Between Passover and Shavuot we count the days. This practice known as a the Sefirat Haomer, maps the 49-day journey from the exodus from Egypt to the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, marking the culmination of the liberation of the Jewish people.

There’s something odd, however, about counting days. We count and survey to gauge fluctuation and change. Has a population grown or shrunk? How have weather trends changed over time… But what is the purpose of counting days.

Seemingly, time, of all properties, is immutable. Time just marches on, and we can neither slow its march, nor speed it, nor can we change its quantity and make an hour last more or less than sixty minutes. Sixty seconds will always make a minute, sixty minutes an hour, twenty-four hours a day, and seven days a week… What do we gain by counting the days between the two holidays, if the measure of time between them will always be the same?

From this point of view, the idea of Sefirat Haomer would seem incomprehensible.

In a letter, written Spring of 1953, the Rebbe addresses this question:

Actually, time holds out for us possibilities not existing in other things.

For while man's influence over things under his control is limited, his influence over time is, in a sense, unlimited. For time is like a "vessel" which is highly elastic, with an infinite absorptive capacity. It has the power of expanding or contracting, depending upon how much or little we put into this "vessel." We can fill our time with unlimited content, or waste it away, and the very same unit of time may mean an infinity to one, or shrink to nothingness to another.

Its true measure varies in direct proportion to what is achieved in it.

Herein lies the special significance of Sefirah, of counting the days to the day of Receiving the Torah at Sinai.

In other words, the power of time is judged by how we fill it: Do we endlessly scroll our feeds, for more content, or do we invest deep content and purpose?

Wishing you an uplifting Shabbat,

Rabbi Mendy & Mussy

p.s. As always, we would love to chat with you over coffee or drinks, about Judaism, or just life - reply to this email.

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