Greatly Beloved by God

3 Sivan 5785
47 Days of the Omer
Erev Shabbat Kodesh
Parashat Bamidbar - Shabbat Kallah

We begin a new book in the Chumash - Bamidbar...

...Hashem spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai ..., saying: Take a census of the entire assembly of the Children of Israel according to their families, according to their fathers' household, by numbers of the names, every male according to their head count. (Num. 1:1-2).

Tanchuma, Bamidbar, 20, teaches: A man had glass vessels, and he would take them to the market, set them out and gather them back up without ever counting them. Because they were of glass, he did not keep track of them.

He had other merchandise, fine pearls, which he would count before taking to the market, before setting them out and before gathering them back up. Because they were pearls, he loved them.

In the same way, so to speak, G-d said, “I did not count the nations, since they have no importance for Me, as it says, 'all the nations are as nothing before Him, they are accounted before Him as things of naught and vanity' (Isaiah 40:17).

Yet, you, Israel, 'are borne by Me from birth, carried by Me from the womb' (Isaiah 46:3). Therefore, I count you constantly.” Thus it says, “Make a tally of the male firstborn among the children of Israel” (Num. 3:40)...

[Source: Compiled by Tzipora Liron-Pinner from "The Jerwish Idea" of Rabbi Meir Kahane HY"D]

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With regard to the upcoming holiday of Shavuot which will begin on the evening of Yom Sheini...

...Atzeret is the name used by our Sages to refer to [the Shavuot] Festival, connoting that the essence of this holiday is as a concluding eighth day for the seven days of Pesach. The intervening period of forty-nine days is not considered to be an interruption, but is seen as a prolonged chol ha-mo'ed linking the first part of the holiday with its summation. In a sense, it is similar to Shemini Atzeret - the eighth and concluding day of Sukkot - and is therefore referred to as the Atzeret of Pesach.

By right, the concluding day of Sukkot - Shemini Atzeret - should also have been celebrated fifty days after the Festival. However, because of the difficulties of traveling during the rainy season, God did not burden the people by ordaining that they return to Jerusalem a second time (Yalkut Shimoni, parashat Pinchas 782).

There are five Scriptural references to the Festival of Shavuot: ...in parashat Emor...none of [the usual] names are used, for the essence of the Festival...is as a continuation and conclusion to Pesach.   (The Book of Our Heritage by Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov)

By pointing this out, my hope is that this Atzeret of Pesach 5785 might remove the curse of the Atzeret of Sukkot 5784.

~ Shabbat Shalom and Shavuot Sameach ~