uh but the point is that uh in the absence of one of those two categories nobody's a navi and nobody really knows for sure. And our primary avodah, once again is to have uh have empathy. Now, um probably all of you have been receiving uh different types of email appeals for tzedakah funds. I just want to tell you there was one thing that struck me in a very very odd, almost bizarre bizarre way. And I told my wife that I thought this was a singularly bad idea. Where some organization said uh "In light of this tragedy, we're asking people to contribute to the writing of a safer Torah uh in memory of these victims with the extra money going to the families." I I I thought that was really an absurd idea. I mean, you give the money to the families, you know, we don't need an extra safer Torah. And I I just heard today that they actually think this was came from a Christian missionary organization. So, so Baruch Hashem, I think my instinct that this was just not a not a good idea in particular I think was confirmed by the the source of where it came from. And this is so interesting because this is in the aftermath of the uh French Hill incident where in fact there was uh a guy who was I don't know how he was doing everything. He was a mohel and a shochet and a sofer and a mesader kiddushin and it turns out he was a not even a Jew for Jesus. He was just a non-Jew for Jesus uh who trained to be a uh a Christian missionary within the Chareidi community. Uh go figure. But okay. He was a shomer Shabbos mohel. Yeah. So, so who knows? Okay. But as I say, uh I mean, I don't want to talk about this so much. I think all of us uh are still shaken up about it and uh we hope that uh Hashem will show rachamim and love to Am Yisrael and really the whole world in this difficult time. But what I want to talk about to be ikar tonight is really from last week's parsha, but it's in our time zone, and that is the mitzvah of counting the Omer. And the Torah says, by the counting of the Omer, usfartem lochem mimochoras Shabbat. You begin counting this period of time from the day after Shabbat, mimochoras Shabbat, the day after Shabbat. And you start counting these 49 days, which of course links together the holiday of Pesach that is freedom with the holiday of Shavuot that is Torah, and the basic message is fairly clear that freedom only has its meaning when it's linked to Torah, otherwise it is destructive as we've seen in Western civilization generally that when freedom is not coupled with responsibility, it becomes something very, very evil. Uh in fact, I mentioned many times, I'll mention very quickly again, Tagore's beautiful statement, and the famous Indian poet, that and he was not talking about uh Judaism at all, he said that a human soul is like a violin string. Only when it's tied down can you get music from it. A loose string on the kitchen table can make no sound. If all I want is freedom, the beauty of my soul can never be expressed. Paradoxically, I need to submit to something greater than myself in order for the music to emerge. And that is exactly as good an encapsulation of the counting of the Omer as one could imagine. You have to connect the Torah that is yetziat Mitzrayim with matan Torah. You know, in the 1970s, uh when uh there was a lot of agitation to free the Jews of the oppressed Jews of the Soviet Union. So, every synagogue, conservative, reform, orthodox, had on uh on its lawn a big sign that said, now quoting the pasuk in Exodus, "Let my people go." Now, what's interesting is that that's a little bit of a mistranslation because the actual words were shalach ami veavduni, "Send my people and let them go." But, the sign always left out the last word. Shalach ami, send forth my people, veavduni, so they will serve me. The sign left out the veavduni. It only said, "Let my people go. Freedom." But, freedom alone doesn't have that value without submission. A person can never say, "The purpose of my life is to be free." That's a non sequitur. Freedom is not a purpose. Freedom is an enabler. Freedom is a structure. Freedom can create conditions where you can accomplish what you need to accomplish. Yes, freedom is an important thing. I acknowledge that. But, freedom is not a purpose. Right? What is the purpose of life? And that is what Shavuot kind of pushes us into. But, the issue is this. The Torah does use a peculiar term, the day after Shabbat. Now, as you certainly know, this was a long-standing debate between the tzedukim, the Sadducees, who did not believe in the oral law, and the perushim, our chazal. And indeed, the Sadducee position has been continued by the modern-day Karaites, Karaim, that are still around and and granted in small numbers, but they have a website, you can actually check Karaite beliefs, in which they take the Torah quite literally, and if the Torah says Shabbat, Shabbat is Saturday, mimochoras Shabbat is Sunday, and as a result, they consistently, which this year it works out the same actually, but this year we're all we're all uh the first day of Sefirah was uh Sunday night. Oh, Sunday night, you're right. Yeah, it was the day after that. Yeah, you're correct. Yeah, that's correct. Once once in a while we're