Keeping account of time – Emor
Asked what Jews believe, Samson Raphael Hirsch replied, “The creed of a Jew consists of his calendar”.
Today’s sidra which lists the great days of the year shows how accurate was his observation. For the roll-call of festivals presents us with the Jewish way of life, its moods and its moments.
Each great occasion has its colour, its store of memories. Each pinpoints a Jewish ethical value – freedom, law, responsibility. Each focusses on a basic belief – creation, revelation, repentance, redemption. Study the festivals and you know Judaism. Hirsch was right.
The list of festivals also teaches fascinating incidental lessons. Twice, for instance, it uses the word lachem – “for yourself”, once concerning Sukkot, when we are told, ul’kachtem lachem, “you shall take for yourself the four species of plant”, and then, linking Pesach and Shavu’ot, us’fartem lachem – “you shall count for yourself the seven weeks of the Omer”.
Topical today, halfway towards Shavu’ot, is the second instance of the word. It raises a question. Why say “you shall count for yourself?” When you count, obviously it is for yourself!
Yet there are two ways of counting, as a Jewish moralist tells us. If you have a shop, your staff will probably do a reasonable job when counting the takings, but you, the owner, will do it even better, because it is “for yourself” – in your own interest.
Counting the seven weeks is symbolic of counting time as a whole. Counting days means counting life. Life is a precious gift, so the counting must be “for yourself”. You must say to yourself, “Every day matters! I shall never have today over again!”
Einstein wrote:
“How extraordinary is the situation of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it.
“But without going deeper than our daily life, it is plain that we exist for our fellow men, in the first place for those upon whose smiles and welfare our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally but to whose destinies we are bound by the tie of sympathy.
“A hundred times every day remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving.”
When we count the Omer we add, “May the Almighty restore the Temple”, This implies that with the rebuilding of the sanctuary the full observance of Shavu’ot and all the festivals will be restored.
But in a broader sense the reference to the Temple offers us a yardstick by which to measure what we do with our lives. It impels us to ask, “Have I done enough today to add to the store of good deeds on earth that will bring the redemption and the restoration of the Temple? Or have I, God forbid, wasted the day and the opportunity it offered?”
