Shabbat Parshat Emor - 5763
Between Birth and Bar Mitzvah

The Exodus of the Jewish People from slavery in Egypt, commemorated by the Holiday of Pesach, can be said to be the birth of our People. That same year, some 3,300 years ago, only seven weeks later, the Jewish People assembled at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah from Heaven and embrace its Mitzvot, its Divine commands. That signal event in Jewish and World History, commemorated by the Holiday of Shavuot, could be called the Bar-Mitzvah of our People.

The time from Pesach to Shavuot is marked by Sefirat HaOmer, the Mitzvah to count the days between the bringing of the Omer Sacrifice on the second day of Pesach until the bringing of the Minchah Chadashah la-HaShem, the new Meal Offering unto the L-rd. This command is introduced in Parshat Emor (VaYikra 23:15) “And you shall count for yourselves – from the day after the Day of Rest, the day on which you bring the waved Omer Offering, seven complete weeks.” This requirement of counting “seven complete weeks,” or forty-nine days, suggests that there are forty-nine spiritual levels that one must attain before one is ready to accept the Torah and bring “Bikkurim,” one’s first fruits, to HaShem.

Mishnah (5:25) of Pirkei Avot identifies the general goals that Judaism associates with particular ages. “He (Yehudah ben Tema) used to say, ‘A five-year-old begins the study of the Written Torah; a ten-year-old begins the study of Mishnah; a thirteen-year-old boy assumes the obligation of the commandments; a fifteen-year-old begins the study of Gemara; an eighteen-year-old goes to the marriage canopy; a twenty-year-old begins pursuit of a livelihood; a thirty-year-old attains full strength; a forty-year-old attains full understanding;...’ ” and similar benchmarks for the ages of 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 years of age. These have not changed much since the time of the Mishnah.

Pirkei Avot there portrays the ideal development of a Jew; the gradual at first and then more rapid unfolding of one’s intellectual and spiritual potential from “baby steps” to prodigious feats. It assumes a successful interplay between personal dedication and “Seyata Di’Shemaya,” Divine intervention. In all areas of knowledge, and certainly in Torah, it is true that growth stems from a person’s efforts combined with assistance from Heaven.

The situation is similar to that which is stated with regard to HaShem’s instruction to the Baal Teshuvah, the individual who approaches G-d with humility in order to repent. HaShem says, “Make an opening for me the size of the opening in a sewing needle, and I will enlarge it for you as wide as the entrance to the Temple.” The student as well approaches G-d with humility, realizing the extent of his ignorance, plus a willingness to invest all of his energy. And HaShem tells him or her, “Grapple with the ideas to the full extent of your ability, and I will come to your aid with insight upon insight.”

Therefore, Judaism has tremendous respect and appreciation for scholarship, both in Torah and Mada. This can be seen in the fact that blessings are recited upon encountering a great scholar in either area. For a scholar in a secular field, the following blessing is pronounced: “Blessed are You, HaShem, King of the Universe, Who has given of His Knowledge to human beings.” For an outstanding Talmid Chacham, this blessing is recited, the text of which reveals an even-closer connection of the scholar with the Owner of the Knowledge: “Blessed are You, HaShem, King of the Universe, Who has shared His Knowledge with those who fear Him.”

There is a familiar Midrash that before birth, a Malach learns with the unborn child in its mother’s womb all of the Torah and, at birth, strikes the child in such a manner that he or she forgets all they had learned, and must start over again. Perhaps the Midrash applies not only to Torah, but to all the ideas that a human being is capable of conceiving. All the potential connections are laid, “hard-wired,” as it were, into the circuitry of the brain, to use a crude analogy. And it is up to the parents and the teachers, but mainly to the child, through “yegiah” and “amalah,” diligent and persistent effort, to develop and realize that potential.

Last weekend, the Old Man of the Mountain, a famous rock formation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, that happened to resemble the face of an old man, fell from where it had been sitting for some thirty thousand years, since the time that geologists say it was carved by a glacier. It was only a matter of time before the natural forces of wind and rain and gravity would bring it down. There the resemblance was an “accident” and the fate of the rock formation was an “accident.”

How far the White Mountains are from Mount Sinai! And how different is such a scenario from the acquisition of and the reward for human spiritual and intellectual growth. In that realm, the Righteous Judge of the World allows no “accidents” to affect a person’s achievements. We praise HaShem in Yigdal: “Gomel l’ish chessed k’mifalo;” “He rewards a person with loving-kindness in exact proportion to what he has built and accomplished.” HaShem commanded Yehoshua concerning the Torah (Yehoshua 1:8), “And you shall labor in it day and night.” And the Rambam writes in Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:13 that if a person labors at night in the study of Torah, he is rewarded by having a “thread of loving-kindness set around him during the day.”

Rabbi Pinchas Frankel

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