all Sadducees, so to speak, just like John F. Kennedy said, "We're all Berliners." We're all Sadducees. No, not not really, but okay. Uh Uh but, the Sadducees consistently began Sefirah Saturday night Sunday after the first day of Pesach, whenever that would be, uh because they say, "Shabbat is Saturday. Shabbat is Shabbat." And yet, chazal had a masorah, and they proved it in various ways as well, that when the Torah says Shabbat in that pasuk, Shabbat does not mean Saturday, but Shabbat means yom tov, because yom tov can also be called Shabbat, and mimochoras Shabbat therefore means the day after the yom tov of Pesach, uh which of course would be second day of Pesach, which is the first day of chol hamoed. Uh and they went through great, great uh uh struggles to try to establish that Shabbat in that pasuk does not mean Shabbat, but Shabbat in that pasuk means yom tov. So, the question becomes a difficult question, and that is, why does the Torah use the term Shabbat when in fact it means yom tov? Now, the Ibn Ezra suggests there really is no alternative because what could it have said? If it wouldn't have said mimochoras Shabbat, it could have said mimochoras Pesach, the day after the holiday of Pesach. That would have resolved the ambiguity. But, the truth is that's not emes, because Pesach in the Torah, the word Pesach in the Torah, does not refer to the holiday of Pesach. Pesach in the Torah refers to the day that you bring the korban Pesach. When do you bring the korban Pesach? On the 14th of Nisan. So, mimochoras Pesach would have meant the 15th of Nisan. So, if it would have said mimochoras Pesach, you would have started counting the Omer on the first day of Pesach, 15th of Nisan. So, it has to say mimochoras Shabbat, the day after the chag. But, the truth of the matter is, okay, mimochoras Shabbat is ambiguous because it might mean Sunday. Mimochoras Pesach is ambiguous because it might mean the first day of Pesach. So, let the Torah give you a calendar day. Let the Torah say, biyom shisha asar lachodesh harishon, on the 16th day of the first month, which is the way the Torah refers to Nisan, you count the Omer. So, don't say mimochoras Shabbat, and don't say mimochoras Pesach. So, we're back to square one. Why does the Torah go out of its way to refer to the first day of Pesach as a Shabbat day? So, there's a very interesting explanation from the Meshech Chochmah, Rav Meir Simcha, the the Or Sameach, uh in which he says the following. If we look at the difference between Shabbat and yom tov, we can see two fundamental differences in the halachot of Shabbat and the halachot of yom tov. First is the heter, the dispensation of ochel nefesh, meaning the following. Both Shabbat and yom tov start off with an idea that 39 categories of work are prohibited. But, yom tov has a huge, huge exception to the issur melacha, and that is, I'm allowed to do melacha that is connected to either food preparation or any general yom tov need. So, I'm allowed to cook uh for yom tov. I'm allowed to carry on yom tov for yom tov needs. Okay? So, this is called ochel nefesh, which literally means feeding the body or feeding the soul, but it doesn't refer to spiritual food, it refers to the physical needs of the nefesh. Uh so, yom tov has a heter of ochel nefesh, and Shabbat of course has no heter of ochel nefesh. On Shabbat, the only heter to cook is if your life is in danger. Yeah, to that degree. If it's pikuach, right? Don't confuse the two terms, although they both have the word nefesh in them. Shabbat has a heter of pikuach nefesh. Yom tov has a heter of ochel nefesh. Pikuach nefesh literally means somebody's going to die unless you do melacha, okay? So, that you're you're allowed to do, you're chayav to do. Yom tov, it's not a question of somebody dying. I'm allowed to cook and do melacha on yom tov if it's for a physical pleasure of yom tov. Now, granted, rabbinically, there are certain things you can't do. For example, uh you can't create a new fire. You can't like light a match or turn on a new fire. You can only enlarge or transfer existing fires. But, that itself is rabbinic, mid'rabannan. D'oraita, uh you can actually even create a new fire for ochel nefesh. So, that's distinction number one between yom tov and Shabbat. But, then there's a distinction number two in the method of sanctification. Shabbat is sanctified automatically. Every seventh day is the Shabbat. And the holiness of Shabbat does not depend on us. Even if God forbid, there would be no Jews in the world, which will never happen, or even if God forbid, there would there would not be a single Jew that kept Shabbat, although that also will never happen, the holiness of Shabbat would still descend into the world every Friday night, based on your time zone. That's another interesting question. Uh in fact, philosophically, this is a fascinating question, which I'm not going to talk about either, but I'll just throw it out for you to cogitate over. The concept that Shabbat starts different times throughout the world. You know, one could have made a plausible argument that Shabbat should start the same time everywhere in the world, maybe based on Jerusalem time, which means to