For more about Iyar, see It's Never Too Late.  

When the Jews left Egypt on the 15^th of Nissan, their journey was just beginning. The goal of the Exodus was to transform these newly freed slaves into servants of God and this process only became complete 50 days later, on the 5^th of Sivan, when we received the Torah at Mount Sinai. The month that connects Nissan and Sivan is Iyar and as we shall see, this month is all about making connections.

The main activity during this month is counting the Omer. An "omer" refers to a measure of barley (about two quarts). During the time when the Temple stood the Jews would bring this offering on the second day of Pesach and then count every day for seven weeks, in anticipation of the holiday of Shavuot.

Even after the destruction of the Temple, the Jews continued to count the 49 days in between the Exodus on Pesach and the receiving of the Torah on Shavuot. This seven-week period has always been recognized as a time for character refinement and spiritual growth, and so the significance of counting the Omer has never waned.

Through the influence of Kabbalah, each of these seven weeks has become associated with a different attribute. During Week One, we work on developing aspects of the attribute of Chessed (lovingkindness). Week Two is devoted to Gevurah (justice, restraint and discipline). Week Three is associated with Tiferet (beauty and harmony). Week Four is the time to work on Netzach (our capacity for endurance and fortitude). Week Five is the time of Hod (humility and splendor). During Week Six, we work on Yesod (bonding and creating strong foundations). The final week is associated with the attribute of Malchut (nobility and leadership).

Each new day of the Omer is officially counted during the Maariv (Evening) prayer service. During the first week, we say:

On subsequent weeks we state both the day and the week:

This system of counting conveys a subtle message. Each day of the Omer is unique and is endowed with its own unique spiritual work. On the other hand, the day does not stand alone. It is part of a larger group - the seven-day grouping that we call a week. Just as each day has its own work, so too does each week. But even more, each week is also connected to the others. All seven weeks belong to a unique period of time calling "Counting the Omer."

The counting of the Omer, therefore, has something to tell us about how we, in our own lives, can transform ourselves from being "slaves in Egypt" to free people worthy of receiving the Torah.

First, we need to recognize that each one of us is unique. We have special talents and qualities that enable us to do our own unique task in this world. However, it is not enough to only develop our individual capabilities. We also have to recognize that we belong to a larger grouping - the Jewish community of our times. Our talents and capabilities must also be devoted to strengthening this community.

But there is even more. Each one of us is an essential link in the eternal chain of Am Yisrael (the People of Israel). Our past is not just dry history. It is a living spiritual energy that fuels our present. And as each one of us makes our own unique contribution to this dynamic process, we all have a hand in propelling the Jewish people onward to the future.

Therefore it is surely no accident that Iyar is the month where past, present and future connect in ways that dazzle the soul.

As we will discuss in this month's To-Do List for the Soul, the Hebrew letter associated with Iyar is the Vav. The word "vav" means "and." Vav's job is to connect words and phrases. But the letter vav has another job to perform in Biblical Hebrew grammar. When it is placed before a verb, it changes a past tense verb into future tense, and vice versa.

These two attributes of the letter vav tell us something important about the nature of time. One the one hand, just as one day is connected to another, so too is the past connected to the future - and the future is connected to the past. On the other hand, because the letter can flip future into past and past into future, we understand that in reality "time" is very different from how we experience it. For God, Who is One, all time is one. The concepts of past and future do not exist.

We obtain a glimpse of God's view of time when we live in tune with the Jewish calendar. On Pesach, we are commanded to experience in our souls the Exodus from Egypt - the redemption from slavery to a foreign and immoral culture that corrupts the soul. It is not enough to merely repeat the words of the Haggadah. The words are vehicles to arouse the same feelings that our ancestors had when they experienced God's great might and kindness.

Similarly, on Shavuot it is not enough to just read the account of what happened at Mount Sinai thousands of years ago. We must understand with our minds and our hearts that the Torah is God's unique gift to the Jewish people. It is both our heritage from the past and what sustains us every day of our lives. On Shavuot - every Shavuot - God gives each and every Jew the Torah again. Our job is to be ready to receive its life-enhancing wisdom and incorporate it into our every thought and action.

