Sefer HaChinuch: The Torah commands us
to count the Omer so we can relive the Exodus from Mitzraim. Just as the
Jews back then anxiously anticipated the great day when they were to receive
the Torah, so too we count the days till Shavous, the Yom Tov that
commemorates the giving of the Torah. To the Jews then, accepting the Torah
on Har Sinai was even greater than their redemption from slavery. So we
count each day to bring ourselves to that sense of great enthusiasm of. When
will that day come?
The difficulty with this Sefer Hachinuch is the statement
that to the Jews then “receiving of the Torah was even greater than
being freed from slavery.” This seems difficult to understand
when we envision what it was like to be a slave then in Mitzraim.
A life of suffering and bloodshed
The life of a
Jew in Mitzraim was one of misery and suffering. They had no rights. They
had no life. They couldn’t own property, choose their own destiny, or
protect their own children. They didn’t even have the right to their own
time. A Mitzri could at any moment demand a Jew’s utter and complete
compliance to do his bidding. If a Jew walked in the streets, it was every
Mitzri’s right to whisk him away, without question and without recourse, and
force him into slave labor for whatever he saw fit.
The work was constant and relentless
Waking in the
early morning to the crack of the Mitzri’s whip, the Jews were pushed to the
limit of human endurance till late night when they fell asleep in the
fields. Without rest, without breaks, the Jews lugged heavy loads and lifted
huge rocks. Sweat, tears, and bloodshed were their lot. In the heat of the
sweltering sun and in the cold of the desert night, at the risk of life and
limb, the Jew was oppressed with a demon-like fury. A beast of burden is
treated wisely to ensure its well-being, not the Jew who was pushed beyond
all limits… Finally, when Pharaoh was asked to let the Jewish People go, he
increased their load, taking it from the impossible to the unimaginable.
How is it possible to imagine anything in the
world being more desirous to them than freedom? How could it be that
anything, even something as great as receiving the Torah, could mean more to
them than being redeemed from slavery?
What
the Jews experienced by living through the Maakos
The answer to
this question lies in understanding the great level of clarity that the Jews
reached by living through the Maakos and then the splitting of the sea.
For 10 months, each Jew saw
with ever-increasing clarity that HASHEM created, maintains, and
orchestrates this world. With absolute certainty they experienced HASHEM
present in their lives. This understanding brought to them to recognize
certain core cognitions.
Every human has inborn understandings. Often
times they are masked and subdued, whether by environment or by desire, the
human spends much of his life running from the truths that he deeply knows.
When the Jews in Mitzraim experienced HASHEM’s power and goodness, they
understood the purpose of Creation. They knew that we are creations, put on
this planet for a reason. We were given a great opportunity to grow, to
accomplish, to mold ourselves into who we will be for eternity. We have a
few short, precious years here, and then forever we will enjoy that which we
have accomplished. Because they so clearly experienced HASHEM, their view of
existence was changed -- They got it.
Because of this, the currency with which they
measured all good changed. They recognized that the greatest good ever
bestowed upon man is the ability to change, to mold himself into something
different, so that he merits clinging to HASHEM. They now recognized that
everything that we humans value as important pales in comparison to the
opportunity to grow close to HASHEM. Because they understood this point so
vividly, to them the greatest good possible was the receiving of the Torah
-- G-d’s word, the ultimate spiritual experience.
And so, while they anxiously anticipated the
redemption from slavery as a great good that would free them from physical
oppression, they valued even more the reason they were being freed: to
receive the Torah.
Davening is me talking to HASHEM, learning is
HASHEM talking to me
This concept has
great relevance in our lives, as we have the ability to tap into this
instinctive knowledge of the importance of learning. When a person gets
caught up in the temporal nature of this world, the currency with which he
rates things changes. The value system now becomes honor, power, career, or
creature comforts. That is what he views as good, and that is what he
desires. The more a person involves himself in these, the more important
they become, and the less precious the Torah becomes. That natural
appreciation of Torah becomes clouded over by other desires and an
ever-changing value system.
However, the more a person focuses on his
purpose in the world, the more he values the Torah. He recognizes it as the
formula for human perfection. He now sees the Torah as the ultimate gift
given to man because it is both the guide and the fuel t propel his growth.
With this changed perspective, the very value system with which he measures
things changes, and now his appreciation, love, and desire to learn increase
until finally he becomes aligned with that which HASHEM created him for -
perfection and thereby being close to HASHEM .
For
more on this topic please listen to Shmuz #166
- Sefiras HaOmer -
