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This book by Rabbi Simon Jacobson is a guide to personal refinement designed to take the reader on a forty-nine step journey through the human personality, refining and perfecting areas of the emotions as the journey progresses. Each day of sefirah has in it a specific area for growth and exercises for positive change.
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Now more than ever, people from all walks of life are searching for meaning and purpose. Some look for answers in meditation, self-help books, therapy, religion, yoga, twelve-step programs, and New Age philosophies.
Many people, however, are unaware that the oldest -- and most time-tested -- answer was given to us over 3300 years ago at Mount Sinai. It is called: The Torah
Torah means instruction. The Torah and its stories are, in essence, the story of our lives, a spiritual blueprint that illuminates the intricate layers and dimensions of our psyches and souls. Every event in Torah reflects another aspect of our inner personality. Through its mitzvot, or commandments, the Torah teaches us how to actualize ourselves according to G-d's intentions in creating us. By deciphering the Torah code, we disclose its personal message for us.
IN THE TORAH'S EVERY WORD THERE IS DEEP, PERSONAL & SPIRITUAL MEANING.
The process of receiving the Torah at Sinai actually began 49 days prior to its being given with the exodus from Egypt. These forty-nine days are traditionally called "Sefirat Ha'Omer," which means the counting of the omer.
In Leviticus (the third book of the Torah) 23:15, the verse states, "You shall count...from the day that you brought the omer as a wave offering." The omer was a measure of barley (approximately two quarts) that the Jews brought as the mincha or afternoon offering on the second day of Passover. This was followed by the counting of the omer where the Jews counted every day for seven weeks - forty-nine days in total--leading up to the festival of Shavuot on the fiftieth day which also celebrates the receiving of the Torah at Sinai.
Even after the destructions of the First and Second Temples where the omer offering was brought, the tradition of counting the omer continued. Beginning with the second night of Passover, every one of these forty-nine days binding Passover to Shavuot is counted in orderly progression.
At the end of the evening prayer on each of these forty-nine nights, a Jew recites a blessing and then verbalizes the number of that day. In addition to commemorating the counting of the omer, the forty-nine days of sefirah also express a Jew's eager anticipation of receiving the Torah on Shavuot, fifty days after experiencing the liberation of Passover.
The answer to the significance of counting lies in a deeper understanding of the exodus of the Jewish nation from Egypt. The word "mitzrayim" (Egypt in Hebrew) means limitations and boundaries, and represents all forms of conformity and definition that restrain, inhibit or hamper our free movement and expression. Thus, leaving Egypt means freedom from constraints.
After leaving Egypt, the Jews spent the next forty-nine days in the desert preparing themselves spiritually for the most monumental experience of all time: the giving of the Torah to Moses and the Jewish people at Mount Sinai.
This forty-nine day period was one of intense character refinement. For forty-nine days, the Jews climbed one step at a time up the emotional ladder toward a higher purity. This period of character refinement has just as much relevance to our lives today as it did over 3,000 years ago. Just as we were slaves in Egypt, we can also be slaves to our personalities, driven by forces over which we often seem to have no control.
The forty-nine days of sefirah teach us how to regain control over our emotions, showing us how to refine our characters, step by step, in a way that is based on the eternal truths of Torah.
After the forty-nine-day period, we arrive at the fiftieth day, matan Torah (the giving of the Torah), having fully achieved inner renewal by merit of having assessed and developed each of our forty-nine attributes. On this day we celebrate the Festival of Shavuot. After we have accomplished all we can through our own initiative, then we are worthy to receive a gift (matan) from Above which we could not have achieved with our own limited faculties. We receive the ability to reach and touch the Divine; not only to be cultivated human beings who have refined all of our personal characteristics, but divine human beings who are capable of expressing ourselves above and beyond the definitions and limitations of our beings.
The Hebrew word "sefirah" has several meanings. The famous Kabbalist, the RaMak (R. Moshe Kordevero, d. 1570), in his monumental work the Pardes, writes that "sefirah" means both "mispar," meaning number and "sipur," as in telling a story. A third root of "sefirah" is "sapir," a sapphire stone, which is a translucent crystal that shines brightly.