Today we will continue to discuss Bitachon lessons from Sefirat HaOmer. As we mentioned yesterday, according to many opinions, Sefirat HaOmer is not directly related to Yetziat Mitzrayim or Matan Torah. Although, seemingly by coincidence, they occur at the same time of year, in actuality it is really about counting from the Omer Korban, a barley offering that was brought on the second day of Pesach , until the wheat offering that was brought 49 days later on Shavuot.
Of course, it must be more than a coincidence, but the focus is on those two korbanot.
Yesterday, we discussed the first bitachon point related to Sefirat HaOmer which is, as the Sefer Hachinuch says, in order to realize Hashem’s hashgacha in providing food for us.
But there is a further, deeper point, which is that we count a 49 day cycle of seven sets of seven, ending on the 50th day. The reasons for this, as explained by the Hizkuni ( one of the Rishonim), is that we have another counting, where we are told וספרת לך“You should count,”- individually, (as opposed to “you should count,” וספרתם לכםin plural.)
This other counting occurred during the times of the Bet HaMikdash, when we counted the Shemitah cycles. A farmer worked his field for six years, and rested in the seventh year, which is called the Shemitah, or sabbatical year. After seven sets of seven, which is 49 years, there would be a Yovel, or Jubilee year, in the 50th year. In that last cycle, there were two years where they would not work their fields. And then the cycle would start again.
The significance of this is that you take off a year, every seven years, in order to say to Hashem, “You own the land, it is not my land.”
Every 50 years, In the Jubilee year, if any people had sold their ancestral fields over the years, they would hit the restart button and everybody would go back to their original land, that they had received when the Jewish people entered Israel in the time of Yehoshua. This, again, is a clear statement that we do not own the land. That is the message of Shemita. “We are only sojourners on the land. G-d owns the land.”
This is similar to the feudal system that existed in the past, where people rented their fields but didn’t own them- the government did. So too, in life, Hashem owns everything. Everything is Hashem’s. We are just renters, temporary people on the land that G-d owns.
That is the shemitah message, and the farmer learned it. Every six years he would just leave his field fallow and nobody had any control of anything.
That happens every seven years. But what about a regular year when he’s actually working the field? How can he realize, while working the field, that it’s not his?
The way the farmer remembers every year is through the miniature 49 day cycle that we count, which reminds him of the 49 year cycle. That’s a Hiddush to many people. How many people realize that there is a connection between the two sets of 49s? In Parashat Emor and Parashat Behar, back to back, the Torah talks about these two 49 countings. 49 days, where the 50th day is Shavuot, and 49 years followed by the 50th Jubilee year. The Hizkuni says it’s the same message. So again, Sefirat HaOmer comes back to a Bitachon message. The 49 days are a miniature 49 year cycle. At the end of a week of counting, it’s like the seventh year- it’s a mini shemitah. Every seven days of the Omer represents a shemitah year.
All of these countings are in order to remind us of that fundamental message- we don’t own our land. The barley is the blessing of G-d, the wheat is the blessing of G-d, and it’s all here for us to serve Hashem.
For two days in a row, we have discussed messages for the business man. According to those Rishonim, this is not a high and lofty counting. We aren’t looking forward to Matan Torah- this has nothing to do with that, on a simple level
Tomorrow, B’ezrat Hashem, we will try to connect the two, but for the past two days, we’ve discussed the simple level. Korban HaOmer reminds us that Hashem supervises our food. The 49 days of counting remind us of the 49 year counting, a mini shemitah/Yovel cycle, put into every single year so that we never forget that important message, that the land belongs to G-d, and we are only temporary residents here.