Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: Counting the Omer and Never Giving Up

[Music] You see your tomorrow [Music] Okay. Hi everybody. Good good to see you. Thank you for coming and um our dedications are the normal dedications praying for the victory of our in all the fronts of the war. Obviously, as you know, new fronts are being opened up. So, we're not out of the water yet. uh for the lasting unity of the people of Israel and for all of those whose health has been affected by the war, the safe return of all of the hostages. uh aliat shama gto bat mosha whose yard site was on ba and for foyer rael bat alter and as well as an anonymous contribution was made for the of all of our and all of our hassages to return safe totally healthy to their homes hashem's protection to for the gulma in these Well, just as a little bit of biographical information, we read uh a person whose yard was lagg bulmer was also the yard site of the Ramar, the great great Ashkanazi Posek, the Rev of Krakco. Uh and it is said when the Ramar was nifra at a young age. It's it's it's mushed. As I get older and I look at the age of some of the greatest greatest gadol makes me realize how you know meager our accomplishments might be. But the Rama died uh I think at 48 before the age of 50 for sure. And uh somebody wanted to give a hespit since he died in Lagba. He wanted to enumerate the 33 praises of the Rama. I think he only got to 32. He couldn't think of a 33rd one. So the hespet is a little incomplete. If you look at the padum that were given at the Ramas Leva, uh someone enumerates 32 mileas of the Raab. He somehow I don't know it seems to me a creative madesh could somehow divide two things into you know one thing into two things but it's only 32as okay um so what I want to talk about today is actually a continuation of last week last week was the mitzvah counting of the omare we are still in the counting of the omare so I want to talk about the counting of the omare uh the idea of counting the days between pesak and and shuos uh I just want to mention as a matter of interesting that there's actually three opinions among the commentators if the mitzvah is the today or not. Most reonim toos and monos and most reonim actually say that the mitzvah account the omare bisman today when there's no temple is only a rabbitic law to commemorate what was done when there was a temple because the Torah says you start counting the spir from the day you bring the omare offering which is the second day of pes we don't have an omr offering so according to most opinions The counting of the omare today is raan zer to remember what was done when there was a ba mikdash. The one opinion who takes a stricter view is the opinion of the ram. The ram actually says that the mitzvah of counting the om period is independent of bringing the corba omare. So even when there's no B mikdash and we don't bring the corb we are still m to count minor tora. So this is a maklo generally is today a Torah commandment which is the Rambam's opinion or is today a rabbitic commandment. Now you might ask me well ultimately what's the difference? You got to do it. Even a rabbitic commandment has to be done. So there actually is a bit of a difference whether you could fulfill the mitzvah of spir in the twilight zone between sunset and the stars coming out because according to halaka the twilight zone is a safet if it belongs to the preceding day or it's already the new day. Now normally when it comes to rabbitic laws we are permitted to heir on the side of leniency. When it comes to Torah laws we have to be strict. Now in America in particular, it's very very common that Marv is davin before the stars are out. In other words, it's not yet dark. They dav after sunset and before the stars coming out. So as a result, are you allowed to count the omare that early according toos and you could because even though that period is a safk if it's day or night on a rabbitic commandment, you can give yourself the benefit that it's night. Masha and Ken according to the Rambam that counting the Omr is doa you would not be allowed to count the R until for sure it's night and therefore you'd have to wait until the stars come out and since we have this mak that's why we encourage people if they're dabing Marley to say spira uh when it's when it's dark in order to be yay the Rambam's opinion now those are two op those are the two basic opinions that sira is either draanan or sphira is the oice. But there's a third opinion that's very enigmatic and this third opinion was uh by one of the great great Mishon who's extremely important in the history of Halak although he's not so well known. This is Rabenu Yukim. Rabenuham was a disciple of the rush and uh although in our yeshiva curriculum we typically don't mention Rabenuham but if you learn and not just uh you will see is extraordinarily important in the Bose uh uh Rabenuim is constantly mentioned and constantly quoted and says a very strange thing that it's hard to figure out. He says part of the counting of the omare is a Torah law and part of the counting of the omare is only a rabbitic law. We know when we count the omr we count both days and weeks. So for example when it's the seventh day of the omr or the 14th day of the omr we say this is the 14th day of the omr which is or the 14th day which is two weeks of the omr. And it has to be done that way because there's a mitzvah to count days and there's a mitzvah to count weeks. So says Rabenu the following idea. The mitzvah to