say that when the sun sets in Jerusalem, even if in New York City it is a 12:00 noon Shabbat will start 12:00 noon, meaning one could say that Shabbat uniformly uniformly hits the world at the same time, but as you know, although there's a lot of disagreements where the international date line is, and that's not relevant to our discussion, but the one thing that's very very clear is that Shabbat hits the world at different times as the sun sets in the different time zones. Interesting question to think about, but we'll leave that for now, but the point that I am making is that the Meshech Chochmah makes is that the holiness of Shabbat does not depend on anything that we do. Even though it's true that we do recite something called Kiddush we are not making Shabbat holy. We are simply proclaiming that it is a holy day. Baruch Atah Hashem, blessed are you God, Mekadesh Shabbat, you sanctified Shabbat. Yom Tov is actually a very very different type of story. Yom Tov depends on X number of days from Rosh Chodesh. Right? Pesach is the 15th day of the month of Nisan. Rosh Hashanah happens to be the first day of the month, but it's a function of Rosh Chodesh. Now, Rosh Chodesh was determined not by astronomical calculation but by a Sanhedrin that would sanctify the new moon based on the testimony of witnesses. And the Mishnah gives us cases where even if they got it wrong, even if they sanctified the wrong day as Rosh Chodesh the holidays would be calculated not from the correct day of the appearance of the new moon, but from the incorrect day. Remember, this was a famous story in which Rabban Gamaliel uh who was the head of the Sanhedrin uh had the Sanhedrin sanctify Rosh Hashanah and that would determine Yom Kippur and Sukkot and all of the holidays. Rabbi Yehoshua maintained this was an erroneous calculation and Rabban Gamaliel ordered Rabbi Yehoshua to come to him with his cane and with his money on the day that would have been Yom Kippur based on Rabbi Yehoshua's calculation but it was the day after Yom Kippur based on the erroneous calculation of the Sanhedrin. Rabbi Yehoshua, in other words, was ordered to violate the day that he thought was Yom Kippur. He didn't know what to do. Rabbi Akiva told him don't worry about it because even when they get it wrong, it becomes right. And therefore, definitionally, Yom Kippur is 10 days from their Rosh Hashanah even if astronomically they messed it up. In other words, Yom Tov depends on the Sanhedrin acting on behalf of the Jewish people sanctifying the new moon. Now, you may say, well, what about today? Today we don't have a Sanhedrin, we don't have witnesses, we operate with a calendar. So, Nachmanides explains that even today, the only reason, this is quite um astounding, the only reason we keep Yamim Tovim at all is because the last Sanhedrin on under the auspices of Hillel the Second, he was a great great great grandson of the famous Hillel calculated all of the Rosh Chodesh in advance and sanctified them in advance and therefore there is a Kiddush Chodesh that took place almost 2,000 years ago, around 15 1,600 years ago, which determines the sanctity. And that is why we have the famous statement of the Torah that the Jewish calendar only goes up to the year 6,000. Now, that doesn't make any sense really because the calculations of the Jewish calendar there are rules in the Jewish calendar can certainly be extended indefinitely. You could you could calculate the Hebrew date in for 10 million years from now. So, in what sense can it possibly be said that the Jewish calendar ceases to exist in the year 6,000? It's not the mathematics of the Jewish calendar that cease to exist, that can be indefinitely extrapolated, but it means the formal sanctification of the Rosh Chodesh stops in the year 6,000 because since we have a tradition that Mashiach will come no later than the year 6,000, we will have a Sanhedrin, we will go back to the system of Kiddush Chodesh, we don't need, as it were, the Kiddush Chodesh in advance that was provided. And that is why if chas v'shalom, theoretically, Mashiach would not come by the year 6,000, which is counterfactual, we believe the holidays would no longer be kept. We would still keep Shabbat, but we wouldn't keep Pesach, we wouldn't keep Again, the statement in the well-known statement, all the holidays will be nullified except for Purim um that is not directly halachically relevant. Certainly, the Rambam writes the P'shat that when Mashiach comes, we're going to keep Pesach, we're going to keep Shavuot, we're going to keep Sukkot. Uh we are going to keep all the holidays, but if chas v'shalom Mashiach wouldn't come we wouldn't keep the Yamim Tovim because there's no Kiddush, there's no sanctification of Rosh Chodesh that would allow for the computation of the holidays. In other words, this is a fundamental difference between Shabbat and Yom Tov, and that is the holiness of Shabbat depends on only Hashem. The holiness of Yom Tov depends on Am Yisrael doing a certain thing either immediately or remotely in the past. And that is why exactly this is the case. In the Nusach, in the text of the Bracha in Davening, for Shabbat we say Baruch Atah Hashem, blessed are