In August 1952, the New York Herald made light of a claim by Soviet military engineers that a Russian citizen invented the multiplex telegraph two decades before Thomas Edison. Americans suggested that not only was the claim false propaganda but that they had even contrived the name of the inventor: Z.Y. Slonimsky. But in an article in 1977, composer Nicolas Slonimsky confirmed through memory and documentation that, indeed, his grandfather, Hayyim Selig Slonimsky, had, in the 1850s, independently proposed the same method used by Edison more than a decade prior in Warsaw. The only part of the Soviet claim that was false was his origin; he was, in fact, a Polish Jew born in Bialystok, then part of the Russian empire.
Hayyim Slonimsky was not just an inventor and mathematician recognized by Russia’s scientific community for his innovations. He was not only the founder of the first Hebrew-language newspaper in Poland, Ha-Tzefirah, which had such an impact on the development of modern Hebrew that he has a street named after him in Tel Aviv. He was not only a תלמיד חכם who wrote books about the eternity of the soul and about how to calculate the Jewish calendar using astronomy. He was also an educator.
In the mid-19th century, the Russian Empire tried to wrest control of the Jewish communal leadership by founding “rabbinical schools” in Warsaw, Poland and Zhytomyr, Ukraine. Slonimsky was appointed the principal in Zhytomyr, though the school, which was state-funded and controlled, taught mostly secular studies and very little Torah or Jewish knowledge. In his memoir, מקור ברוך, Rav Baruch Epstein, the author of the תורה תמימה and son of the ערוך השולחן, records a story he heard in a conversation with Slonimsky about his experience at that school. In addition to his administrative responsibilities, Slonimsky taught a class in advanced mathematics. He was a charismatic teacher who knew how to excite his students, to get them to sit on the edge of their seats as he showed them his newest ideas. On occasion, he would try to insert some Jewish education, some תורה, into their studies, to try to connect them with their background.
One day, he walked into class and gave the impression that he was deep in thought about a new idea, that he had something very important to share with them. The students were very quiet as they listened to their teacher ask them what he said was a very important mathematical question: “Who knows today’s count in ספירת העומר, raise your hand!”
The students were stunned and confused, thinking he had lost his mind, and most had no idea of the answer. In response to their ignorance, Slonimsky went on to explain that ספירת העומר recalled the best days in Jewish history, when our people lived freely in our homeland, in ארץ ישראל. Clearly, Slonimsky’s point was not just to chide them for being lax in their observance of ספירת העומר. He was making a larger point about their relationship to Judaism.
Rav Michael Rosensweig, in a שיעור he gave last week at Maimonides, pointed out that ספירת העומר’s appearance in our פרשה is a strange phenomenon in more than one way. First of all, in פרק כג, we read about all of the מועדים, the holidays, and the מצוות associated with each, including מצה on פסח, the סוכה and לולב on סוכות, the שופר on ראש השנה, fasting on יום כיפור. But for some reason, the תורה includes not only the מועדים but also the קרבן העומר, the barley-based meal offering that permits consumption of the new harvest of grain, which starts on פסח. Not only that, but it tells us about counting seven weeks from that קרבן for 50 days, at which point there is another מועד and a קרבן we call the שתי הלחם, a wheat-based flour offering. If you add up the פסוקים about the עומר and the counting, it is the longest passage in the פרק, longer than about any of the holidays. So the question is, why do ספירת העומר and the קרבן עומר appear here at all and why does it get so much more detail than the מועדים? After all, the קרבנות associated with the מועדים are mostly listed and described in פרשת פנחס, not here in פרשת אמור.
We can also ask, why do we count ספירת העומר at all? While it’s true that the count helps us keep track of when to celebrate שבועות, there is a much easier way we could have done that – by having specific a date for it like פסח, ראש השנה, יום כיפור, and סוכות! What is the value in establishing the holiday based on a count of weeks and days from the קרבן עומר, the second day of פסח, rather than the תורה writing that we observe it on the sixth day of the third month?
Professor Nechama Lebowitz quotes several ראשונים, who, in explaining the purpose of ספירת העומר, argue that the count is unrelated to the harvest, that it is mainly about counting to מתן תורה. The בכור שור, in the name of his father, and the שיבולי הלקט claim that the Jewish People were told that they would receive the תורה fifty days after the Exodus. Thus, counting the days was meant to either engender excitement for receiving the תורה or to express their innate impatience until the experience of מעמד הר סיני.
The ספר החינוך points out that if ספירה is a countdown until מתן תורה, one might have expected that we would start at 49 and go down. However, says the חינוך, in order for the Jewish People to have the proper patience required, it would be too difficult for them to start at such a high number. Therefore, they start counting up, instead of down. He says that although it would seem logical to switch after day 25, as there would then be fewer days left than those already counted, it would be too confusing to switch counting methods in the middle.
The ספורנו takes a different approach to the purpose of the counting. It is not simply a period of preparing for שבועות but rather a time of spiritual growth in which each day of counting is like a prayer of both a request for success and thanksgiving for the harvest thus far. Similarly, many commentators write that ספירת העומר is a process of growth from slavery to freedom, 49 steps that must be climbed in order to deserve receiving the תורה. Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that counting seven weeks enables us to experience the education of שבת seven times before we receive the תורה.
