Following excerpts from “Up For The Count” by Rabbi Nosson Weisz, of Aish Jerusalem, concerning the Parsha Emor.
One of the major topics covered by our Parsha is the description of all the holidays we celebrate throughout the year and the major mitzvot that are associated with them. One of these mitzvot centers around the Omer sacrifice, the offering of a measure of the new and still unripe barley crop on the second day of Passover.
“You shall count for yourselves – from the morrow of the rest day, from the day when you bring the Omer wave-offering – seven weeks, they shall be complete. Until the morrow of the seventh week you shall count, fifty days; and you shall offer a new meal-offering to God.” (Levicitus 23: 15-16)
These verses command us to count the days of the Omer, the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot, the day the Torah was given on Mount Sinai. We are presently in the midst of counting these days; it is appropriate to attempt to delve into their significance.
Nachmanides in his commentary on the Torah (Leviticus 23:36) compares Passover to Succot. He explains that although they are superficially different – Passover is a seven-day holiday whereas Succot contains eight days – the difference in the duration of the holidays vanishes on deeper analyses. The days of the Omer – the chunk of time that we count between Passover and Shavuot – should be regarded as days of Chol Hamoed that join the two holidays together, so that in reality, Shavuot is actually the eighth day of Passover making them both eight day holidays. We shall attempt to explore the connection between Passover and Succot and the significance of eight-day holidays in this essay.