you Hashem, you God, who sanctified the Shabbat. On Yom Tov we say Mekadesh Yisrael v'hazmanim, you sanctified Israel and it's Klal Yisrael that sanctifies the holidays. And that's why when it's Shabbat and Yom Tov, the Bracha is very exact. Baruch Atah Hashem Mekadesh Shabbat v'Yisrael v'hazmanim. You don't say Mekadesh Yisrael v'haShabbat v'hazmanim. Rather, Shabbat comes from Hashem and then Hashem sanctifies Am Yisrael and Am Yisrael, acting through the Sanhedrin, gives the Kedushah of this month. So, b'kitzur, we now have two distinctions between Yom Tov and Shabbat. Distinction number one is that Yom Tov has the heter of Ochel Nefesh and Shabbat does not, food preparation. Distinction number two, the holiness of Shabbat comes from God the holiness of Yom Tov comes from Am Yisrael. Right? Two differences. So, the Meshech Chochmah says the understanding of these two differences can be based on a third difference. And that is the following. Shabbat commemorates an event that does not have anything directly to do with Am Yisrael. God made the world in six days and he rested on Shabbat. So, to acknowledge that God is the creator of heaven and earth we also rest on Shabbat and we emulate. Now, that has nothing uniquely to do with being a Jew. That is a universal idea. In theory Shabbat could have could have could have been given to the gentiles as well. In fact, the Meshech Chochmah says that is why Shabbat is called a Matanah, a gift, because a gift is something you get that you didn't earn. We didn't earn Shabbat. Shabbat has nothing to do really with us. But God gave it to us as a gift that we should be the witnesses to his creation of the world. Ad Kedai Kach, that non-Jews are not even allowed to keep Shabbat in the fullest way. Although Rabbi Yehoshua Schwartz does write that even a non-Jew, a Noahide, should make Shabbat a special day with a meal and the like, but certainly the Halacha is clear that they're not allowed to fully observe Shabbat. But that's a Matanah. So, because Shabbat represents a transcendent ideal that has nothing to do with God's relationship to us Shabbat does not bend to our needs. I can't bend Shabbat because I need something because Shabbat represents an idea that's not connected to me. But when we look at the Yamim Tovim we see a very different idea. Yom Tov are specific celebrations that are uniquely tied, at least the Shalosh Regalim, I'll talk about the other ones shortly. The Shalosh Regalim, let's talk about those first cuz those are easier to understand. The Shalosh Regalim are intimately tied to God's connection to the Jewish people. Pesach celebrates the Exodus. Shavuot celebrates Matan Torah. Sukkot celebrates, at least in part, the clouds of glory that are the special divine providence that Hashem showed us when he took us out of Mitzrayim. Yom Tov, unlike Shabbat, could not exist without a Jewish people. Therefore, this explains the two Chilukim. Because there can't be a Yom Tov without an Am Yisrael. Number one, YomTov bends for our needs. Our needs, our need for food, our need for comfort, overrides YomTov because YomTov only exists because of us. And number two, we are the masters of the holiness of YomTov. Because YomTov comes from us. YomTov originates in the unique relationship that God has to the Jewish people. And that's why the Halacha, the Heter of Ochel Nefesh only applies for a Jew. I can cook for a Jew. I cannot cook for a non-Jew on YomTov. Ad k'dei kach that rabbinically it is even prohibited. There are many heterim. But it's prohibited, you can invite a non-Jew as a guest to your home on Shabbos. But you're not supposed to invite a non-Jew to your home on YomTov. What's the difference? On Shabbos, I'm not allowed to cook for anybody. So everything has to be pre-cooked. So I can have a non-Jew. Just keep him away from the wine. On YomTov, however, you can cook. But you can only cook for a Jew. You can't cook for a non-Jew. So the rabbis were afraid that if I have a non-Jewish guest, I might do some extra cooking on YomTov for the non-Jew. Yeah, but sure you understand this. The the the issur of cooking for a non-Jew is a d'Oraisa prohibition. Chazal said, "Don't invite lest you cook for the non-Jew." That's a rabbinic prohibition. Now, again, I'm not here to to pasken Halacha. If you have any shailos about this, talk to your LOR, your local Orthodox rabbi. Obviously, there are many many problems here. Uh can I invite a candidate for conversion to a YomTov meal? What if I have an intermarried couple and the Jewish person is not going to come without the non-Jewish spouse? So again, we tend to be extremely lenient in this area. Uh but the basic principle the basic principle is still very much alive that you cannot cook for a non-Jew on YomTov. So basically, we have this structure where we have two Halachic differences between YomTov and Shabbos. One is Ochel Nefesh, the other is the source of the sanctification being the Sanhedrin rather than God as opposed to Shabbos where it comes from God. And the Meshech Chochma says, "These two Halachic differences are based on a third difference and that is Shabbos is based on an event that does not signify Hashem's unique relationship