A.
Our parasha tells us that on the second day of the Passover season, what is in Eretz Yisra’él the first day of hol ha-mo‘ed, Jewish farmers are to harvest the very first of their crops to ripen (this would typically be barley, which ripens several weeks before wheat) and bring an ‘omer of the crop (a unit of dry measure equivalent to 2,488 cm³) to the kohén (XXIII, 9-14), After describing some of the details of the service to be performed with the ‘omer tënufa, our parasha goes on to tell us: וספרתם לכם ממחרת השבת מיום הביאכם את עמר התנופה שבע שבתות תמימת תהיינה: עד ממחרת השבת השביעית תספרו חמשים יום והקרבתם מנחה חדשה לד': (“And you will count for yourselves from the day after the shabbath, from the day when you bring the ‘omer ha-tënufa; seven complete shabbathoth will there be. Until from the day after the seventh shabbath you will count 50 days; and you will sacrifice a new minha to Ha-Shem”; ibid., 15-16). The “count” is called sëfirath ha-‘omer, because it begins on the day the ‘omer was brought.
The repetitive use of the word shabbath in these two verses is striking: The first use is clearly intended to differentiate the first day of yom tov, on which mëlacha is forbidden as it is on shabbath, from the less stringent hol ha-mo‘ed, the first day of which is “when you bring the ‘omer ha-tënufa,” and the last use is similar, since it refers to the holiday which follows and toward which we are counting, on the 50th day: Shavu‘oth (literally, “Weeks,” because of the “seven weeks” of days, 7x7 = 49, which have been counted before the holiday occurs; עיי' מנחות ס"ה:). Yet, our passage insists on terming these “weeks” shabbathoth as well.
Given that the Holy Language obviously possesses precise terms for these concepts: The verse could as easily have said hag or yom tov as shabbath in referring to Pesah and Shavu‘oth, and could have used the less confusing term shavu‘oth rather than shabbathoth to refer to the seven “weeks”, there must be a reason why the Torah uses the same word over and over again, three times over, to describe both Jewish holidays and weeks. What might it be?
B.
The Maharal, too, asserts שיום טוב גם כן שבת דהא יש בו שביתה. וכאן קרא אותו בשם שבת דוקא לפי שהשבת גורם מנין שכאשר יש שבת מתחיל למנות ימי השבוע ודבר זה ראוי לשבת מפני כי השבת היא שביתה והפסק שהרי הוא הפסק מלאכתו ושביתתו. ומפני שהשבת הוא הפסק גורם התחלת מנין אחריו וגו' (“that yom tov is also shabbath, for there is in it cessation [from mëlacha]. And here, He has called it by the name shabbath specifically because shabbath causes a counting, for when there is a shabbath one begins to count the days of the week [thereafter], and this matter is relevant to shabbath because the shabbath is a cessation [shëvitha] and an interruption [hefséq], for it is the interruption of His mëlacha, and His shëvitha [cf. Genesis II, 2]. And because shabbath is a hefséq, it causes the beginning of a count after it....”; גור ארי' שם).
We see that the Maharal views the shëvitha, the “cessation from mëlacha” inherent in shabbath, as implying a hefséq, a break, pause, or interruption intervening between some previous condition and a new beginning, which in turn impels us to begin counting the days until the next shabbath (in the Holy Language, the days of the week have no names, as they do in English, but are rather known as yom rishon, “first day,” yom shéni, “second day,” and so on). It is the fact that the sëfira begins immediately after the first day of Pesah, he says, which underlies calling the first day of yom tov shabbath, and this is directly analogous to the function of shabbath as the last day of the week, the end of the mëlacha of Creation, and the beginning of the next phase of the universe’s existence.
So how does the first day of Pesah constitute a hefséq? What went before, and what came after?
Much of what follows is inspired by a talk given by the rosh yëshiva of the Yeshiva Gedola of South Monsey, Rabbi Lieff שליט"את , on the last day of Passover.
Pesah is, of course, the celebration of yëtzi’ath Mitzrayim, the Exodus from Egypt. Yëtzi’ath Mitzrayim, to be sure, was the physical liberation of the bënei Yisra’él from the Egyptian yoke, but it was also much more than that. It was, in fact, nothing less than the liberation of the human soul, the nëshama, from the yoke of the yétzer ha-ra‘, the beginning of its empowerment to realize its vast potential, and take effective control of the nefesh and the body which the nefesh animates and serves.
This empowerment took place in two stages. The first stage was yëtzi’ath Mitzrayim, the separation of nascent Israel from the corrosive, pernicious, hedonistic culture of Egypt which the Torah calls ma‘asé eretz Mitzrayim and all of the immoral practices enumerated under that rubric (cf. Leviticus XVIII, 3-30, Torath Kohanim ad loc.). The sëfarim ha-qëqoshim quantify the Egyptians’ moral turpitude in terms of 50 sha‘arei tum’a, “measures of metaphysical defilement,” at the bottom of which they squatted. Israel, we are told, were at the 49th. The bënei Yisra’él had thus sunk, under Egyptian influence, to a point very close to their masters. To separate two entities which had grown so close together, such that, left only a short time longer, they would have become indistinguishable, required a measure of strength, of power; this is the hozeq yad, the “strength of the hand” referred to repeatedly in the Torah, e.g. כי בחזק יד הוציאנו ד' ממצרים, “for with hozeq yad Ha-Shem brought us out of Egypt” (Exodus XIII, 14).
