Seeking the Week

ESSAY: Seeking the Week
The quest to piece together seven complete weeks out of forty-nine disjointed days

INSIGHTS
The Gift
If G-d is infinite, all-present and all-knowing, can any human act be man’s own?
The Upside-Down Tree
We amass wisdom in order that it guide and sustain our deeds; or is it the other way around?

And you shall count for yourselves from the morrow of the Sabbath, from the day on which you bring the omer offering, seven complete weeks shall there be; until the morrow of the seventh week you shall count fifty days...

The teachings of Kabbalah and Chassidism describe seven basic character traits in the heart of man: chessed (love, benevolence); gevurah (restraint, awe, fear); tiferet (harmony, synthesis); netzach (competitiveness); hod (devotion); yesod (communicativity) and malchut (regality, receptiveness). Each of these traits includes nuances of all seven, making a total of forty-nine aspects of human character.

This is the deeper significance of the “counting of the omer,” the mitzvah to count forty-nine days from Passover to Shavuot. As the above-quoted verse specifies, the mitzvah is to count both the days and the weeks. (Thus, on the seventh day we say, “Today is seven days, which are one week, to the omer”; on the eighth day we say, “Today is eight days, which are one week and one day, to the omer”; and so on). For the count corresponds to the forty-nine elements of the heart, which consist of seven “weeks” each comprised of seven “days.”

The counting of the omer is our annual re-experience of our ancestors’ forty-nine-day count from their Exodus from Egypt to the revelation at Mount Sinai. Four generations of subjection to the most depraved society on earth had caused them to sink into the “forty-nine gates of profanity,” contaminating every trait and sub-trait in their character. Following their liberation from Egypt, they embarked on a process of purification, in order that they be worthy to receive the Torah from G-d at Sinai. Each day, they grappled with another corner of their heart, cleansing it and refining it; each week, they completed the perfection of another of the seven basic components of their character. Forty-nine days after the Exodus, they presented their perfected selves to G-d, who chose them as His “kingdom of priests and holy nation,”[1] and communicated to them their charter as His people—the Torah.

Each year, we repeat the process. On Passover, we are granted the potential to liberate ourselves from the profanities in which we have become enmeshed as a result of our servitude to material life. But this is only an “arousal from Above,” a flash of freedom which must now be internalized through painstaking self-refinement. We count the days and the weeks to Shavuot, focusing on our corresponding minor traits and basic characteristics in the quest for a perfected self.

When the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple) stood in Jerusalem, an offering of a measure (omer[2]) of barley, brought on the second day of Passover, marked the commencement of the seven-week count. Barley serves mainly as animal feed; the omer offering thus represented a state of man in which his “animal soul” (his physical drives and desires) requires refinement and rectification. On the fiftieth day—Shavuot—an offering of two loaves made of wheat was brought, signifying that we have graduated to human food—that we have attained the true potential of man as a creature who transcends the merely animal.

Today, we lack the opportunity to bring the omer offering on Passover and the “two loaves” on Shavuot. This, because we are in a state of galut (“exile”), deprived of the Beit HaMikdash and the divine presence it introduced into our lives. In galut, the mitzvot we perform are but faint echoes of those performed in the Temple era.[3] Daily we pray for the restoration of a relationship with G-d uninhibited by the distortions of the spiritual darkness we inhabit today.

If we cannot offer the omer or the “two loaves,” at least we can count the days. But even the mitzvah of counting the omer has been diminished by the galut. According to most halachic authorities,[4] the count has true significance only when it follows the offering of the omer; thus, our counting today is not a full-fledged biblical commandment (mitzvah d’oraita), but a rabbinical ordinance that merely commemorates the mitzvah fulfilled in the times of the Beit HaMikdash.

Maimonides, however, is of the opinion that even today, counting the omer is a biblical precept.[5] A third opinion is an interesting combination of the first two: according to Rabbeinu Yerucham,[6] it is a biblical mitzvah to count the days also when the Beit HaMikdash is not extant, but the mitzvah to count the weeks applies only when the omer is offered, and is thus today only a rabbinical commandment.[7]

What does this mean in terms of our internal “counting of the omer”? That while we are able today to refine specific elements of our character—perhaps even all forty-nine of them—we lack the capacity to piece these together into a perfect self.

