It was raining hard today all over Israel. In Jerusalem it hailed hard. I know most people don't like it, but to me it is a blessing. I love rain, there is something cleansing, purifying, nourishing about it, something that makes you want to stay home, drink hot tea while covered in blankets in bed, looking outside, enjoying the sights, the sounds and sometimes even the smells. Rain in April, and so much of it, is very rare. Because it is so special, I feel there is a message to us from G-d in it. I think it is a good message.
In this week's Torah Portion, a special commandment is given to us, a commandment that we still keep till today, thousands of years after it was given. "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: When you come into the land which I give to you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then you shall bring the sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest... And you shall count unto you from the morrow after the day of rest, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the waving; seven weeks shall there be complete;even unto the morrow after the seventh week shall you number fifty days..." (Leviticus 23:10, 15-16)
This commandment basically asks us to count 50 days, 7 weeks, from right after the Passover holiday. At the end of these seven weeks we have another holiday, that of Shavuot ("The Holiday of Weeks"), in which, according to tradition, we celebrate the Giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. On the Holiday of Shavuot the synagogues are decorated with green branches and flowers all over. Why? Because according to tradition, during the Giving of the Torah, the dry desert mountain of Sinai bloomed and became green and full of flowers all of the sudden. Everything became green and flowery thanks to the Giving of the Torah. Even if you don't want to believe it as it is, the symbolic meaning of it is clear: when Torah came to the world, life came to the world, and made even the arid, dry life of human beings into a green, lush oasis. On Shavuot we read the Ten Commandments in synagogue, when the whole congregation stands in trepidation on its feet, feeling as if they are in Sinai all over again.
So these days we count up every day. For example, "today is 26 days to the Omer, which are three weeks and five days to the Omer." It is done with anticipation to something great that is going to happen in the 50th day. Actually, today is exactly the mid point between Passover and Shavuot.
Rabbi Moshe Zvi Neryah (1913-1995) wrote a beautiful excerpt about this commandment, which he titled "The Wholeness of Time":
"Perfection is expressed first and foremost in time. The Torah commandment to count days comes to teach us about the value of time, the preciousness of days. Time has always had and will forever have just one hue, but the depth of the life of a human gives time its different hues. A man of Israel feels that the world of Shabbat does not resemble the world of a regular week day. Each day has its own hue, its own song... A day that nothing was renewed in it, not a new thought, not a new feeling, is a day without a unique hue. Torah life requires being active and having a thinking mind and a feeling heart. Everyday - a new Torah, in a new world, to a new person. The counting of the days serves, therefore, as a prelude to the Giving of the Torah: from now on your days are counted and are placed in the archives of eternity. A day that nothing was renewed in will not be counted, and you will lack it".
I think these words should be etched in our hearts. Our time in this world is limited. Every day must count. Every day must be meaningful. A day that is wasted on watching cheap entertainment on the TV passively, or playing Solitaire (like I see so many adults do on their Smartphones) is a wasted day, a chance that a person wasted in this world to do something good, to benefit people around him, to improve himself or the world a bit, to grow spiritually. Whenever I see people wasting their time on computer games, I am shocked. People, read! Think! Pray! Reach out to others! Do something meaningful with your time, with your mind, with your mental and physical resources. The Torah was given to us so that we would make the world a better place. Not just us, all of humanity. Every day counts. A good question to ask yourself at the end of each day is: what did I do today that was meaningful? What did I do today to serve G-d? What good did I do to people around me? What benefit did I bring to the world today? It doesn't have to be something big. Even just smiling at an old person on the street, or calling a lonely friend to ask how they are doing - all of these count.
Life is precious. And even if it is very painful at times, or all the time, it has meaning. A person is placed here in this world not necessarily to enjoy or have fun, but to serve G-d, to help people around him, to be good and improve oneself. So, how did you spend your day today?
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