Life is too Short to Fool Around. . . (adapted from Rabbi Y. Goldman)

This week's Torah Portion relates directly to the time period we currently are in. One month ago we celebrated the festival of Passover. And in approximately 3 weeks time the festival of Shavuot will be upon us - the holiday that commemorates the day we received the Torah.

This week’s portion teaches us that we are to count the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot.

Just as the Israelites counted the days after the Exodus in eager anticipation to receive the Torah, so do we count these 49 days annually. This counting is known as the ‘omer’.

But why count time? Time marches on inexorably, whether we take note of it or not. What value is there in counting the days?

The answer is that we count these 49 days to make us conscious of the preciousness of every single day. To make us more sensitive to the value of a day, an hour, a moment. As Rabbi Sholom DovBer, the fifth Rebbe in the Chabad dynasty, once said, "A summer's day and a winter's night is a year."

The saintly Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan (1838-1933) once said the following: Life is like a picture postcard.

Have you ever had the experience of being on vacation and sending a picture postcard home or to a friend? We start writing with a large scrawl and then think of new things to say and before we know it we're at the end of the card and there's no more room. So what do we do? We start writing smaller and then when we're out of space we start winding our words around the edges of the card to get it all in. Before we know it, we're turning the card upside down to squeeze in the last few vital words in our message.

Sound familiar?

Life is not all that much different. We start off young and reckless without a worry in the world and as we get older we realize that life is short. So we start cramming and trying to squeeze in all those important things we never got around to. Sometimes our attempts are quite desperate, even pathetic, as we seek to put some meaning into our lives before it's too late. (Maybe that's what a mid-life crisis is all about.)

So the Torah tells us to count our days – because they are, in fact, numbered. We each have an allotted number of days and years in which to fulfill the purpose for which we were created. Hopefully, by counting time we will appreciate it better. So, whatever it is that is important for each of us to get done, please G‑d, we will all get around to it.

Tonight is the 30th day in the omer counting. We have only 19 days that remain. Let us make them meaningful; days full of purpose and direction; days infused with a sense of G‑d, moral clarity and many mitzvahs.

Shabbat Shalom from Brooklyn, NY,

 

Rabbi Raleigh Resnick