“Time is money,” they say. But is it true? Sure, you can make money at any given time, but equating the two is very shallow. Consider these differences between time and money: Everyone has access to any given moment in time, whereas money is not equally available. No one can take away time from you whereas money can be stolen. And finally, money can be accumulated, whereas time is exactly what it is and there is no way to grow it.
Now that we’ve established time is not money we can appreciate why Judaism insists the most important commodity is time and the most important Jewish attribute is valuing time. Here is what I mean.
In this week’s parsha we learn that on the second day of Passover Jews living in the Holy Temple era harvested an “omer” measurement of barley, baked it into matzah, and brought it as a wave offering in the Holy Temple. From the day that “omer” measurement of barley was offered we are obligated to count seven weeks, a total of forty-nine days, and the fiftieth day is the festival of Shavuot - the day we commemorate the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai and our conversion to Judaism. This seven-week process is called “Sefirat HaOmer - Counting of the Omer” and today we are at the midpoint of the counting period. Since in Judaism the day begins in the evening, we recite the blessing and count “Sefirat HaOmer” right after dark. On the first evening, we said “Today is one day to the Omer.” On the second day, we said “Today is two days to the Omer.” Last night we said, “Today is twenty-four days, which is three weeks and three days to the Omer.” See all the details here. Most mitzvot involve the usage of a holy object such as a Torah scroll, a pair of Tefillin, or a Mezuzah. Others are intentional actions done with specific objects such as eating in a Sukkah, eating Matzah on Passover, and the like. But during the seven weeks of “Sefirat HaOmer” we are counting the days. Since we count it at the beginning of the 24 hours and have no idea how the day will turn out, we are not even counting the good things we did that day, just the time itself. What is the purpose of counting the days, and how does this process prepare us for Mount Sinai and our conversion to Judaism? The Torah seldom describes the virtues of our Jewish heroes, but about Abraham the first Jew the Torah declares, “Abraham was old, coming in days.” A literal reading of the words “coming in days” can be understood to mean “He had all of his days with him.” Abraham was awesome because he filled his days with goodness, devotion, and service. Not even one day of his life was wasted. He appreciated the value of time, the gift of time, and the responsibility he had as the custodian of time, and used every moment to its fullest. This is a character trait every Jew is expected and empowered to emulate. Counting the day as it begins allows us to focus on the amazing gift that has just been granted to us, and be motivated to use it wisely. Doing this for seven weeks sets us on track to making this habitual, preparing ourselves to be our best version of the first Abraham, G-d’s ambassador to bring divine goodness and clarity to the world.