The quest for perfection proceeds at all times and under all conditions, even in the darkest hours of galut. Advances are made in this quest, pinpoints of perfection achieved within an imperfect self and world. But actual perfection—including the actual perfection of a complete portion of the soul—can only be attained when the divine home is restored in our midst. Today, we might hold all the pieces of the puzzle in our hands, yet the complete picture eludes us. Only upon our emergence from galut will the forty-nine days of our soul amount to seven complete weeks.

Rabbi Akiva would say... All is foreseen, choice is granted, and the world is judged in kindness

These three points, expressed by Rabbi Akiva in one sentence, are interconnected.

The statement, “All is foreseen,” raises two questions. The most basic truth about G-d is that He is omnipotent: infinite, all-knowing, present and active in every point of time and space even as He transcends these parameters. But if such is the case, can man’s actions be the product of his independent choice? It’s not just a question of “If G-d knows what I’m going to do, how could I have chosen?”; the more basic problem is: “If G-d’s knowledge of the future is the product of His all-pervading and exclusive power, how can I possess any power that is not utterly subservient to His?”[9]

Yet the principle of free choice is basic to our very definition as moral beings. In the words of Maimonides, if man’s actions were not freely chosen, “how could G‑d command us through the prophets ‘Do this’ and ‘Do not do this,’ ‘Improve your ways’ and ‘Do not follow your wickedness’...? What place would the entire Torah have? And by what measure of justice would G‑d punish the wicked and reward the righteous...?”[10] How is this to be reconciled with the equally axiomatic principle of G-d’s omnipotence?

The second question raised by the statement “All is foreseen” is: if man is constantly under the scrutiny of G-d, how can he possibly maintain the standard of behavior that this demands? The Talmud says that to make a single superfluous gesture in the presence of a king is a capital offense.[11] If we are perpetually in the presence of the King of all kings, who is the man that might be found righteous before His exacting judgment?

It is to address these two questions that Rabbi Akiva adds, “choice is granted, and the world is judged in kindness.” In answer to the first question, he says: “Choice is granted.” Indeed, man cannot possess any power or volition that is independent of G-d’s. But man does not intrinsically possess the capacity to freely determine his actions; rather, freedom of choice has been granted to man. G-d, who can do whatever He chooses, has given man a capacity that, in essence, belongs to Him alone.

To answer the second question, Rabbi Akiva says: “The world is judged in kindness.” It is true that “G-d stands over [man], and the entire world is filled with His presence; He looks upon him, and searches his reins and heart, to see if he is serving Him as is fitting.”[12] But it is also true that when “G-d first wanted to create the world with the attribute of judgment, He saw that the world could not survive it; so He combined [the attribute of judgment] with the attribute of mercy”[13]; that G-d says: “I do not demand of [My creatures] according to My capacity, but according to their capacity.”[14] A person is always in the presence of G-d, at all times subject to the divine scrutiny and judgment; but this is a scrutiny sensitive to his limitations and vulnerabilities, a judgment tempered with empathy and kindness.

Based on the Rebbe’s talks, Shabbat Parshat Emor 5738 (May 20, 1978); Sivan 23, 5740 (June 7, 1980)[15]

One whose wisdom is greater than his deeds, to what is he compared? To a tree with many branches and few roots.... But one whose deeds are greater than his wisdom, to what is he compared? To a tree with many roots and few branches....

But isn’t it the other way around? Is not wisdom the root of deed, and every act of man the outgrowth of what he knows and understands?

Indeed, the tree of life is rooted in the mind. But there are times that we act upon a conviction that does not devolve from our mind’s conception of life, and is even antithetical to it.