count days is a Torah commandment even when there's no BA mikdash. But the mitzvah to count weeks is obligatory under Torah only when there's a ba mikdash and when there's no bas mikdash the counting of weeks is only mikdash. This is Rabenuham's opinion. Now he doesn't really give you any explanation for it and it's very difficult to understand. I can understand the general debate. Does does the mitzvah of spir depend on the corban or is it independent of the corban. So if it depends on the corban then everything is rabbitic today. If it doesn't depend on the corban everything is Torah today. So the Rambam says it's not dependent on the corban. So everything is Torah. And uh toos says it is dependent on the corban so everything is rabbitic. Okay, we got that. But where are you going to get any type of logic to say oh the days are independent and therefore they're Torah laws. The weeks are dependent and therefore it's only rabbitic today. What's what's the logic to differentiate between the days and the weeks? So um the orame of mayor Simra Cohen of Dinsk the great uh God the RV of Dinsk offers a very very uh nice explanation for Rabenu Yurukham's somewhat enigmatic opinion and he says the following shuos the holiday of Shivuos is both a one-day and on some level it is a 7day I'm not referring to The golut of two days that's a separate thing but but in there's a one-day aspect of shabu and there's a 7day strangely enough aspect of shabu the one-day aspect of shuas is of course the yumto the yumto of shabuos is only one day what is the 7-day aspect we know that on each of the shalos each of the three pilgrimage festivals pesuos sukus every male this was on the male had to make a pilgrimage to and had to physically appear in the courtyard of the basikt the Azor and bring a sacrifice and this was a burnt offering and this is called an olasia the burnt offering that is brought when you are seen by God that's the way it's described I come to the azara the courtyard of the temple to be seen by God and I'm not allowed to come empty-handed I got to come with my corba. Now the is the following. If you didn't bring your let's take P for a moment. If you didn't bring your the first day of PES, you have seven six more days to bring it. You don't bring it on Shabas, but other than Shabas, you can bring it for a total of seven days. Seven days minus Shabas. Sukus, you actually have one extra day. You actually have the seven days of sukkot anderatini itself does not have its own pilgrimage offering but you can use it as a makeup for the sukus pilgrimage offering. So for pes you have seven days to bring your lasy again excluding shabas for sukos you have eight days for your laser. What about you might have thought logically, well, you only have one day because after one day it's no longer the but the Gmorrah says that we compare since the Torah juaposes the holidays together. We compare Shuos to Pes just like Pes you get seven days. Shuos you get seven days. The Gomorrah asks the obvious question. Why do you compare Shuos to Pes? Maybe compare shos to sukus and you'll have soar uses the famous apherism like if you try to grab on to too much you you'll get nothing at all because here's the point if I compare it to pes I get seven days if I compare it to sukus I get eight days so either way I get seven days I'm just not sure if I get the extra day so I got to go with what I'm certain and I'm certain I have seven So it actually turns out that Shivuos is a holiday on some level for seven days because you have the opportunity to bring the olia. Now even today where we don't have the temple there is a little bit of a zer to the 7-day aspect of particularly uh initel where you may notice you may remember and you'll you'll see it this year that the at least is we don't say for six days following meaning we don't say uh but we don't say it for another six days why because it has a status of somewhat of a festive uh time because this was the time of the olata. Now says the mesh, the reason why the omare has to be counted in both days and weeks is because since the omare is a countdown to the holiday of shuos, you have to do your counting based on the units of the holiday towards which you're counting. So I count days because Shivuos is a one-day holiday. I count weeks because Shivuos is a week-long holiday. Meaning the units of counting correspond to the Yamiff. Ahim's logic now becomes very very clear. The one week aspect of only existed when there was a Bikash when you had one week for the las. So as a result the to count weeks lapses when you don't have a bas mikdash and we only do that today because of a rabbitic law to remember the mikdash mashen the one day aspect of still exists today because we have a and that is why the counting of the omr is uh doa when it comes to the days again it's a very very brilliant uh beautiful explanation uh for raenu yukim's opinion it also explains explains an interesting peculiarity of uh the Nus that manyard have for the Omr. Let me contrast it with Ashkanaz and uh let's say I want to be sure I don't count tonight's serious. So last last night was uh what what time last night was 37. Okay. So when we counted last night 37. So the way we said it was this is the 37th day which is five weeks and two days. And we then end it with either Om that's another but we put the word omr at the end of the sentence. That is the standard or many not all they say it a little differently. They say I'm using last night's omare account. This is the 37th day of the