You Shall Count Sefirot For Yourselves

The following is based on a Hebrew Text from Reb Zalman’s Sefer, Yishmiru Daat.  Click here for Reb Zalman’s text in Hebrew. (Freely translated by Gabbai Seth Fishman)

(Leviticus 23: 15):

You shall count Sefirot for  yourselves / וספרתם לכם

i.e., your preoccupation should be one of bringing within qualities of inner light for inner shining,

following the example of Shabbos / ממחרת השבת

i.e. the kind of holiness you have on Pesach should spill forth into the days that follow,

from the day you bring the Omer as a wave offering
/ מיום הביאכם את עומר התנופה

to raise up the cattle food (meaning you’re raising up your Nefesh HaBehamit / animal soul), – whoever does this gives something of a brightness to the inner self.  From the day (Pesach) on which you raise yourselves from the world to Him Yitbarach,

there will be seven weeks with qualities of simple wholeness,
                                                        / שבע שבתות תמימות תהיינה

the weeks will become seven shabbosim which are going to spill over into the other days of the week,

until the day after the seventh week then you’re counting fifty days
                                         / עד ממחרת השבת השביעית תספרו חמישים יום

it’s likely that you will catch a glimpse of the fiftieth gate and then you will have acquired a receptivity for the holy Torah (on Shavuot).

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