Counting Up

If we view our fellow Jews as foreign to us… then we have destroyed the basis for Matan Torah

Admittedly it is a bit late in the counting of the Omer to be writing about its significance this week, but I’d still like to share some ideas that have recently inspired me.

One frequently asked question about Sefiras Ha’omer is: Why do we count upwards? Normally, when we look forward to some future event — in this case, Matan Torah — we count down, as the days leading to the anticipated event dwindle. So why is that not the case with Sefiras Ha’omer? Isn’t part of the counting of the Omer the recognition that Shavuos and the giving of the Torah is the true goal of Yetzias Mitzrayim, and without the receipt of the Torah, the exodus from Egypt remains incomplete? As Hashem tells Moshe at the sneh, “And this is the sign for you that I have sent you: When you take the people out of Egypt, you will worship G-d on this mountain” (Shemos 3:12).

ONE ANSWER to this question is given by the Aruch Hashulchan: The journey from Yetzias Mitzrayim to Kabbalas HaTorah is one from tumah to taharah. In Egypt, Bnei Yisrael descended to the 49^th degree of tumah (impurity), and over the course of the seven weeks leading up to the receipt of Torah, they reached the 49^th degree of purity. And just as a zavah counts seven days, from one to seven, as she leaves a state of impurity for one of purity, so too do we count upwards to the completion of seven weeks.

The Korban Ha’omer that we bring at the outset of the Omer, on the day after the Yom Tov of Pesach, is unique among the public sacrifices in that it is brought of barley, not of wheat. And the Mishnah in Sotah explicitly connects the Korban Ha’omer to the Minchah offering brought by the wife who is suspect in her husband’s eyes (Sotah 2:1), about which Rabban Gamliel says, “Just as her [suspected] actions are the actions of an animal, so is her offering made of animal food.”