This past Mother’s Day seemed bittersweet. When our four children were younger, they would wake up early and help me make coffee and breakfast for mommy. Carrying breakfast, cards, and presents, we would walk into mommy’s bedroom, wake her up, serve her breakfast in bed, and give her Mother’s Day cards and gifts. Well, we are down to one child in the house, our grade 12 son who turns 18 in August and will be studying in Israel for the 2022/23 academic year. So this past Mother’s Day, our son brought in a hard drive and showed mommy, family “movies” of when he and his sibling were much younger. Instead of breakfast in bed, at mommy’s request, we went out for breakfast. As we sat outside in the Toronto spring sunshine and my wife looked at our son and commented that this was the last Mother’s Day with any of her children home to share the day. She verbalize what we both have known the day we became parents. Our kids grow up and then eventually leave home. Instead of viewing that as an accomplishment, that we raised four kids who have turned out to be pretty decent young adults, she lamented that she felt old. I am five years older than my wife, so I chuckled and reminded her that she neither looked old and suggested that instead of looking at our respective ages through the lens of “old” or “young”, we look at our age in terms of quality, what we have achieved in terms of raising our children. If we do that, then our jobs as parents have not concluded but rather entered a new stage and a different type of parent/child relationship.
This Shabbat we read from Parsha Emor. In the four chapters that comprise Emor, the first deals with the Kohanim and their very different way of striving for holiness as compared to the rest of the B’nei Israel. For example, because of the Kohen’s function within society, he must remain in a perpetual state of purity. He is restricted in terms of who he can marry. He is restricted in terms of whom he mourns. He cannot go to a cemetery. He cannot make sacrificial offerings if he has physical abnormalities. The second chapter reminds B’nai Israel that all animal offerings must be blemish-free. These offerings must come directly from the individual making them and not from “the hand of a stranger” (Lev. 22:25). Both chapters deal with the holiness of certain people, the Kohen and his family, and certain animals, those designated for sacrificial offerings. The third chapter of the Parsha deals with the designation of Holiness in regards to seasons and the calendar including Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur. Then the fourth chapter offers a narrative in which the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man gets into a fight with another Israelite. During the fight, the son pronounces the forbidden name of God and is charged with blasphemy.
Since the second night of Pesach, the Jewish people have been counting the Omer. The commandment to bring the Omer and count the days in which the Omer is brought occurs in Lev.23:9-16. The first five of the seven total verses explain what an Omer is, how it is prepared, and how the offering is made. The final two verses, 23:15-16 actually discuss the Mitzvah of counting the Omer. וּסְפַרְתֶּ֤ם לָכֶם֙ מִמָּחֳרַ֣ת הַשַּׁבָּ֔ת מִיּוֹם֙ הֲבִ֣יאֲכֶ֔ם אֶת־עֹ֖מֶר הַתְּנוּפָ֑ה שֶׁ֥בַע שַׁבָּת֖וֹת תְּמִימֹ֥ת תִּהְיֶֽינָה׃ And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks.עַ֣ד מִֽמָּחֳרַ֤ת הַשַּׁבָּת֙ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔ת תִּסְפְּר֖וּ חֲמִשִּׁ֣ים י֑וֹם וְהִקְרַבְתֶּ֛ם מִנְחָ֥ה חֲדָשָׁ֖ה לַיהוָֽה׃ you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the LORD. The counting occurs in terms of days, fifty days “from the day in which you bring the sheaf offering”. That counting is represented by an absolute number: “Today is 3 days”, “Today is 12 days”, or “Today is 30 days”. We also count in terms of weeks, “you shall count off seven weeks” reflected in “2 weeks and 3 days” or “4 weeks and 2 days”. The first counting method reflects a number reflecting the number of days. However, the second method suggests that the number of days appears within the context of a week.
Sefirat HaOmer (Counting The Omer) focuses on two aspects of counting. First, we are always interested in numbers, in data, in the idea of the linear. There is a starting point and there is an endpoint. , We began counting four weeks ago and we will conclude in approximately three weeks hence. We count in terms of days as well as weeks. In doing so, we acknowledge that the result of counting is twofold. First, we are reminded that counting yields a piece of data, a number. Second, we are reminded that the data, the number indicates how far we have come and how far we still have to go. From that perspective, we can evaluate how far we have come how far we have to go, and the quality of the journey. As my wife and I both realize that this was the last Mother’s day with any of our children living with us, we both understood how far we have come. We can only hope that Mother’s Day in the future, while different, will still remain meaningful and purposeful just like those Mother’s Days when our kids would help me make breakfast, and serve mommy breakfast in bed.
Rav Yitz
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