Parshat Behar-Bechukotai  22 Iyar5762, May 4 2002

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - We are presently in that unique period within the Hebrew calendar which is known as sefirah, literally, the count, referring to the counting of the days and weeks (forty-nine days, seven weeks) between the Festivals of Passover and Shavuot; on the second day of Passover the Israelites in Temple times would bring the barley offering (omer), and everyone would then begin to count each day until Shavuot, the fiftieth day when the Israelites would bring two loaves of bread (wheat) as the first-fruits offering to the Temple. This actual commandment to count the days and weeks (u'sefartem lakhem) was recorded in last Sabbath's Torah reading, Emor (Leviticus 23:15).

This week's double portion opens with a strikingly parallel commandment to count: "And you shall count (vesafarta lekha) seven Sabbaths of years, seven years seven times (49 years)... And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and you shall declare freedom in the land for all of its inhabitants; it shall be the Jubilee..." (Leviticus 25: 8-10)" Here we are counting each year and each Sabbatical (every seventh year is a Sabbatical) seven times seven years, or forty-nine years, leading up to the Jubilee year.

I would like to understand three things: First of all, what is the significance of the parallelism between our commandment to count seven weeks of forty nine days leading up to the Festival of Shavuot, and our commandment to count seven Sabbaticals of forty nine years leading up to the Jubilee year? Secondly, why did the days between Passover and Shavuot - originally days of joyous anticipation towards receiving the Torah and celebrating the Festival of First Fruits in the Jerusalem Temple - turn into days of semi-mourning, when it is forbidden to take haircuts or get married? And finally, why does not the Festival of Shavuot - one of the three main Jerusalem Festivals - have a descriptive name, like Passover (the Paschal sacrifice) or Sukkot (the protective desert booths)? Shavuot means weeks, and refers to the counting leading up to the Festival; it has not real relevance to the Festival day of celebration itself!

The fiftieth Jubilee year is the year when - if, indeed, the nation Israel is living securely in its land - every person returns to his ancestral homestead and property, all slaves are freed and all debts are rescinded; it is a foreshadowing of the millennium, the Messianic vision of peace and security. Our counting of the seven Sabbaticals leading to the Jubilee reflects our optimistic anticipation - and affirmation - of a period of societal harmony (redemption) which our G-d has guaranteed will eventually be actualized.

Similarly, Shavuot is the Festival of the first fruits, the time when every Jewish farmer will bring the best representative of his harvest to the altar of the Jerusalem Temple. It reflects a period of well-being and tranquility for Israel, with the Holy Temple finally established in Jerusalem. Passover is only the beginning of Jewish freedom, it is our exodus from Egypt, but that exodus only succeeded in bringing the Israelites as far as the questionable haven of an alien and dangerous desert. Hence the count between Passover and Shavuot reflects our anticipation of progression from redemption begun to redemption achieved.

But anxious anticipation must be supported by fervent preparation; dreams can only be achieved if we work hard to make them happen. The willingness to properly prepare and lay the groundwork for the realization of our goal may well be the difference between merely dreaming while one is asleep and dreaming while one is awake and active; this distinction may also be reflected in the two versions of the sefirah blessing-count, la'omer which emphasizes the end-dream (the letter "lamed" expresses purpose) and ba'omer which expresses present involvement ("bet" in the ablative form, by means of) And since the ultimate redemption has not yet been achieved, - indeed, the Jubilee year is no longer in use because of the great distance separating us from the goal of universal peace - we refer to the Festival of First Fruits as Shavuot, thereby emphasizing the count of anticipation and preparation, the necessity of our dreaming and doing, without which redemption will continue to remain a mere illusive mirage.

Two great tragedies occurred in Jewish history during this period between Passover and Shavuot: the death of twenty four thousand disciples of Rabbi Akiba (from Passover until Lag Ba'omer), and the destruction of great Jewish communities like Mayence and Worms along the Rhine River (from Rosh Hodesh Iyar until Shavuot). Rav Hai Gaon maintains that Rabbi Akiba's students were killed in the Bar Kochba rebellion; they fought valiantly for the Land of Israel and Jerusalem, but they suffered the fatal flaw of brotherly hatred, "they did not sufficiently respect each other." Rav Yaakov Emden (in his commentary on the Prayer Book) praises the profound religiosity of the Jewish communities along the Rhine River which produced great Torah scholars in the early Middle Ages (the Tosafists, for example); their tragic flaw, he maintains, lay in their apathy regarding the cardinal importance of the Land of Israel - and, ironically, they were destroyed by the Christian Crusaders on their march to wrest the land of Israel from the hands of the "infidel" Saracous.

Is it not possible that the Hebrew calendar - ordaining semi-mourning during the days of the count between Passover and Shavuot - is giving us a wake-up call? Yes, we may anticipate redemption and anxiously await its coming. But it will never happen without proper preparation: brotherly love and respect as well as commitment to the Land of Israel - by living in it (permanent aliyah) or at least visiting it (periodic aliyah). It is not sufficient to wait for the Messiah to bring us to Israel; only by coming to Israel can we hope to bring the Messiah!

Shabbat Shalom.

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