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Shalhevet news online: When we know it, you'll know it

The Boiling Point

Shalhevet news online: When we know it, you'll know it

The Boiling Point

Shalhevet news online: When we know it, you'll know it

The Boiling Point

The Omer: Spiritual preparing for Matan Torah

By Yosef Nemanpour, 11th Grade

After centuries of persecution in Mitzrayim, followed by a Las Vegas-style show of plagues, the Jews finally hit the climax of their journey, the receiving of the Torah. It’s the guidebook of their lives, the holiest thing in their religion, and a blueprint for humanity. The question is this: how could the Jews have reached such a level to receive such a gift? The secret to this is in the sefirat haomer, the counting of the Omer, which is when done right is a 49-day course in character refinement.

In anticipation of receiving the Torah, the Jews took a spiritual journey to the inner depths of their souls, via the 10 sefirot of Kaballah – that is, the 10 “emanations” through which God reveals Himself in the physical and metaphysical worlds. The word Mitzrayim (Egypt) in Hebrew also means narrowness, boundaries or limitations, and so it was when God took us out of Mitzrayim, he gave us the chance to let go of the things that had limited us and held us back.

Today, just as we were slaves to our taskmasters in Egypt, we can also be slaves to ourselves – our personalities and our egos, which can often cloud us, spiritually.  So today, too, through the counting of the Omer we can reach a holy enough level to receive the Torah ourselves, at Shavuot.

The purpose of these 49 days of sefira is to teach us how to regain control of our emotions, and to refine our character based on the Tradition passed down from generation to generation. Only after 49 days of intense refinement could the Jews finally receive the Torah after leaving Mitzrayim. So too, the Jewish people today count 49 days from Pesach to the, Shavuot, day 50, when we celebrate the giving of the Torah and accept it once again for ourselves.

 

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