A Mitzvah of Time and Place
In our last Parsha Insight on Acharei mot-Kedoshim, we discussed the need to live simultaneously in the quantitative specified world ofHalacha and the mystical, immeasurable spiritual world too. We should be capable of functioning in a place unlimited by the three spacial dimensions and in a moment ungoverned by time. It is strange that the very next week in Parshat Emor, we are given the Mitzvah of Sefirat He’Omer that we are currently busy practicing. This is a mitzvah of counting time from a point in the past toward a point in the future. It is about a journey from a very defined place,Mitzrayim (Egypt), to another very defined place, Sinai. Far from being focused on the present moment and place, we focus on the passage of time and our movement between places.
Yet, even in this very quantifiable Mitzvah of counting time, we find a simultaneous focus on the unquantifiable. The Torah commands us to count seven weeks, “Temimot Tiheyenah [1]” (they shall be complete weeks). From this phrase we learn [2] that we need to count in the evenings and a number of other very quantifiable laws. But the word Temimot does not only mean “complete”, it also means “perfect”. This leads the Midrash [3] to introduce the qualitative statement, “When are they (the weeks) perfect? At a time that Israel carries out the will of Makom (G-d).”
The Fifth Dimension – in Time
The Midrash here introduces us to a new spectrum similar to time, a new dimension, the fifth dimension of kabalah: The spiritual dimension of Meaning and Value. Each of the three dimensions of space has two directions. This is expressed in the six directions in which we move our Lulavim on Sucot. Time also has two directions: Forward and backward. The Jew lives with a fifth dimension too: the dimension of G-d’s will. This dimension also has two directions: good and evil, right and wrong. The Midrash tells us that this fifth dimension is more closely tied to the dimension of time than to those of space. To make a period in time “complete”, it needs to be spiritually complete too.
The mere quantitative completion of a measure of time is not yet a complete measure for the Jew. A complete twenty-four hour period is not a complete day in the true sense of the word. Nor is a full seven days necessarily a complete week. A complete day is a day in which we fulfilled our Divine missions, we carried out Retzono shel Makom (the will of G-d). G-d asks of us to count seven complete weeks. He wants weeks that are not only complete in their measurement of 49 complete time units, but also of seven weeks of Divine mission accomplishment. Divine mission accomplishment gives meaning and completeness to time.
The Fifth Dimension – in Space
Space too has a spiritual non-quantifiable dimension to it. In the very Midrash we quoted above, G-d is referred to by an unusual name: Makom (Place). G-d, the most unquantifiable idea that exists, is called Makom: the very manifestation of three dimensional measurement! That is not to imply that there is anything three dimensional about G-d, but rather that there is something infinite and unquantifiable about place. Why, asks the Midrash [4], do we call Him Makom? Because, “he is the place of the world and the world is not His place.” The universe is contained by G-d. G-d is the ultimate unquantifiable, infinite space.
Space therefore, contained as it is within G-d Himself, is a place of Sanctity, it is a place resonating with huge amounts of Divine energy, a place in which not only are we nourished by that energy, but we can also build that energy, amplify it, magnify it and access it for both good and for bad. Time also has an energy to it: momentum, tempo, rhythm. We can access that tempo and momentum also for good or for bad.
Most Mitzvot function at the intersection of time and space: We use a Lulav (a three dimensional object, space, a “cheftza shel mitzvah”) on Sucot (time). We put on tzitzit and tefilin (space) each day (time). Some Mitzvot entail time alone: Shabbat, Shema. Others entail space alone: Mezuza, Ma’akeh. We are either filling space with meaning or filling time with meaning and sometimes both at once. Space and time are empty vessels that we either sanctify or profane by the meaning we give to them.
Every Mitzvah (excepting the Mitzvot Halev – Mitzvot of thought such as Emunah, the Mitzvah to believe in G-d at all times), is an action that focuses us simultaneously on the structure of time and place and on the spiritual dimension of meaning and intention. Our Torah is not a religion of ritual requiring nothing but prescribed actions in specific times at specific places or using specific objects. Nor is it not a religion of philosophy and meditation. It is a continuous practice of supplying meaning and value to time and space. It requires the capacity to live in the two worlds about which I wrote last week: the measurable and the immeasurable. It is about action and thought…infused into one.
We are not meant to be servants of time and place. Our schedules are not our G-ds, and the objects we collect and own are not our temples. Both our time and our space are limited measurable vessels given to us to fill with infinite meaning and immeasurable value. Each moment, day, week, we can question the value we have added to that time. Each space we occupy, each object we handle or manage, we should examine for the meaning we have given to it. In what way can this interaction, that relationship, this situation, that object, be uplifted by my engagement in it?
Counting the Omer is not a nightly ritual of formulistic utterance. It is focusing our attention every evening on a day that has just unfolded before us [5]. We are a day further in time from a point in space we are trying to escape: Mitzrayim, which means narrowness and limitation. We are a day closer to a point in space we crave to reach: Sinai. But have we also traveled on the fifth spectrum of meaning and value? Are we not only completing our time but also fulfilling our missions? Have we moved in that spiritual direction too? Are we merely filling space or are we also fulfilling the intent of the Divine infinite Space, Makom, Hashem Himself? This, the nightly counting is the challenge to self.
Footnotes:
[1] Vayokra 23:15
[2] Menachot 65b
[3] Vayikra Rabbah 28:3
[4] Bereishit Rabbah 68:10
[5] In Torah, the day begins at nightfall, not sunrise.