with the Jewish people. Therefore, we are not in the driver's seat. We are not the ones that control it. Ma she'ein kein, YomTov only exists because of us. And that's why there's a Heter of Ochel Nefesh and that is why we determine the Kedusha. Now, l'ma'aseh, there is a little bit of difficulty here because this does uh hold true for the three Regalim. This holds true for Pesach, Shavuos, and Sukkos which celebrate unique formative experiences in the Jewish people's history, Yetzi'as Mitzrayim, Matan Torah, Ananei HaKavod which exemplify Hashgacha Pratis. But there are two other holidays we do got to consider which don't or don't fit the model exactly the same. One is Rosh Hashanah and one is Yom Kippur. Uh now, uh Yom Kippur, of course Yom Kippur, the issue of Ochel Nefesh doesn't come up that much because uh you fast. But still, Yom Kippur, the Kedusha is determined by us. By us. That was the story in which it was the wrong Yom Kippur date and it still was holy. Uh but again, Yom Kippur, although Yom Kippur is a day of atonement for the whole world, nevertheless, there is something unique about Yom Kippur because that was the day that Moshe Rabbeinu came down with the second Luchos. And it commemorates the forgiveness for the sin of the golden calf. So Yom Kippur is also a uniquely Jewish day. But where you do come up against, I think almost against the stone wall, is Rosh Hashanah. Uh Rosh Hashanah, what is uniquely I mean, of course we have mitzvos that it's given to the Jewish people. But in terms of commemorating a unique relationship that God has with the Jewish people, I think you have a bit of a problem because the event of Rosh Hashanah was the creation of Adam HaRishon. And uh therefore, that's called the creation of the world because the tachlis of the world uh was the creation of man. And yet on Rosh Hashanah, it's very very clear that number one, there is a Heter of Ochel Nefesh. You are allowed to cook on uh Rosh Hashanah. And number two, the sanctification of Rosh Hashanah depends on the Sanhedrin that would sanctify the new moon. According to the Meshech Chochma's explanation, it's a little less clear why Rosh Hashanah would be different than Shabbos since it commemorates a transcendent event. That Rosh Hashanah is even earlier than Shabbos, right? Rosh Hashanah uh dates from the Friday. Shabbos dates from the Saturday, right? Rosh Hashanah was one day earlier uh than Shabbos itself. But it could be, it could be perhaps that since Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of man and in a sense the Jewish people took over the function of the human race to sanctify God's name. So essentially therefore, uh we are called Adam. This is a famous Gemara that Adam was taken over by Am Yisrael. That does not mean, as anti-Semites say, that we regard the statement in the Gemara, "You are called Adam and no one else is called Adam." Does not mean non-Jews are animals. That's not what the sentence means. It means that Adam HaRishon was given the unique mission of bringing Godliness into the world. And had he not sinned, that would have been the legacy of the human race. But because of his sin, God had to choose an offshoot of Adam to continue that mission. So in that way, Rosh Hashanah can be seen in retrospect as the creation of the Jewish people. Okay. So this is the Hakdama, kind of a lengthy Hakdama of the of the Meshech Chochma. So now he says the following. If we understand that the difference between Shabbos and YomTov is that Shabbos is something that really doesn't belong to us. It was only given to us as an unearned gift. As opposed to YomTov that celebrates Hashem's unique relationship, in some ways, the most Shabbos-tic of all the holidays is Pesach itself. It's true, of course, that Pesach commemorates a unique relationship that God has with Am Yisrael. But Pesach was not something that we earned. Remember that in the course of our 210 years in Mitzrayim, we had reached the 49th level of impurity. Hashem took us out 190 years earlier than the 400 years that he had told to Avraham. And the reason is had we remained even another minute, even the amount of time, we don't even understand this, the amount of time it takes for dough to rise and become chametz, we would have hit the 50th level and we would have been irredeemable. So Pesach represents a gift that we didn't earn, that we didn't deserve. It was not something that really belonged to us. But God, out of his love and because of the covenant to the forefathers, gave us something that we didn't earn. Shavuos is very different. Shavuos, we kind of earned the Torah by the spiritual work of the counting of the Omer. Sukkos came in the aftermath of Yom Kippur where we did teshuvah and we merited the clouds of glory. The Vilna Gaon in fact says that the clouds of glory that we celebrate on Sukkos is not the clouds of glory we got at the Exodus, but the clouds of glory that were restored to us after Yom Kippur. So in a sense, Shavuos and Sukkos represent things that we earned. Pesach represents something that we were given. And therefore, the Meshech Chochma says, "It is called Shabbos because Shabbos, too, represents something we were given. We were not