Likewise, Rav Soloveitchik writes that part of the value of the מצוה of ספירה is to relive the transition from a slave mentality, in which time does not have any important markers, in which growth is impossible, into a state of time awareness or consciousness. A slave has no past to proudly remember, no future to anticipate, and certainly no interest in thinking about their present suffering. But a free person can assess the past, prepare for the future, and acknowledge and take advantage of right now. That is what we do when we count ספירת העומר – we count each day as a separate accomplishment, each week as a longer project completed, and take stock of the current moment in our journey, where we have gone and where we have yet to travel.
Rav Rosensweig points out that this explains numerous הלכות. The ערוך השולחן points out that the קרבן עומר brought at the beginning of ספירה is made from barley, which is animal feed, while the קרבן שתי הלחם, brought on שבועות after ספירה, is made from wheat, human food. Moreover, the קרבן עומר is brought during a time when חמץ is forbidden, on פסח and the שתי הלחם is required to be חמץ, to have undergone the process of growth and expansion. Apparently, the agricultural transition from the barley harvest to the wheat harvest and the change from the intense scrutiny of our food on פסח to our celebration of חמץ on שבועות are meant to represent our spiritual development during the intervening seven weeks.
This also explains why the משנה in כלים says that the מצוות that exemplify the sanctity of the Land of Israel are the קרבן עומר, the שתי הלחם, and ביכורים, which are all related this time period. One could argue, says Rav Rosensweig, that this indicates that while the theme of פסח is freedom from bondage, the day after the Exodus begins the process of becoming an independent nation with an identity and a mission, represented in our receiving the תורה.
Furthermore, we can now understand why the תורה includes so much detail about the קרבן עומר and ספירת העומר in our פרשה. The רמב״ם writes that the מצוה of ספירת העומר is still in full force today as Biblically required, even though we don’t have the בית המקדש and can’t bring the קרבן עומר. And yet, the רמב״ם includes all the laws of ספירת העומר in תמידין ומוספין, with the laws of the קרבן עומר and immediately followed by the laws of the שתי הלחם.
Says Rav Rosensweig, maybe the רמב״ם understands that the תורה’s connection between the קרבנות and ספירת העומר is not that the מצוה of counting depends on actually bringing the קרבן, but to tell us that the theme of the קרבנות and the theme of the counting are one in the same. They reflect a special קדושת היום of the period between פסח and שבועות which represents a times of transition and progress. Thus, we can’t understand פסח, שבועות, or the time in between unless the תורה writes, in detail, about both the קרבן עומר and ספירת העומר, too.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks adds that this also explains a debate between the צידוקים and פרושים, i.e. the Rabbis, about when ספירת העומר begins. The צידוקים say that when the תורה says ספירת העומר begins ממחרת השבת, it means after the first שבת after פסח, not the second day of פסח. The פרושים say it means the second day of פסח, which is our practice. Says Rabbi Sacks, the פרושים’s opinion must have been based on the conviction that שבועות and פסח represent a period of transition from slavery and dependence to independence and responsibility. Finally, this also explains why Hayyim Selig Slonimsky thought it so important to teach his students about the מצוה of ספירת העומר.
But despite this beautiful explanation from Rav Soloveitchik, Rav Rosensweig, Rabbi Sacks and others, there is one detail that still requires further clarification. Why didn’t the תורה just tell us the date for שבועות? The תורה could say to count fifty days or seven weeks until the sixth of סיון, which would have avoided the debate between the צידוקים and פרושים to begin with and have been consistent with the other מועדים. Why is it important that the date be determined only through the completion of the count, leaving ambiguity in the actual date?
Professor Nechama Lebowitz cites Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher in his תורה שלימה quoting an answer from רבי יהודה החסיד. He says that since the farmers were so busy during the harvest season, they would have lost track of the date. Therefore, שבועות is determined by counting from פסח, instead.
But Rav Dovid Stav offers a different solution. He says that the count to שבועות is not supposed to be experienced as the count to something inevitable, out of our hands. Rather, it is something that the maturity we achieve between פסח and שבועות is something that depends on us, on our behavior. That is why חז״ל ascribe the deaths of רבי עקיבא’s 24,000 students during ספירה to their lack of mutual respect among themselves – they failed to live up to the responsibility of being a nation, of being leaders.
Rabbi Joshua Flug, in his weekly Dvar Torah, noted the eerie parallel between ספירת העומר, the count between פסח and שבועות, and the way in which the families of Israeli hostages in Gaza have counted the days since October 7. Some even wear a note on their clothing every day that publicizes the count, which today is 224. But unlike שבועות, where our calendar is set and we know if will occur on the sixth of סיון, we don’t know when the count until the hostages are home will end. Tragically, the remains of three Israelis were found yesterday in Gaza and brought back to Israel. We have to do everything we can to make the ספירה of the hostages matter, just like we do in ספירת העומר.
Rabbi Flug suggests that we take a moment every day, perhaps around the time of counting the עומר, to think about those still in the tunnels in Gaza, to daven for their speedy return, to commit to advocating more strongly on their behalf. Just as the date of שבועות depends on our ספירה and our active participation, we are responsible for determining the day when the hostages come home, when our people are safe, when war is no longer necessary. May הקב״ה give us the strength and fortitude to bring that day closer so we can truly celebrate our independence and unity as a people.
דורש לנפשי 