omare which is five weeks and two days. In other words, they move the word omare instead of being at the end of the phrase, they position it after the yamim. Why would that be so? Again, there's no particular reason why that would be so. So, this is my own speculation that the basis of this is that the days are a Torah requirement and the weeks are only a rabbitic requirement. So we want to position the word omare adjacent to the Torah count and not to the rabbitic count. And that's why we say this is the 37th day of the omare because that's the Torah mitzvah. And then we add on the rabbitic edition which is 5 weeks and two days. Okay. So that's a little bit of uh technical I just wanted to share with you. But now I want to focus on another issue which was a mlo that existed for hundreds and hundreds of years in the time of the second temple and it still exists today with the carites. When the Torah gives us the mitzvah of counting the omir the Torah says you shall count the day after Shabas. Start counting the day after Shabas mean moas hashabas. Now in the time of the second temple there were two movements in Judaism. One movement are the prushim, the Pharisees, which the Christian Bible treats very poorly, but it happens to be the Pharisees are what we call kazal. The prushim, right? There are people. But then there was a movement that was quite large and powerful, politically well-connected and wealthy called the stukim, the saddes. Stookim is simply because the name of the founder of the movement was a person saddok that happened to be his name. And uh the Sadducees essentially did not accept the authority of the oral law and they interpreted the Torah in a very literalistic manner. Now the Sadducees as a movement became more or less extinct during the of the second temple meaning essentially no sudukim or at least a movement of sukim did not survive. So the sukim as a movement were kaput. However, much much later in the uh 10th century in the 900s after the Talmud in the time of Sajjagon, a movement that is somewhat similar to the Sadducees was reinvented and these are called the Kim the Kites and Karites too today. They're very insignificant movement. There are kerites here in Israel. They have a synagogue etc. uh they're very small. uh but uh in Rafajon's time in in the Rambam's time karites were very very big and they posed a major major threat um to Judaism and again so the Kites or the Kraim and the Stukim are not the same people they are not the same movement uh they originated at different times but they do represent the same philosophy of kind of literalism as it were and uh They take the position that if the Torah says you start counting the omare the day after shabas shabas means Saturday and therefore the counting of the omare will always start on the first Sunday after pes actually this year it happens to be that we're doing the same thing as the kites because we started so this year is a year I guess of a of shalom in which we even were together with the kites but normally the kaiites would defer the counting of the omer till Sunday till Saturday 9th Sunday after Pes because the car or the stoukim the carites have the same belief but in the Gomorrah it discusses that stom so that stukim interpreted shabas to be literal Saturday shabas kazal our sages have a tradition that the word shabas in that puk does not mean Saturday but it's a reference to the yumtove of pesa that is called Shabas and Mim. So Shabas is the day after the Y of Pes i.e second day of Pes and this was a controversy that lasted really for hundreds and hundreds of years. And if you learn the Mishna, you learn the Gammorrah, you actually see that the sages went to very very great lengths to uproot and dispute this belief. Apparently this belief was widely accepted. Part of why it was widely accepted is it created a convenience for vacation days because if you start counting the Omr on Saturday night Sunday. So Shivuos is going to be Shabas Sunday will be Sunday. So you have Shabas and Sunday is a two-day vacation. Meaning normally Shabu is only a one-day vacation. When you start counting the Omr Shabas you get a two-day vacation. So uh the saddesty position was very popular among the working classes. Uh but nevertheless the sages went to very great lengths. So the question I want to start discussing is of course we believe what kazal say kazal tell us that the word shabas in that pk is referring to the yumto of pes. But why did the Tyra use a word that is potentially so ambiguous? Why did it use a word whose simple meaning is shabas and then we interpret it doesn't mean shabas it means yumto. So here too I want to share with you a a thought of the mesh. Very very interesting thought. He points out, let's look uh through the prism of for a moment at the major difference between Shabas and Yamt, right? We have Shabas, we have Yamt. Both Shabas and Yamt, you're not allowed to engage in Ma. But what's the difference? So there are two fundamental differences between Shabas and Yamt. Difference number one is what we call nephesh food preparation. Shabas, the malos of Shabas are absolute. You're not allowed to desecrate Shabas for food preparation. I mean that's obvious. One of the 39 m of Shabas is called cooking. So unless it's which is a matter of life and death shabas there is no to do for food preparation without getting into all the details of even though you're not allowed to do but you're allowed to do it for food preparation and other types of ytiff needs you're allowed