entitled." And that's why of all the Yamim Tovim, it is only Pesach that is referred to as Shabbos because it represents the unearned gift. And it could be, I would just add a little bit, that you know, although the Heter of Ochel Nefesh applies to every holiday, obviously, but the only place where it is explicitly written is Pesach. Pesach is where it is explicit. Why would it be explicit in Pesach? Because based on this analysis, there is a hava amina that Ochel Nefesh shouldn't apply to Pesach because it is not a holiday that we earned. It's like Shabbos. So I wouldn't have had Ochel Nefesh been written in any other holiday, I wouldn't have applied it to Pesach. Therefore, it had to be written by Pesach because Pesach Pesach is Shabbos-tic. So with this Hakdama of the Meshech Chochmah, I think we can take it one step further in a very, very wonderful extension. That is one of the kashas people ask is, why do you start counting the Omer the day after Pesach, the second day? Why don't you begin at the first day? And in truth, it would make a lot of sense to begin at the first day. Because if the message of the counting of the Omer is, as the Sefer HaChinuch writes, that as soon as we experience freedom, we want to start counting to Torah because without Torah, freedom is animal liberation. Remember, that's why the Omer is barley, and on Shavuot we bring wheat bread because barley, before cholent was invented, was only fed to animals primarily. And freedom without Torah is animal freedom. And therefore, we need to count the Omer that even in the middle of Pesach, we know we're counting towards Matan Torah. All of that is well and good. But why don't we start on day one? Why do we start it doing it? Actually, if you remember, I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that that is why I I I would suggest in the Jewish calendar, the first day of Pesach is always the same day of the week as Tisha B'Av. Because when you have freedom without Torah, it leads to destruction. That's the hard-boiled egg, which is the food of a mourner, etc. So, why don't you start from day one? So, the Sefer HaChinuch himself says that, you know, we have a general klal in halacha, ein ma'arvin simcha b'simcha, you don't want to mix one joy with another joy. And since day one is celebrating the Exodus, we don't want to bring in another holiday on the day that's meyuchad for the celebration of the Exodus. That would be a violation of intermingling one joy with another joy. That's what the Sefer HaChinuch says. But machaira, that itself is a difficult reason. Because these are not two different joys. It is Shavuot that gives meaning to the Pesach. So, it's not like a separate thing. Like Like we don't we don't make a wedding on Yom Tov or Chol HaMoed, because we don't want to be distracted from the joy of the Yom Tov by some other simcha. Okay, those are two different joys. But Torah and cheirus, freedom, are one thing. So, here is where I think we can go with this. There is a beautiful, beautiful comment of Rav Nachman of Breslov in Likutei Moharan. And he actually This is not his own comment. He He He quotes his great-grandfather, none other than the Baal Shem Tov. Rav Nachman was a direct descendant of the Baal Shem Tov. And the Baal Shem Tov raises a powerful question. When a person is new to Judaism, a person does teshuvah, a person explores, there seems to be a vividness, an excitement in avodas Hashem. Every Shabbos is beautiful. Davening, birkas hamazon, right? Sometimes people say, "I don't want to wash. I don't want to eat bread cuz I have to bench." What's wrong? What's wrong with benching? Why don't you want to bench? I remember I went to the levaya of an older woman, and her grandson said, "You know, my my my bubby never understood, what's this thing, I don't want to bench? Why don't you want to bench?" Right? So, often you'll find the baal teshuvah brings such enthusiasm, such joy, such happiness, such geshmack. Baruch Hashem. But then what happens is, as he or she becomes habituated, things become routinized. In fact, they say they often say these are there's a whole bunch of jokes in this genre. How do you know when a baal teshuvah has become integrated into the Orthodox community? When has he made it, he or she? When are they normal? So, the jokes all say, "Well, when they talk during davening, uh when they daven Shmoneh Esrei in two minutes." I mean, all of the jokes go in the same direction. When they stop taking Judaism so seriously, baruch Hashem, they've now become a good Orthodox Jew. There was a um those of you from from New York may be familiar with Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald and the the outreach program in the Lincoln Square Synagogue. It's a very, very fine outreach program. And uh years ago, they were honoring someone that was involved. And this is on the internet. This is like a famous speech uh where the honoree gave a speech. It's totally tongue in cheek, so don't be put off by this. It says, "Why I hate baalei teshuvah." And he says, "I have these people come to me on Shabbos Friday night. All I want to do is finish my meal in a half an hour and go to sleep. So, I'm kind of, you know, I'm