In his Tanya, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi discusses a phenomenon that is unique to Jewish history: the apostate martyr. Throughout the centuries, countless thousands of Jews were forced to choose between their faith and their lives; in the overwhelming majority of cases, they chose to die rather than renounce their Jewishness. Many creeds and causes have their martyrs; but Jewish martyrdom is unique in that it included many whose day-to-day lives were distant from the very principles for which they died. It is reasonable that the devout believer or the committed idealist might elect to die for the faith and ideals to which he has devoted his life; what defies all logical explanation is the fact that Jews whose understanding of Judaism was negligible, Jews who did not observe the mitzvot in their daily lives, went to their deaths rather than disavow a commitment which they had rejected in their lifetimes.

In truth, concludes Rabbi Schneur Zalman, every mitzvah is a supra-rational act, deriving from the Jew’s intrinsic, immutable bond with G-d. But only rarely are we attuned to this stratum of our being. Our daily lives are conducted on the rational plane of the psyche, where a person’s deeds are dictated by his understanding and appreciation of himself and his goals in life. But there are times—such as when our very identity faces its ultimate challenge—when our deepest self asserts itself in our thoughts and actions. Our endeavor in life should be to actualize this supreme commitment at all times, not only in “moments of truth” generated by acute crisis.[16]

In other words, there are two “trees” in the human soul. There is the tree of rational life, whose roots—the wisdom, knowledge and understanding the person has amassed—generate and nourish the branches, leaves, flowers and fruits of his actions and achievements. But underlying this tree is another tree—a tree in which deeds are the roots of wisdom. On this level, a person’s deeds are imbedded in the soil of supra-rational faith and commitment, and nourish his understanding of himself, his world and his G-d.

Rabbi Yosef Weinberg enjoyed a close working relationship with the Lubavitcher Rebbe for more than forty years, from when the Rebbe assumed the leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch in 1951. The Rebbe devoted many hours each week to reviewing and commenting on the weekly Tanya lessons that Rabbi Weinberg broadcast over the radio, and advised Rabbi Weinberg on his multi-faceted activities on behalf of the Lubavitcher Yeshivah and his other communal work.

Rabbi Weinberg tells of one incident that, to him, expresses the Rebbe’s boundless commitment to the welfare of his people. “I once had an extremely urgent matter to convey to the Rebbe,” recalls Rabbi Weinberg, “but it was late at night, and the Rebbe’s secretariat was already closed. I noticed that the light in the Rebbe’s room was on, so I did something that I would never have dared to do had the matter not been so urgent: I slipped a letter under the Rebbe’s door.

“It was several minutes before I realized the implications of what I had done: the Rebbe would have to bend down to pick up my letter from the floor! How could I possibly have done such a thing! But the deed was done, and there was nothing I could now do to prevent its consequences.

“On the next occasion that I was received by the Rebbe in yechidut (private audience), I said to him that I had done something that I deeply regretted and I hoped that the Rebbe would forgive me. I then profusely apologized for having caused the Rebbe to bend down in order to pick up my letter.

“When I finished speaking, the Rebbe looked straight at me and said: ‘But that is my job—to bend down in order to help another Jew.’”

[9]. The question, “If G-d knows what I’m going to do, how could I have chosen?” is more a difficulty of our time-contexted perception than a true logical paradox. If a fortune-teller should know what you will do tomorrow, does this mean that your actions are compelled by his knowledge? Obviously not: the hypothetical fortune-teller merely “sees” into the future and observes the result of your choice; his knowledge derives from your freely-chosen actions, not the other way around. By the same token, if G-d’s knowledge of the future were to stem from His ability to “see” into the future, this would in no way affect man’s freedom of choice. The paradox of divine foreknowledge and human choice is that G-d’s knowledge of the future is not the product of future events, but a feature of His all-pervasive reality. Nothing exists outside of G-d; He is the cause of all, and nothing outside of Him is the cause for anything in Him. (This is implicit in G-d’s infinity: a truly infinite being must be all-inclusive, since the existence of anything outside of it would imply that there is a boundary beyond which its reality does not extend.) He knows things not because they happen, but because they derive from Him. Hence the question: how does such knowledge of human affairs allow for any choice on the part of man?