to cook you're allowed to carry if that becomes necessary. So we'll call this as the Torah calls it the dispensation of neesh of food that sustains the soul is permitted on yumto. It is not permitted on shabas. That is difference number one. Difference number two is the source of the holiness of shabas and yamt. Shabas was sanctified by god and as a result shabas is shabas. Whether I know it's Shabas or I don't know it's Shabas. Shabas is Shabas. Even if, God forbid, God forbid, there would not be a single Jew in the world, which will never happen. But if there would not be a single Jew in the world who knew that today was Shabas, it would still be Shabas. Shabas is sanctified by God. And even though we engage in a ritual called kush, that does not mean we are sanctifying the shabas. We are just acknowledging that this is the day that was sanctified by God. Yamtaf is actually a very very different type of kaduca. Yamt very much depends on x number of days from the sanctification of the new moon. Pesak for example is the 15th day from the sanctification of the month of Nissan. Rashashana happens to be the first day of the sanctification of the month. And the Gomorrah tells us that if the Sanhedrin proclaimed the wrong day as Roshesh because they were fooled, the YPF is not counted astronomically from the actual appearance of the new moon. It is counted from the day that the Sanhedrin sanctified Roesh. If you remember, there's actually a story in the Mishna where Rebi Yahosua disagreed with the calculations of the Sanhedrin about Rashashana and his Yum Kipper, he thought Rashashana was a day later and his Yum Kipper was would be a day later. Raban Gaml ordered him who was the head of the Sanhedrin ordered him to come to him with his staff and his money on Rabi Yeshua as Yum Kipper. And Yeshua didn't know what to do. How could I desecrate the holy day of Yumkiper? And Rabbi Aka told him, let even when they're wrong, the holidays are based on that establishment. Now, you might ask the question, well, if that's the case, how do Yamovven work today? Today, we don't have a Sanhedrin that is taking witnesses about a new moon. We're we're working off a calendar. Why is there Yam at all today? So you know what the Ramban says? The Ramban says very fascinatingly that towards the end of the Sanhedrin's tenure around the 400s theim knew that the Sanhedrin would be disbanded soon. So they created the Jewish calendar. They calculated all of the roes till the year 6000 because we know that Mashiach will be there by then and we'll go back to the old system. And they actually verbally proclaimed all these roach events. I mean imagine a book of 200 pages and it just gives you the dates of every ro kodesh from the year 450 common era to the year 6000. So that's what that's uh 5600* 12 numbers of 1500 year times 12. all all of those things and they would just read they would say here this and in other words the Rambana actually says that every that we have is only because the Sanhedrin sanctified the new moons ahead of time and that is the meaning of the statement that is often stated the Jewish calendar expires in the year 6000. Now, from a mathematical standpoint, that's a nonsensical statement because the Jewish calendar is based on calculations. So, the truth of the matter is, what do you mean it expires? If you were to ask me what day will Roshes Nissan fall out based on the calendar 10,000 years from now, not that I know the answer, but I would be able to figure it out. It doesn't expire. It's a process that can be extrapolated indefinitely. So what does it mean the calendar expires in the year 6000? It means that their book that they read from this is Roz stopped at the year 6000. Therefore if counterfactually counterfactually Mashiach would not come by the year 6000 there would be no obligation to keep Yamim to because there would not be the sanctification of baston shabas. We'd have to keep not Yamf. In other words, the holiness of Yamiff depends on ami Israel. The holiness of Shabas is independent from Israel. And this is reflected in the differential. When it comes to Shabas, we say hashabas. Blessed art you God who san you God sanctify the shabas. When it comes to yamto very exact we sayim you sanctify Israel who is then given the capacity to sanctify the times byesh by proclaiming ro kodesh we have that control now here is the thing that's why when it's shabas you have to know how exactly liturgy is when it's both shabas and y the way the bra is you don't say no no no no you sanctify shabas you then sanctify is who has the power to sanctify the yumpt through the process of kesh so biker So far there are two major distinctions between Shabas and Yumpt. One is the hra for food preparation and the other is the sanctification of Shabas comes from God. The sanctification of Yumpt comes from Ami Israel acting through their Sanhedrin as they sanctify the new moon. And even today it's based on that because the last Sanhedrin sanctified the new moons in advance based on the keshbon uh that were created at that time. Now says in these two distinctions between Shabas and Yam depend on a third distinction and this third distinction will explain the other two and that is Yamt gets created only because of the unique relationship that God has with the Jewish people. There wouldn't be a pesak if there wouldn't have been aasim. There wouldn't have been a shvuos if there wouldn't have been a matan tora. There wouldn't have been a sukos had there not been the clouds of glory that