Carpe Diem in the NICU
Guest Post by Dov Brysh
There is a question that a lot of people ask about Sefiras Ha’omer. It goes like this: surely we should count down to Matan Torah, not up? After all, when people are looking forwards to something it is quite normal to think “just 8 more days to go!”, much more so than “it’s been 41 days since I started counting to the Big Event!”.
I have to admit that I’ve never really got the question. I mean, for starters the mitzvah is called sefiras ha’omer, not sefiras matan Torah. The mitzvah, at its core, doesn’t really have anything to do with Matan Torah. We simply bring a specific korban, count a number of days, and then at the end we have Shavuos which for the bnei eretz Yisrael doesn’t even fall on the day that Matan Torah occurred on. But there’s more to my not getting it than that.
Let me explain.
Many years ago now I was sitting in a hospital room in what is still colloquially called Crumpsall Hospital (because NMGH just sounds a bit corporate really), whilst a team of midwives and doctors tried desperately to keep my wife pregnant for a few more weeks. When, after a day or so, they realised that they couldn’t, and that we would have to be transferred to a hospital equipped with a NICU that would be able to care for a baby born before 30 weeks and under 1kg I started, quite naturally, to get quite scared.
As one does in these kinds of situations, I took immediate action – I sat in the corner and had a panic attack.
After that, I rang R’ Gershon Miller to seek his sage advice. “I talk a good Emunah and bitachon game,” I remember telling him, “but push comes to shove and suddenly here I am completely unable to cope. What do I do?”.
His advice honestly (and believe me this is not exaggeration for dramatic effect) changed my life. He told me this: “When you wake up in the morning, focus on today. Focus on what is here, now. Use the energy that HKBH has given you today for today. And then tomorrow, do the same again.”
And this is why I don’t understand the sefiras ha’omer question. Imagine if it was a countdown, what would we be thinking each night?
On second night pesach - “49 days to go, that’s ages away. I’ve got plenty of time”.
A week or so later - “38 days to go, ach that’s loads of time”.
24 days - “oh yeah, that’s still over 3 weeks to go, no stress”.
13 days - “ok, it’s getting closer but there’s still almost 2 weeks, don’t sweat it!”.
9 days.
6 days.
3 days - “oh no! shavuos is almost here, help!”
1 day “where did all the time go?!”
But with a count up, now what?
“Day 1! What can we do with it?”
Day 15 - “what can I get out of today?”
Day 26 - “another gift of a day, let’s make the best use of it!”
Day 38 – “wow, look how far I’ve come! How can I improve today?”
By counting up, we count each day for itself and not as something to get past on the way to a destination far away in time. R’ Asher Weiss points out that the words “us’fartem lachem” could also vocalised as “v’sapir tam lachem” – “(and) a pure sapphire for you”. Each day is its own precious jewel; it is a flawless gem. It is yours to polish and shine to perfection; you count it for itself and in addition to the jewels you have already gained.
And if that sounds like a chasidishe vort to you, nu, sue me. Even I can do a chasidishe vort every now and then. But the point remains this: when Dovid Hamelech asks HKBH “lim’nos yomeinu kein hodah, v’navi l’vav chochmah” – “teach us to count our days, so that it will bring us a heart of wisdom” that’s not a chasidishe vort - that’s the power of seizing the day.
Post Script
We made that little baby’s bat mitzvah just before Pesach BH. And her speech was about מודה אני and living each day with gratitude. Which she wrote herself and without ever seeing this dvar Torah or hearing the story of my phone call. Not sure if HKB”H was giving her some kind of inspiration or she’s just picked up on the values we try to live by.