1996/5756
In this weeks Parsha, אמור, it states: וספרתם שבע שבתות תמימות תהיינה ... לכם ממחרת השבת - "And you shall count from the day after the day of rest, [from the day that you bought the Omer which is waved,] seven complete weeks shall they be." The Torah gives us a Mitzvah to count the days from the second day of Pesach until the holiday of שבועות. The Chinuch writes that the root of this commandment is that the essence of the Jewish people is the Torah, and for the Torah the entire world and Israel was created. The Israelites were redeemed from Egypt in order to accept the Torah at Har Sinai and to fulfill it. The counting of the days from the Exodus from Egypt until the day of the accepting of the Torah is an expression of the importance of the Torah for the Jewish people. Just as a person who is enslaved and knows that he will be freed on a certain date will count each day until he gets his freedom, so too, we count the days until we receive the Torah. Counting the Omer shows that we have a strong desire to finally reach the goal of Shavuot, the commemoration of our receiving the Torah. The greater one's appreciation of the תורה, the more he will study it. Realizing how important the תורה is for us as a nation and for each of us as individuals, we will have great joy and pleasure when we devote ourselves to study it and mastering it. Every year when we count the days between פסח and שבועות we once again repeat this message daily for 94 days. Commentators mention that each of those days is for working on one of the 84 tools for acquiring Torah that are listed in the sixth chapter of Pirkei Avot. In their totality they make up the traits that constitute a complete Torah personality (ben Torah).