surrounded us. Yumpt exists only because of us. Yumaf exists only because of God's relationship to us as opposed to Shabas. Shabas commemorates something although only Jews keep Shabas. That's very true. But Shabas commemorates something that in a sense is independent of the existence of the Jewish people. Shabas commemorates the fact that Hashem made the world in six days and rested. So says the since Yamt comes into existence only because of us, it bends to our needs. We have food preparation needs. Yumpt bends to us. Yam is bel to us and we are given the kawak to sanctify this man because yamt comes from us. And by the way, that that's why the is very clear that the hra to cook on yum is only for a Jew, not for a non-Jew. You're not allowed to cook for a non-Jew. In fact, according to the not even supposed to invite a non-jok, that's a separate Shila. Uh we have some we look for that. We have intermarried couples and the like, but that only goes to the invitation aspect which is a rabbitic extension. the actual cooking for a nonjam for sure that is absolutely absolutely user. Now since shabas does not depend on us it does not yield to us. It does not bend to our needs nor do we control the holiness of shabas. So you see uh so far the structure very nice structure. We start with two differences between Shabas and Yam. One is food preparation and the other is who establishes the holiness. And those two differences are based on the third idea that Yumpt comes into existence only because of us. And that's why we kind of control Yam in ways that we don't control Shabas because Shabas has nothing to do with us. And that's why it's called a gift. By the way, Shabas is called a precious gift that God gave us. What is the nature of a gift? Something that you get out of the blue. You didn't earn it. You don't deserve it. You get a gift. Right? Shabas is a gift. Okay? So now it says the although it's true that the arise out of Hashem's unique relationship to Israel, but of all of the yim pes is the most like Shabas. Because if Shabas represents a gift that we didn't earn and we didn't deserve and it doesn't emanate from our relationship with God. Pesak is somewhat similar because remember that Pesak represented a redemption that we didn't earn. We should have been in Mitraim 400 years. Hashem had to redeem us after 210 years because we would have hit level 50 and we would have disappeared. And indeed as it was four-fifths of the Jewish people in fact disappeared. So it was a redemption we weren't ready for. It was a redemption we didn't earn. It was a redemption that was given to us as a matana. So that's why it's called shabas. It's called shabas because it is the most shabistic unlike shuos which we earned by counting of the omare by preparing ourselves by purifying ourselves. Unlike sukus which is the aftermath of yum kipper and the chuva process for the sin of the golden calf pesak was a gift was a freebie and because it was a freebie it partakes of the nature of shabas I would like to add to the mesh I don't think he says this that this might explain an interesting thing if I were to ask you where does the Torah tell me You're allowed to cook. you're allowed to do food preparation on yum like you know where where is this law of uh the answer is uh it is in dealing with pes meaning the Torah doesn't mention for pes it mentions it for I'm sorry for shu and sukus it mentions it only for pes and we learn out the other holidays from pes Why does it mention it for because here's the thing might be the one where you would think you don't have a because it's not something that we earned and therefore it's not something we would control. So the terra had to tell me even has the status of and the other that might be I think a good explanation for this. Okay. So this is the mesh uh beautiful explanation why pesak is referred to as shabas. But now I want to take this one step further. The safer writes and this is a very well-known theme that the and we said this more than once the purpose of counting of the omare is to link connect the holiday of freedom with the holiday of Torah to make it one long holiday in order to underscore the idea that freedom is worthwhile only when it's linked to submission to Hashem. Meaning don't celebrate freedom as a separate value. Freedom is worthwhile when it connects to serving God. And that's why kazal say the grain offering of pesak was barley. Omar is barley which is animal f. The grain offering of shuas is wheat which is human consumption. Because when you go from pesak to shvas, you're actually going from animal to human. So here's the question. If that is so, and this is an idea that is universally stated, that the counting of the Omar links freedom and submission to God, why don't we start counting the Omr from day one? We ought to start counting the Omar from the first day of PES. Why do it from day two? Why is it? So the himself asks the question and the says well listen on the day that we celebrate the Exodus we don't want to bring in other holidays. We want to just focus 100%. This is a clim. We don't try to mix one joy with another joy. We want to focus totally. But the MS is although the safer says it so who am I to argue in a sense it's a weak reason because if the purpose of the freedom is the Torah the Torah is not another holiday this is the purpose and in fact of the four terms of redemption of the four cups the fourth cup I will take you on to reformationation is actually referring to matan tora the dal kosus themselves