Dear Kehilá:
We are approaching the festival of Shavuot, the Time of the Giving of the Torah, on the 6th of Sivan (it begins on the night of June 12th).
Shavuot is the culmination of the Counting of the Omer, the 50th day.
Our sages explain that one of the reasons we count the days from Passover to Shavuot is because the Jewish people, from their exodus from Egypt, longed to reach Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. So great was their longing that they counted each day as they drew closer to this momentous event.
Seeing the love that the People had for His Torah, God established, in remembrance of the counting of those Jews, a Mitzvah of counting, year after year, the days from Pesach - the Exodus from Egypt - until Shavuot - the Giving of the Torah.
From the anxiety of the people who left Egypt, we can draw a very interesting lesson: if they, after having seen so many miracles, were still so eager to receive the Torah (which means that the Torah is even higher than all those miracles), how eager and curious should we be to discover the beauty of the Torah?
Counting the Omer helps us realize what we have in our hands, God's "precious gift." Let us not waste it.