THE DAY WE DO NOT COUNT IN THE SEFIRAH IS THE
FIRST DAY OF PESACH; THE EXODUS ITSELF. ON THAT
DAY, WE EXPERIENCED SOMETHING COMPLETELY
OUTSIDE OF OUR NORMATIVE REALITY.
The Vilna Gaon points out that the words
‘Yetzias Miztrayim’ are mentioned
50 times in the Torah. This parallels the
50 days between Pesach and Shavuos, the
sefiras ha’omer period, in which we count
every day until the day we reached our
pinnacle as a nation and received the
Torah. We start counting from the second
day of Pesach, the day after the actual exodus. It’s well known that on every day of
the sefirah period, we are given the spiritual ability to affect and perfect different
areas of our personality, different middos, until ultimately we can achieve true
perfection on the festival of Shavuos, like
we did at Har Sinai. Every day that we
step towards the perfection of Hashem,
we step away from the impurity of Mitzrayim. Hence, as the Vilna Gaon teaches,
there are 50 exoduses from Egypt.
This is also hinted to at the beginning
of parshas Beshallach, as it says: “And it
was when Pharaoh sent out the people.”
The question is obvious, Hashem sent out
the Jews, not Pharaoh! The answer
Chazal give is that although Hashem
freed us, Pharaoh escorted the Jews out
of the land. This means that as the Jews
were leaving, and as they moved towards
Har Sinai, elements of Pharaoh and Mitzrayim still lingered with them, and each
day the connection with Pharaoh became
weaker. Similarly, they were concerned to
travel by the land of the Plishtim, because in parshas Noach (Breishis 10:14)
we learn that Plishtim comes from Mitzrayim, so the Jews, still somewhat connected and susceptible to the impurity of
Egypt, were nervous to travel anywhere
near the relative of such a nation.
The day we do not count in the sefirah
is the first day of Pesach; the exodus itself. On that day, we experienced something completely outside of our normative reality. Climbing on the ladder out
from the 49th level of impurity, we
should have gone up rung by rung, experiencing the first level of purity, then the
second, then the third, and so on, until
finally achieving the 49th level of holiness
(the 50th being reserved for Hashem Himself). But upon the culmination of all ten
plagues, and having Hashem Himself
strike down the firstborns and passing
over the Jewish homes, we experienced a
burst of spirituality and holiness that catapulted us straight to the 49th level.
The Maggid of Mezritch gives us an
analogy of this incredible experience.
Someone is walking around in the darkness (perhaps from load-shedding) and
he doesn’t know where he is going. Suddenly, a flash of light illuminates everything, and he sees somewhere in the distance a royal chamber full of beautiful
decorations, jewels, food and furniture.
Then, the light goes out and he cannot
see the path again. All that’s left from
that experience of light is the will and the
desire to reach the chamber – and this
motivates him, with his hard work, as he
clambers and fumbles on the path to ultimately reach his destination. So too, says
the Maggid, the Jewish people experienced a flash of light, showing them the
end goal even though they were far away
from it. We were released from Mitzrayim
in a hasty flash, but the light faded. We
experienced what it would be like on the
highest level of holiness, but all that was
left on the second day of Pesach was the
burning desire to reach that destination.
This was the chipazon, the haste of our
exodus. Where we were rushed to the
peak of our potential in order to fill us
with the desire to meet Hashem after a
50-day marathon of achieving perfection.
That one day, we were hurriedly pushed
to the front of the line, to glimpse at
what could be. Through the fifty days that
follow, we have what we need to motivate
us in our own efforts and hard work to
perfect ourselves and to leave behind the
remnants of Egypt, and stride towards
perfection and, ultimately, a closeness
with Hashem so perfect that King Solomon refers to it as a moment when Hashem kissed us on the lips, so to speak.
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