Shabbos Parashas Behar - 5776

Shabbos Parashas Behar - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

You shall count for yourself seven cycles of sabbatical years, seven years seven

times; the years of the seven cycles of sabbatical years shall be for you forty-nine

years. [Vayikra 25:8]

These words sound pretty familiar. Just last week, for example, in Parashas Emor, we

read [23:15], "You shall count for yourselves, from the morrow of the Sabbath, from the

day when you bring the Omer of the waving, seven weeks, they shall be complete." We

also count days each week, and when we get to seven, it's Shabbos. Are there

similarities in all these various countings of seven? Differences?

Rav Hirsch gives us some differences. The first one is hidden in the English here. In

last week's verse, the "you shall count for yourselves" is written in the plural, u'sipartem

lachem. This week, it is in the singular, u'siparta lecha. Rav Hirsch says that the omer

count of last week is intended for each and every individual to count on their own, while

the count of Shemittah and Yovel this week is to be done by the nation's leaders on

behalf of the entire people.

Ramban seems to think likewise when he compares the directive to all individuals to

count omer with the same wording that directs us to take the four species during Succos.

But then he differs by comparing the omer count with the counting of days from tumah

impurity to taharah purity, pointing out that the person with tumah has the option of

remaining in tumah rather than doing the count, thus the count is for their own personal

condition and benefit. The omer count then, required of each individual, has some

larger purpose, and is also not something each individual may choose to do or not do.

Instead the omer and the Yovel are both obligations on every individual for the benefit

of all. The purpose of both is that the nation as a whole sanctify what occurs at the end

of the counting, be it Shavuos or Yovel.

Rav Hirsch then gives us another comparable instance. When a boy is born, we count

seven days, then on the eighth day, we welcome him into the Covenant of Abraham by

means of bris milah, circumcision. This is again a matter of counting of seven, leading

toward a sanctification. Perhaps the reason the Torah doesn't specify on this, "count for

yourself" in either singular or plural is that this sanctification is not done "for me", nor for

the nation directly, but for the benefit of another individual.

Yes, they are different, but perhaps our various episodes of counting by sevens have a

common thread as well. They teach us that there is a reason to sanctify ourselves

individually, to sanctify another Jew who may not have the ability to do so himself, and

to sanctify the nation as whole.