Sefiras HaOmer: Bridging Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

This past Purim, my grandson was finally old enough to have an opinion about his costume. He was adorable in his tiny yellow hardhat and tool belt, the orange vest slipping off his petite frame only enhancing the image of a child playing make-believe. It was also the first year he went to youth groups for Megillah, allowing my daughter to attend the first leining, a milestone that also allowed young Bob the Builder to participate in the shul’s Purim chagigah. He was instantly drawn to the boys playing basketball, and he asked my daughter if he could also play. But the hoop was high and the ball was bigger than his head; gently, my daughter told him that it was only for the older boys. Much to my surprise, he didn’t whine or cry or throw a tantrum; he just stood there on the sidelines and watched. I ached for him, disappointment evident in the slump of his shoulders and the wistfulness in his eyes. I saw him wish for the future.

The very first mitzvah Bnei Yisrael received at the threshold of Yetzias Mitzrayim was the sanctification of the New Moon: “This month shall be to you the beginning of months” (Exodus 12:2). As slaves to Pharaoh, our time was not our own. The gift of freedom also granted us the gift of time, and our very first commandment shapes that gift by giving us the Jewish calendar, a framework for our days. One can imagine, however, that it was psychologically impossible for Bnei Yisrael to instantly appreciate and utilize this new gift. There had to be some kind of methodology to transition from the mentality of avdus to cheirus, from bondage to becoming a kingdom of priests who would stand at Har Sinai and receive the Torah.

Moshe Rabbeinu was entrusted with this difficult task, and Hashem told him that this transformation would unfold through the process of Sefiras HaOmer. Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt”l, posits in Haggadah, The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening, that the act of counting teaches us how to fully appreciate time. “A slave who is capable of appreciating each day, of grasping its meaning and worth, of weaving every thread of time into a glorious fabric, quantitatively stretching over the period of seven weeks but qualitatively forming the warp and woof of centuries of change, is eligible for Torah. He has achieved freedom.”

Temporal awareness is composed of three elements: past, present, and future. As Jews, our lives oscillate between the past and the future, between what was and what will be. We are so deeply rooted in our history that the Seder night is not simply a commemoration of Yetzias Mitzrayim, but rather a reenactment. We taste the bitterness, the tears, the unleavened bread. We alter our posture, our mindsets, and as the night concludes we wipe our tears, praise G-d, and dream of sacrificing the Korban Pesach next year in Jerusalem.

Suspended in the time continuum between past and future lies the present, an ephemeral construct with nebulous boundaries. I had a teacher who made us say “present” at roll call. She demanded more of us than just the usual “here,” more than just bodies glued to chairs. She demanded our attention, our engagement, and woe to the student who was caught with her mind elsewhere, for she would be swiftly yanked back into the present by the teacher’s sharp tongue. As a self-professed control freak, living in the moment does not come naturally to me. I have lists, and sticky notes, and multiple calendars – nothing makes me happier than checking things off and getting a dopamine hit of accomplishment. Even at the very second that I type this, half of my brain is elsewhere, thinking about the tornado watch for later today, thinking about picking up my grandson from school early so we don’t get stuck in the storm, thinking about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

I recently finished Nach Yomi for the third time, and although the experience was exciting and meaningful, there was something missing. Instead of learning the perek of the day, I stayed at least one perek ahead, sometimes even as much as three perakim ahead, depending on what was going on with my schedule. As I sat there at the big siyum in February, I felt oddly out of sync, especially when listening to the stories many women shared about how often the day’s perek connected to current events or to personal experiences on that specific day. I decided right then that although it conflicted with every aspect of my personality, I was going to commit to the actual schedule of perakim. I would teach myself how to live in the moment.

In the Rav’s essay, “Slavery and Freedom,” he explains the synergy between the three components of time: “To live in time and feel its rhythm, one must also move from the memory of the past to the unreality of the future… In order to connect retrospection with anticipation, memory with expectation, the hind field with foresight, one must cherish the present fleeting moment as if it represented eternity… Every minute is valuable, each second precious.”

The tornado never materialized. I didn’t have to pick up my grandson because my daughter’s work event ended earlier than expected. I wasted, I squandered, I took my valuable, precious minutes and tossed them into the day’s storm and watched them blow away. I traded the present for a potential future and ended up with neither present nor future, only regrets about the ill-spent past. How do I inhabit the present when the specter of possibility haunts its edges?

The Rav teaches that to live as a Jew means that we must be able to live in both dimensions of time, and the merger of past and future is achieved through the act of counting. For when we count, we are aware not only of the present number but also of the number that came before and the number that comes after. The very act of sefirah, counting, teaches us this time perspective. The fact that we say a beracha each day of sefirah, the fact that each day is a separate mitzvah, teaches us that we are not just marking time between Pesach and Shavuos, but that each day is a discrete opportunity for growth, each one important unto itself. There is no skipping ahead, there is no going back – there is only the present, this day, this moment.

Shortly before Purim, my daughter sent us a photo of my grandson sitting on top of the couch cushions looking out the window, captioned with the exact words he said as she took the picture: “I want to eat my snack and watch the sun.” Granted, I’m biased, but this was the most brilliant, most profound observation I have ever heard. Even at three years old, or perhaps because he is three, he was totally immersed in the moment, enjoying the simple pleasure of an Osem tea biscuit while watching the sun traverse the sky. This snippet of toddler wisdom has become my new mantra, partially because of its provenance, and partially because of the quiet integrity of its truth.

When our children are young, we introduce them to the language of beginnings, of ABCs and 123s. The letters become words, then sentences, then speech, while the numbers become measures of quantity, then measures of time. At three, my grandson can count to 20, and almost always, particularly if he is paying attention, he can also count objects with some consistency. He knows he is three and generally understands that on his next birthday he will be four; soon enough he will be impatiently anticipating his birthdays and his future. Soon enough some other little boy will wistfully watch him play basketball and wish that he was a big boy, too.

Conversely, although he is only three, he has a budding awareness of memory. He loves to look at pictures of himself as a baby, and because he has looked at them so many times, he can recite the backstory to many of the photos, nurturing the early stirrings of nostalgia. The ability to weave together both past and future is what I hope to teach my grandson, while he in turn teaches me to live in the present.

Sefirah is a bridge between Pesach and Shavuos, a journey from physical slavery to spiritual freedom, a journey of 49 contiguous yet distinct days, each one brimming with potential. Although we are no longer slaves to Pharaoh, we are not without our own forms of servitude. The discipline of counting offers us the opportunity to release ourselves from that bondage, to transform ourselves today into better versions of who we were yesterday, with the hope of becoming better still tomorrow.

But for now, hayom yom – time to eat a snack and enjoy the sun.