This separation occurred because the bënei Yisra’él still possessed the moral and physical courage necessary to sacrifice, before their tormentors’ very eyes, the image of the Egyptians’ creator-god, Khnum, at the moment when the Egyptians’ believed his power to be at its height, during the month of Nisan, whose zodiacal sign is mazzal Tëlé, Aries, the Ram.
Though separated, they remained at the49th sha‘ar tum’a. To rise from that point until they would be fit to receive the instruction book, the user’s manual, as it were, for the nefesh, the body, and the world around it, would require a great deal of personal work and effort, 49 days’ worth, one for each of the “measures,” until they would be ready for Shavu‘oth, and mattan Torah. Hazal compare ma‘amad Har Sinai to a wedding, at which Israel were the bride and the Holy One, Blessed is He, the groom; the seven-cycle count of seven days each they compare to the count of seven clean days, after which a woman who has menstruated can unite with her husband ( עיי' זוה"ק ח"ג צ"ז: ואור החיים הקדוש על פסוקינו).
The implications are dramatic indeed.
C.
In several places in Tanach we find allusions to the fact that the world, in its original disposition came into existence and endured through Divine hesed, “kindness.” Thus, for instance, King David sings כי אמרתי עולם חסד יבנה (“For I have said, the universe is built of hesed”; Psalms LXXXIX, 3). He also composed the wholly remarkable Psalms CXXXVI, which begins: הודו לד כי טוב כי לעולם חסדו , “Give thanks to Ha-Shem for [He is] good, because His hesed is the world’s”), continuing on for a total of 26verses, each ending with the same clause, כי לעולם חסדו, “because His kindness is the world’s.”
Turn now to the Book of Genesis, and begin to count: There are 10 human generations from the first man until Noah; another 10 (albeit shorter) human generations separate Noah from Avraham avinu, followed by Yitzhaq, Ya‘aqov, Lévi, Qëhath, and ‘Amram, the father of Moshe rabbénu. 25 human generations transpired from the advent of mankind, until the Exodus from Egypt. With the generation of the Exodus itself, 26 generations living on Divine hesed.
The problem with living on hesed, even Divine hesed, is that the universe was not designed to function in that way. One who is constantly given a hand-out comes to be demeaned, degraded, and loses all sense of his self-worth. As the Talmud puts it, דאכיל מן חברי' בהית מאסתכל בי' (“Who eats from someone else is too embarrassed to look upon him”; ירושלמי ערלה פ"א ה"ג ). The hachmei ha-emeth term this condition nahama dë-chissufa, “the bread of shame.”
Rashi attests to this state of affairs in his famous remark on Genesis I, 1, שבתחלה עלה במחשבה לבראתו במדת הדין וראה שאין העולם מתקיים והקדים מדת רחמים למדת הדין וגו' (“that at first it arose in thought to create [the world] by means of the measure of judgment [din], and He saw that the world does not endure, and He placed the measure of mercy [rahamim] before the measure of din”). Read Rashi’s words with great care: G-d placed rahamim (defined as an amalgam of hesed and din; cf. A”z Yashir, parshath Hayyei Sara, 5771, ועיי' זוה"ק ח"א קי"ט., ניצוצי אורות שם). He did not supplant din with hesed, but alloyed the two, and placed the alloy first. Because of the din in the mixture, through all those 26 generations, the nahama dë-chissufa continued to build....
Hazal, too, tell us that this climax was planned from the start: התנה הקב"ה עם מעשה בראשית וא"ל אם ישראל מקבלים התורה מוטב ואם לאו אני אחזיר אתכם לתהו ובהו (“The Holy One, Blessed is He, made a condition with Creation, and told it, 'If Israel accept the Torah, it becomes well; and if not, I shall return you to chaos'”; עיי' שבת פ"ח. וע"ע זוה"ק ח"ג קצ"ג. וחצ"ר:). Only Israel’s acceptance of the Torah and entry into the Holy Land to implement it would discharge the nahama dë-chissufa, by enabling the adam to begin earning his keep. The count of seven times seven yëmei bë-réshith, which finds allusion in the use of the word shabbath, enabled the completion of all the connections necessary for the ‘olam to begin functioning as intended, according to din.
D.
As was noted at the beginning, this count-down to Mattan Torah on Shavu‘oth begins with the bringing of the ‘omer of the very first of the Holy Land’s crops to ripen. The Torah, too, tells of the organic interrelationship between Torah and livelihood in, e.g., the second paragraph of the Shëma‘: והי' אם שמע תשמעו אל מצותי כו' ונתתי מטר ארצכם בעתו יורה ומלקוש ואספת את דגנך ותירשך ויצהרך וגו' (“And it will be, if hearkening you will listen to My mitzvoth... And I shall give the rainfall of your land at its time, early and late, and you will gather your grain and your wine and your oil...”; Deuteronomy XI, 13-14ff.), a relationship which Hazal make even more explicit: אם אין קמח אין תורה ואם אין תורה אין קמח (“If there is no flour, there is no Torah; and if there is no Torah, there is no flour”; אנות פ"ג מי"ז).