is referring to matan tora so here so so we're back to square One, what is the concept of deferring spher to dato? So let me share with you something that of breast says in the kout Maran and he actually says it in the name of his great-grandfather of the baltov. So this actually goes back to the balshto himself which has nothing to do with shvas nothing to do with but but it's a general observation that I think will be a very powerful answer to this question. He raises the question which indeed might bother many people. When you first come to Judaism, let's say you're bicha and you come to Judaism, everything seems very bright, you see excitement, you see passion, you see sweetness. Every shabas is wonderful experience. Every davin you feel so close to God. Learning is wonderful. In fact, this is the old joke. I mean, there are a lot of jokes of this genre which are a little sad, but they happen to be true. That's that is how do you tell if somebody's a Baltua or from from birth? Says, okay. Um, if you're if you're crying during Davining, you're a Baltua for sure. You know, uh, if you take more than three minutes to bench, you're a Baltouva for sure. You know, the basic idea is people who have passion in what they do, they must be balua. Fact, there was a classic speech. This is very very funny speech about a man who was honored at the Lincoln Square dinner for his work with Kira Bhiken and he called his speech why I hate poly trouba. It was really it was it was actually a very affectionate speech. But he said, "You know, I come home Friday night. All I want to do is get through the meal in 15 minutes and go to sleep." And we're about to bench and I'm ready. I'm ready to bench. I'm going to hit the bed. Hit the bed in two minutes. And this buba says, "Hi, you didn't say to the para just you didn't sing the all the siros here." You know, he said that's why I hate bala because they make me do all these things. So the question is this, what's going on? How come when I first come to Torah, it is so beautiful and exciting and then afterwards with the decades I lose my gishmach. Now the simple answer you're going to give me isn't going to work. I mean the simple answer obviously is habituation. Listen, the more I do something over and over and over again I it loses its impact. But the truth is that doesn't really make sense with mitzvah because if every mitzvah deepens your connection with Hashem, how could there be diminishing returns? How could it be that the more I learn and the more I do, the less I feel? You can't just offer habituation as the answer to this because this is a spiritual reality. A kesher, right? I can look at a beginner and I could I could be so envious of the love that they bring to why can't I have that? This is the the BMT raised the question. So here's what the BMT said quotes. Let's imagine a baby that's learning to walk. So first of all the process those of you who have children I mean the process of children learning to walk actually is a wondrous wondrous process even crawling. I remember to this day my son who is now uh almost 40 I remember when he started crawling forget about walking crawling and it was so hard. He was really in like pain. He was like grunting and I'm thinking to myself why are you working so hard? Stay in the crib and play. What is What is making you go on like this? Why are you doing it? You're obviously not comfortable. This is an amazing thing. Hashem hardwired human to want to achieve, to want to learn, to want to grow, to keep on moving and not get discouraged. And no matter how and learning to walk is the same thing. No matter how many times the kid is going to fall down, he's going to get up again. Defeat is actually not part of the natural human condition. The natural human condition is hope, is optimism of going on. Yeah, we do learn defeat even in as young we may pick it up even as young children, but that's a learned response. That's not the nature. And by the way, happiness is the same thing. You know, people ask the question, it's a good question. Why are kids happy? I mean, kids are are generally happy. Like, why why are kids happy? And part of the answer is because that is the natural way we are. We can become unhappy because of experiences and disappointments and the like. Now, you don't need to you don't need a reason why kids are happy. You actually need reasons why we're unhappy. The natural condition of a human being is happiness. The natural condition of a human being is resilience, not giving up. So children learning to walk is quite an amazing thing. But that's a little digression from the Balchto's point. The BMTO's point is when the kid begins to walk, so he's unsteady. So the parents are holding on to his shoulders, holding on to his arms, and he takes a step, then another step, and another step. And then at some point the parents feel the child is ready to do it on his own. They let go. They're still there of course to protect him. And as soon as they let go, what is likely to happen is plop plop plop. He's going to fall. Of course, he'll get up again. That's true. But he's going to fall. So if the child could verbalize his or her thoughts, the child might wonder how come it was so easy a minute ago and now it's gotten hard. Have I regressed only, you know, only two and a half years or whatever it is? I'm regressing already. What's going on? Am I losing it? And the answer is no. No, you haven't regressed. Until now, you were being held up by Aba and Neima. Now you have to make it your