making good timing, you know, fish, soup, you know, let's go. And all of a sudden, this guy says, 'We didn't sing the zemiros.' Okay, you have to sing zemiros. I sing one zemira. He says, 'But there are five in the seder.' Okay, got to do five zemiros. Then he says, 'Do you have anything on the parsha to share?' I'm going crazy. I just want to finish. And they want zemiros, they want Torah. Says, 'That's why I hate baalei teshuvah.' But But But it was actually a very, very affectionate point, cuz he was saying, "We become jaded. We become indifferent. We take things at rote. But the newcomers bring excitement. They bring passion. They bring geshmack. And for that, we have to be very, very grateful." That was the overall thesis. But the Baal Shem Tov raised the question. But how come this happens even to the baal teshuvah? Now, you could give a simple answer. Well, obviously, the longer you do something, the less excited it is excitement it is, because you're used to it. Okay, I can understand that. But it shouldn't be that way for mitzvos. If we believe that when I do mitzvos, I'm building a relationship with God, how can there be diminishing returns? How can it be that the more you do, the less you feel? The more you're doing mitzvos, the less connected you are to Hashem. That doesn't make sense. If the essence of mitzvos is building a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And in fact, by the way, the Sifrei HaChinuch actually say that although we translate mitzvah as commandment, and you know, that is grammatically what it means, but it's also connected to tzavsa, companionship. Mitzvos build companionship with God. Then the concept of diminishing returns seems to be nonsensical. How can it be? This is the Baal Shem Tov's kasha. So, the Baal Shem Tov gives the following mashal. Imagine a baby a baby learning to walk. So, initially, when the baby is beginning to stand up and have balance, the parents are holding the baby by the shoulders, by the arms. And the baby takes one step, one step, etc. And if the baby could verbalize its thoughts, his or her thoughts, the baby might be thinking, "Hey, this walking is real fun. It's good. I'm making progress. One step, two step." And then at some one day, the parents feel the baby is ready to kind of do it do it on his own. I'm saying it cuz it's just easier than his or her. I know babies are not its, but far from it. So, the parents let go. And as soon as they let go, the baby plops, plops, plops, plops, plops. Now, once again, if the baby could verbalize his thoughts, the baby would be thinking, "What's going on here? Five minutes ago, it was so easy, so much fun. And now I'm failing, and I'm falling, and I'm slipping. Am I regressing? I'm only 18 months, and I'm regressing already? What's going on?" By the way, I I just want to add that the fact that no matter how many times a baby falls, that baby will pick himself up again to continue to walk, itself is an amazing thing. We are hardwired not to give up. Even crawling is a big effort. I I remember I I remember this this this day when my son began crawling. So, it was like mhm, it was like but the strains. I was like, "What are you doing this for? Just No one's telling you to do this. Relax." What pushes the human personality to crawl, no matter how hard it is? To walk, no matter how many times? This is a precious commodity. Hashem put into our natures the idea of not quitting. As we get older, even as children and certainly as adults, and we meet various disappointments and failures, so one of the things that we do learn, which is really a negative thing, but better that we didn't learn it, is we learn to quit. We learn to give up. But that's not our natures. Our essential nature is to keep on going, no matter what. And the Brisker Rav used to say that one of the things you learn from a child is no matter how many times you fall you keep on going. A child does that. That's not learned That's not learned behavior. That's in there from the very beginning. It's giving up that's learned behavior. Perseverance is exactly what Hashem put into our natures. Remarkable, huh? Innate. It's innate. It's there. It's right there. Okay. So, but the child has this problem. 5 minutes ago it was easy. Why is it so hard? The answer is very simple. It was easy because your parents were carrying you. Your parents were supporting you. But now you've become you've progressed and you're ready to make it your own. So, we're letting go. We're still here to protect you. We're still here to pick you up if you need it. But part of growing is you do on your own what was artificially supported. Says the Baal Shem Tov. And it's brought in Likutei Moharan. This is how teshuvah works. When a person is initially very far from God when they don't know the Torah, they're not connected. And God wants to bring them to him. God will give you a tremendous light. God will carry you. Like parents will support or carry the baby. And when God carries you everything is vivid. Everything is easy. Everything is geshmak. Everything is wonderful. Because Hashem is carrying you. But at some point God says to you I've shown you what you can become. I've shown you what