Dedicated by Avi Kagan & Family (Pomona, NY)
Parshas Emor 5786
This week’s parshah brings us into the inyan d’yoma, the mitzvah of Sefiras HaOmer. We all know the well-known line: don’t just count the days, make the days count. But Rav Moshe Sternbuch points out a deeper dimension within this avodah: It’s not only about making the days count. It’s about the very act of counting itself.
As we move from Pesach toward kabbalas haTorah, we count each day, one by one. Not just to track time, but to highlight it. To say: this day mattered. Counting is not just a record of the past. It is a way of building.
When a person counts, he becomes aware. He notices. He marks moments, decisions, small victories that would otherwise slip by unnoticed. Sefirah trains us to live with that awareness. Every day is counted because every day carries weight. Every moment has value.
As we approach kabbalas haTorah, we don’t just arrive. We come in counting. And through that, we ingrain within ourselves a deeper sensitivity to time, to growth, and to life itself. Because when a person counts, life takes on a deeper level of meaning. We are reminded of the seconds, the opportunities, that are now part of the past, and will never come back. הזמן קצר והמלאכה מרובה,–the time is short and the work is great.
Like a child using an abacus, feeling each bead as it moves, connected to the count in a real, tangible way, so too us, we use Sefiras HaOmer to feel our days. To give each day presence. To not let time pass unnoticed.
Through Sefirah, we develop a sensitivity to time. We begin to live with more presence, more attention, more meaning. And as we move toward kabbalas haTorah, we come in as people who have learned how to count, how to value, how to live each day with purpose.
A FEW SECONDS THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
There’s an organization in Eretz Yisrael called Arachim, dedicated to reaching and inspiring those who have drifted or were never exposed. At one of their seminars, led by Rabbi Shimshon Pincus zt”l, there was one man who stood out. Rav Shimshon and the staff noticed he was completely unmoved. Nothing was getting through. He wasn’t listening, he wasn’t interested, he had already decided it wasn’t for him.
He stayed for the food, for the amenities, but inside, there was no connection at all.
Rav Shimshon approached him and asked for one thing. Not to learn, not to change, not to commit. Just to count. “Tonight, say: today is fourteen days of the Omer. Tomorrow, fifteen. The next night, sixteen.” A few simple words. A few seconds.
The man agreed.
And then something happened.
Not a speech. Not a dramatic moment. Just a shift. Quiet, almost unnoticed. But real. From that small act of counting, something inside him began to open. A point of connection. A moment where he was no longer completely closed.
And from there, everything started to move.
The other rabbanim were puzzled. What happened here? How could something so small make any difference?
Rav Shimshon explained. You don’t understand a Yid. You don’t understand a neshamah. Even for a few seconds, without a berachah, without Hashem’s name, without anything external, when a person does something Eloki, the neshamah reacts. It wakes up. It feels the kedushah. And once that nekudah is touched, even for a moment, it has the koach to open everything that comes after.
Concluded Rabbi Shimshon Pincus: when this Yid said, “tonight is fourteen,” in those few seconds his neshamah was connecting to something greater, to its source, to its Creator. That moment carried an effect we can’t fully grasp. And you could already see it, right there in front of your eyes.
It’s not magic. It’s the metziyus of a neshamah.
Even a few seconds of something Eloki has weight. Each one has the power to awaken, to uplift, to reconnect. A single moment can link a person back to his Creator. It can connect him with eternity.
That’s sefirah, that’s what we are counting.
HIGHS & LOWS
ויאמר ה׳ אל משה אמר אל הכהנים בני אהרן ואמרת אלהם לנפש לא יטמא בעמיו.
Hashem said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: None shall defile himself for any dead person among his kin. (Vayikra 21:1)
All the mefarshim address the apparent redundancy of “emor” – “say to the Kohanim” and “v’amarta” – “and say to them.” Rashi quotes the Gemara in Yevamos 114a, which explains: להזהיר גדולים על הקטנים — To caution the adults regarding the minors. Meaning, although minors are generally not obligated in mitzvos until they are 13, in this case, even they are included in becoming contaminated from a human corpse.
The Noam Elimelech, Reb Meilich MiLezhinsk, takes this a step further by applying this to the human condition.
He asserts that it is incumbent upon every Jew that while experiencing the highs — whether it be the daily highs of learning, praying, performing mitzvos or acts of kindness, such high periods as Shabbos or Yom Tov, or the personal moments of fulfillment and happiness — to harness and capitalize on those times for the lows. Inevitably, we all experience lows. The idea is to let the abundance of the highs spill over, uplift, and exalt us even when we’re not in those times or moments of high. Even when we’re feeling lowly, disconnected, just cruising on autopilot.
When the Torah says אמר ואמרת, which the Gemara explains as להזהיר גדולים על הקטנים, it’s not only a halachic directive, it’s a blueprint for avodah. There are moments of gadlus, what the sefarim hakedoshim call מוחין דגדלות, when a person is open, aware, connected, when things feel alive and real. And there are moments of katnus, מוחין דקטנות, when that clarity fades, when a person feels distant, smaller.
Sefirah comes to train us in this exact space.
BUILDING THROUGH THE SMALL MOMENTS
We count davka in the small moments. Not only when we feel inspired, but even when it’s just “today is fourteen.” A few seconds. A simple count. Because those small nekudos are not small at all. They are the “גדולים” that are מאיר into the “קטנים.”
Each count becomes something to hold onto. So that when a person finds himself in a place of katnus, he’s not empty. He carries with him counted days, moments of connection, points of emes that remind him who he is.
Because those are the moments that carry us.
When a person counts, even for a few seconds, he is building. He is placing something real into his storehouse. So that when he finds himself in a place of katnus, he is not empty. He has something to draw from. A reminder of who he is. A reminder of his connection.
Then we begin to live differently.
When we have moments of gadlus, we don’t pass through them. We absorb them. We let them shape us. And when we hit the lows, we’re not just waiting for them to end. We move through them with steadiness, with direction, knowing that even now, every small act, every count, every nekudah is adding, is building.
Sefirah teaches us that nothing is wasted. Even when we feel uninspired, like that fellow at the seminar, we remind ourselves who we are, what we carry, and how much more we are capable of. Sometimes it takes just one moment of chizzuk, one honest count, to shift everything.
Every moment can be counted. Every moment can connect. And every moment carries the power to touch eternity. •