own. Now you have to learn on your own how to do it and that's going to involve failing and involve falling and the like. So says the balm says the bal when a person is very far from God they haven't yet embraced a full life of Torah. God carries them to artificially high levels. God carries you. when he carries you, this looks beautiful and that looks beautiful and that looks great. And at some point, Hashem says, "I've shown you what you're able to become. Now I'm going to put you down. Now I'm going to let go and I've shown you what a life of Torah is. Now it's your job to internalize it and make it your own." So counterintuitively RAN develops this when a person faces obstacles in the ravode it is not a sign of failure it is not a sign of losing a level it is actually a sign of divine confidence that they're ready for the next step of internalizing what Hashem had shown them artificially. You see, because ultimately the only thing that matters is not the artificial highs that God gives you, but the achievements of struggle in which slowly but surely you climb the mountain. This is and again this is not referring specifically to but interestingly enough the balata applies a very similar thought without using the balto mushel to the relationship between pes and pes similar to what we said from the meshma represents a sudden intense revelation of godliness that was truly beyond our capacity. Remember, we are in the 49th level of impurity. Had we stayed even another few minutes, the time that it takes for dough to rise, we would have been gone. We should have been there longer, but we had to be taken out early. Four-fifths of the Jewish people died. The 1-5 were considered to be naked of mitzvah. They were idol worshippers. They didn't practice Mila except for Levy. And Hashem had to give us the mitzvah of circumcision and the mitzvah of Corbin Pesak. So we would have some zus to leave. So we were in a very very undeserving state. That's why the Torah describes over and over again we left. We left Mitzim in a hurry. You we w when we leave in a hurry. What does that mean? You're not ready for the trip but you got to go now. And yet as I'll say at the Red Sea, the lowliest lowliest maidservants saw greater holiness a greater revelation of godliness than even the prophet yesco who was zoka to see the divine throne of god. So pesak represents the artificial high of the person who receives gifts from God beyond their capacity. But God shows them a great light. But then comes the omare in which Hashem takes us off that high, puts us on the ground and says, "I've shown you what you're capable of becoming. Now become it. Make it your own. I'm letting go a little bit. And just as father and mother are still there to protect us, God is always there. But he wants us to become independent. And that's the difference. Pesak is sudden revelation. Shuos is a gradual incremental process. The om every day there's a special meter that we work on. Last week we talked about the spheros, the einations. There's a special media that we work on because sudden revelation just comes to you all at once. But this internal spiritual growth comes through a gradual process of of avo. And that is why the counting of the omare is the day after shabas because it's the next day. It's the next step. It's a new agenda. It's a new approach. It is no longer the spirituality that is handed to you. It is the spirituality that you earn through work and through effort. Makaras a new day, a new beginning, a new approach to recognize that we struggle and we work on ourselves in all of the different ways. And sometimes spiritual progress is not going to be a straight upward trajectory. Sometimes it'll be two steps forward, one step back, and sometimes it may even be one step forward, and two steps back, but you keep going. You don't give up. You persevere. Uh there's a t-shirt saying, which although it's not of Jewish origin, but like a lot of t-shirt sayings, it expresses Jewish truths that what you are is God's gift to you. What you do with what you are is your gift back to God. P shows me what I am or at least what I could be. Is the internalization of making that process your own and that's why it's graduated. It's gradual and that's why it is Shabas. And indeed this actually explains based on the why it uses Shabas because Shabas represents the gift that we didn't earn is the day after the next level. In other words, it's very why it has to use Shabas because that's the whole point. Shabas is what God gives you. You didn't earn it by the way. So the balatana then uh uh concludes with a very very beautiful passage from the zohor interpreting a verse in shir hashirim shirim is a book of the tanakh of course it's one of the five mgillos and uh according to both the book itself and kazal's msor shirim was written by schlomamelik and you know shim almost didn't make it shim banned in Boston as they say uh because Shira Shirim is is frankly an erotic book. It describes a passionate relationship of a man and a woman. And if you read Shim very very although it's still in very good taste by the way one shouldn't compare it to I mean even if you read Shir in the most literal way it actually is a very sweet book. It's not a coarse book at all but it is somewhat explicit and therefore there were sages who felt that Shirim did not belong in the Tanak. So who is who is the great redeemer of Shirim? Who got it in? None other than Rabbi AKA. Rabbi Yak. So it's pretty late actually. So Rabi Yaka made the argument