Yiddishkeit is. I've shown you what Torah is. I'm now going to let go so you can internalize it. And you can make it your own level. So, the Baal Shem Tov says counterintuitively that when we experience in our spiritual lives a decline that yesterday it was so wonderful and now I just don't have that enthusiasm. It actually is or it might be a vote of confidence on the part of God that you're strong enough that I can let go a little bit and you can walk on your own and make it make it your own. Internalize what I showed you and make it your own without the crutches of my giving you that support. And the Baal Shem Tov says that is why the closer the teshuvah will sometimes lose the enthusiasm because that enthusiasm was in a sense artificially generated by God having to bring him to a certain point. But then Hashem says I've shown you where you could be and where you could go. It has to be your own. Based on this this might be the relationship between Pesach and Shavuot. Pesach was a sudden revelation of magnificent godliness that we did not deserve. We are in the 49th level of tumah. We were over the avodah zarah except for the tribe of Levi. We didn't practice the bris milah except for the tribe of Levi. We did have some merits. We didn't change our language and Hashem gave us the korban Pesach and bris milah to put us over the top a little bit. But really it was something that we didn't deserve. We were not worthy. And Chazal even say at the Yam Suf at the at the Red Sea even the lowliest maidservant had a vision of divinity that was even greater than the prophet Yechezkel that saw the Kisei Hakavod, that saw the throne of glory and the divine chariot. So, Pesach represents the artificial gift, the artificial high in which God lifts you to a madreiga that's way beyond you to show you what you could become. But when you see that vista when you see that beauty when you see that holiness God then says I've shown you what you could become. Now I'm putting you on the ground and saying become it. Make it yours. And that's why Pesach is followed by Sefirat HaOmer. Now, Sefirat HaOmer is a gradual step-by-step process. Every single day has a unique challenge. Meaning unlike Pesach which is the sudden revelation Sefirah is hadragah. Hadragah is gradual step-by-step till we become worthy of receiving God's Torah. Okay? Pesach spiritually Hashem shows us what we might become. Sefirah culminating in Shavuot is our obligation to become it. Right? There's a t-shirt saying uh what you are is God's gift to you and what you become is your gift back to God. God showed us a tremendous revelation. But we have to internalize it. The Baal HaTanya writes not in the Tanya but in the Likutei Torah. Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs which again we discussed this several times is a metaphor of the divine love that exists between the Jewish people and God and God and the Jewish people. The Jewish people are described as the uh as the princess or as the shepherdess. Again, it's not clear exactly who the characters are. And Hashem is described as both the king and as the shepherd. Again, there are different names that are used throughout Shir HaShirim. Uh but it's a mashal It's all a mashal for that divine love. So, at some point in perek aleph, the beginning of perek aleph the woman calls out to her lover Mashcheini acharecha. Pull me after you. Drag me after you. Narutzah. So, we can run together. So, the Baal HaTanya brings the Zohar. Pull me is Pesach. And we we may run together is Shavuot. In other words, Pesach we're not really worthy. We're not able to run. God has to shlep me like a sack of potatoes. I'm not able to run. I can't run. I am not on the madreiga. Hashem has to lift me and carry me and pull me and shlep me. But that prepares me for the internalization of that spirituality so I can run with God. I can be a partner with God. And again, we'll talk about this in later shiurim that Torah is not just about God giving me the Torah but we become partners with Hashem even in the creation of the Torah. That's the nation notion of the oral law and the like. We become a partner. In Yom Tov we become a partner in the holiness of time. So, based on this idea this might be the reason why the counting of the Omer must be the day after Pesach. It's the morning after. It's a different type of avodah. Pesach is the revelation that God gives you for free. But after that revelation the next day there's a new challenge. You start at the bottom. Pesach we're at the top of the mountain. The day after Pesach we're at the bottom of the mountain. And we start our laborious climb step-by-step. It's a memochorat. It's the next day type of avodah. It is the next stage. Less dramatic less miraculous but something that's permanent and it becomes part of you. Okay? So, that's the idea of why it's memochorat Shabbat. Pesach is Shabbat. God just gave us a gift. Sefirah is the memochorat that culminates in Shavuot. So, again I wish everyone a a good week. And again, our our tefillot are certainly uh directed for all of those who uh suffered tragedies and losses and may Hashem bring rachamim and refuah to all of Am Yisrael. Amen. Thank you. One more question.