Kedoshim: 5784 - What is the significance of counting the days of the Omer - counting time, when time is a static matter that does not change? Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld recounts the wondrous yechidus of the Rebbe…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please.

00:03 Speaker 2 “Those days are recalled and relived.” Back then, exactly fifty-three years ago, I was studying in the yeshivah at 770, with the Rebbe. After a year there as part of a group, we had to return to Israel, and we went in for yechidus. The whole group went in for yechidus with the Rebbe before returning to Israel. It was something special: all the students who were returning to Israel went in for yechidus with the Rebbe.

00:42 Speaker 1 In his room?

00:42 Speaker 2 The Rebbe gave—yes, it was a kind of group yechidus. I’m talking about 5731. The Rebbe gave a short sicha, about five minutes, blessed each of us, and gave each of us a dollar for a safe journey. What did the Rebbe tell us in his room at that yechidus? First, the Rebbe said that the Gemara in Kesubos says that when a Jew leaves Israel for another country and then returns to Israel, he is worth two of them. That is what Abaye says in Kesubos, based on the verse, “And of Zion it shall be said: this man and that man were born in her.” Zion refers to the Land of Israel. So when someone returns to Israel, he is “this man and that man”—worth two of those in Bavel, as though his worth doubles when he returns. The Rebbe wished us that, now that we were returning to Israel, this would indeed be fulfilled in us and we would be worth two of them. Then the Rebbe added: “There is a saying of the Alter Rebbe that one must live with the times.” What does it mean to live with the times? It means to live with the weekly parsha. But the same applies when there is something special that lasts for an entire period: we must live with that too. The Rebbe said that we were in the days of Sefiras HaOmer. It was Iyar when we went in for yechidus. The Rebbe said there is something special about the month of Iyar: every single day has a particular mitzvah, the mitzvah of counting the Omer. We count the Omer in Nissan too, when we begin counting, but not for the whole month. We also count the Omer in Sivan, but again, not for the whole month. Iyar has something very special: every single day, we have the mitzvah of counting the Omer. It is a particular mitzvah that we fulfill each day. So that

02:52 Speaker 2 unites the whole month: counting the Omer. Then the Rebbe asked a question: Why count time? We count the days and number the years, but what is the point of counting time? Usually, we count something when there could be less of it, more of it, or some change in it. Time is static; it is fixed. You cannot change time. A minute passes, and it is a minute. You cannot change that. So what sense does it make to count time? The Rebbe explained that counting teaches us how precious something is. There is a rule in halachah that an item counted individually is not nullified. Normally, a prohibited item can be nullified by a majority of two to one, or, when taste is involved, at a ratio of sixty to one. But an item sold individually, by count, is not nullified. Why? Because being sold by count gives it special importance. Likewise, when we count the days of the Omer, it shows how precious we consider this time. We value this time. The practical lesson, the Rebbe explained to us, is that we must value time. Every day that a Jew lives here in this world is a world in itself. “Days were fashioned, and one of them is His.” Each person has a number of days that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has granted him, and on each day he must carry out the mission for which he was sent into this world. He must know how to value time and make use of it. That is what counting the Omer teaches us: how much we must value every day and every moment. We have a choice. We can choose. We can make this day one on which we say, “Who has sanctified us

04:51 Speaker 2 with His commandments and commanded us”—one on which we fulfill a mitzvah. Or, G-d forbid, it might not be such a day. If a person goes through a day without doing what he should, without fulfilling a mitzvah, then that is missing. That is what counting the Omer teaches us. We are now in the days of Sefiras HaOmer, which teaches us how much we must value time and consider it important. Each day has its own work to do, and each day has its own time and its own task for a Jew to fulfill. Have a good Shabbos, and may we hear good news, with Hashem’s help.

05:23 Speaker 3 Amen, amen.