to the if all of the songs in the Tanakh are holy, Shirim is the holiest of the holy because it is a metaphor. It is an allegory for the love that God has for the Jewish people and the Jewish people have for God. And all of the references to the shepherd are really Hashem that is our shepherd and protector. And the references of the woman that is yearning to be with the shepherd uh is a reference to the Jewish people yearning to be with God. And this is the standard mahalak that is taken in the midrashim of shirim which are a huge amount of midrashim and in rashi's commentary and there there are actually other mahok but the the most common widespread learning of shirim is that we look at it as a love story between the Jewish people and hashem is the male character in the book and the Jewish people are the female character in the In fact, this can explain all sorts of uh there's a scene in Shirim where the woman has gone to sleep and her beloved is knocking at the door and she says cold do the voice of my beloved is knocking at the door and I say I'm asleep already don't wake me up again say that's referring to the Mashiach Hashem is waiting to redeem us knocking at the door and we're not interested at that point, right? So, there's a lot of pathos in in in all of that. So, in the very beginning of the book, uh the woman cries out to her beloved who's not there or, you know, not visible and says, "Pull me after you so we can run together." It's a so the zor says the following refers to pesa so we can run together refer to shuos this is the zohar so the balatana says this is exactly thehat when I pull you that means you're like a sack of potatoes. You're really passive, but I come and I pull you. So with PES, it's we're not really ready for redemption, but God is pulling us out because we have to get out of there. But eventually, we get strong enough that we run with our kadesh. We're no longer being pulled. We've internalized the madrega. So we are with Hashem. We are walking. We're running with Hashem. So that's exactly the trans the the transition here and therefore through the process of the omare we run with with you know there are many stories um about the vagon uh that uh the villagon whose greatness in Torah was was beyond beyond any type of understanding that angels would come to him to offer him all sorts of interpretations of things, the secrets of the Torah, and he turned them down. He says, "I don't want gifts. I don't want freebies. I only want the Torah that I achieve through my work, through my effort, through my ya." He turned things down. He have other stories sometimes where they say that it's unbelievable that sometimes, as you would expect, it's very, very hard. thoughts would come to him in Davin, Torah thoughts would come to him in Davin. So something like um on one puk in the middle of Zavvening like 150 explanations of the of a puk came to him 150 based on zor based on cababala and he was misspell that he should forget them because he considered them to be tra no good they came to middle of din he's supposed to focus on ding you don't focus on uh on even Torah and he forgot all of them and then he tried to regain gained them afterwards and you know he worked worked very very hard and the story goes they came back to him uh but that was the idea he didn't want things that were freebies he didn't want things that came to him during uh etc everything had to be based on his own ya borra and in truth uh I mean obviously we're not those are not our levels in any way at all but in truth we have to recognize that even in our own lives these significant accomplishments are what we've done with what Hashem gave us. Right? We don't deserve credit for what we are naturally. That's a gift of Hashem. But what we do with our what we do with our abilities, that's the gift we give back to our so this is just a again a concluding thought of the period of the counting of the Omr and Boss Hashem. May God help us to keep on walking, to climb that mountain, not to get discouraged, to learn from young children who learn to walk and learn to crawl that no matter how many times you fall, you keep on going. And that is the natural condition. You know, it's funny. We have to talk about working on ourselves to do that. Yeah, it's true because we're so conditioned to giving up. But in reality, it's not even a matter of working. It's simply a matter of this is how Hashem made us. And we just have to try to recapture what Hashem put into our natures of not giving up, of being optimistic, of being hopeful, of being happy, of appreciating life. And then no matter how many times we sometimes are not successful, keep on going. Don't give up. I think last week I mentioned that after Rabbi Akiba lost the 24,000 students, he went back to have five students. And you might think, again, just repeating myself, what's the what's the point of having five students? You lost 24,000. And yet from those five students and their successors came the Mishna, came the Gammorrah, came all of the Torah Sha, came the Rashi, came the Toshvos. Yeah. For five students can come everything. So we have to also recognize that on every level what we do matters. What we do counts and if what we do counts we have to make it count. What do they say by sphere? They say count every day and make every day count. Right? That's a common it's a buzz phrase they use for spir oh man. No once again it's it happens to be true. So wish you all well and maybe to [Music] You [Music] my [Music] birthday tomorrow.