Iyar, therefore, is the time when we are asked to re-experience on a daily basis this ancient journey from Egypt to Sinai. Every day we should try to examine the cultural values that govern our lives and determine if these are truly Jewish values or if they are, in fact, foreign values that are detrimental to the Jewish soul. Once we have identified those external cultural influences that need to be removed, we can use the period of the Omer to do some internal spiritual cleansing so that we will be open to receiving the Torah in Sivan.

Just as Iyar is the month that connects future and past, so too is it the month that connects the external and internal aspects of Jewish identity.

When the Jews left Egypt, God intended to give them two "gifts": the Torah and the Land of Israel.

The Torah gives us tools to develop those inner qualities that a Jew needs to fulfill her unique mission in this world. The many laws and statues of the Torah are meant to refine our characters and turn us into vessels worthy of receiving the Divine light and conveying this light to the rest of the world.

Although the Torah can be taken into exile - it is possible to be an ethical person in an immoral world - God wanted us to fulfill the commandments of the Torah in our own land: Eretz Yisrael. Why was having our own country so important to the Divine plan?

The reason may be that a country is much more than hills and lakes and fields and orchards. Nationhood also creates a framework for theoretical values to manifest themselves in concrete ways.

For instance, the way a language develops is a mirror for what the culture deems is important. Eskimos have many different ways of describing snow because the climate they live in makes these distinctions important. The Jews, on the other hand, have many names for God - each name expressing a different aspect of God's attributes - because we have been charged with the task of emulating God's attributes here on this earth. We have to be clear on what these attributes are if we are to successfully perform our task.

While the Jewish people lived in Eretz Yisrael the Hebrew language flourished. The language had to expand to express both the stirring expressions of faith found in King David's Psalms and the fiery visions of the Prophets. And as these words became engraved in our hearts, our hearts became more strongly connected to the values the words expressed.

In Eretz Yisrael the Jewish people could also establish our own system of justice, based upon Torah law. Therefore, in theory, there was no division between a person's internal moral compass and the values of the external society. They were both connected by the same "mortar" - the laws of the Torah.

This twin vision of the goal of the Exodus - Torah and Eretz Yisrael - is found in four dates in Iyar, which are really only three: the yarzheit (death anniversary) of Samuel the Prophet on the 28^th of Iyar; the yarzheit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on L'ag B'Omer (the 33^rd day of the Omer or the 18^th of Iyar); Israeli Independence Day on the 5^th of Iyar; and Jerusalem Day on the 28^th of Iyar.

The Prophet Samuel played an instrumental role in turning the 12 tribes of Israel into a nation. After Joshua led the Jewish people into Eretz Yisrael, each tribe settled into their own allotted territory and every person "sat under his own fig tree." There was little sense of national unity and responsibility. By the time of Samuel, the deteriorating security situation made clear that there was a need for a more centralized system of government: the people needed a king and a standing army.

Samuel first anointed Saul to be King of Israel. When Saul proved to be unsuited for the role, the mantle of kingship was transferred to David. It was David who successfully overcame Israel's enemies and established secure borders for the people.

But David, of course, was not just a warrior. He also longed to establish a dwelling place for God here on this earth. There was one problem, however. David didn't know where in Jerusalem to build the Temple. It was Samuel who had the prophetic power to locate the correct hilltop (Mount Moriah, the place where Abraham sacrificed Isaac and the place of the Even Shesia - the Foundation Rock of the world). From that time onwards the site located by Samuel became a focal point for the entire people of Israel and a symbol of our national aspirations.

Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who lived approximately one thousand years later, was also an important leader of the Jewish people but his was a very different task. Although he lived in Eretz Yisrael, by his time the Second Temple had been destroyed and the Jewish people were forced to live under Roman rule. Since the Torah could no longer be freely and fully expressed through an external framework, Shimon Bar Yochai mastered the secrets of the Torah's inner, hidden meanings. His teachings can be found in the Zohar, the classic text that is the foundation of both Kabbalah and Chassidut.

In our times, this connection between Torah and Eretz Yisrael - the internal and external aspects of Jewish identity - can be found in the two holidays of Israeli Independence Day and Jersusalem Day, which celebrates the re-unification of Jerusalem during the Six Day War.

The establishment of the modern State of Israel once again gave the Jews a national homeland - a place where they could establish institutions that would be a reflection of Jewish values. But it was only when the site of the Temple - symbol of the very heart of the Jewish people - once again came under Jewish sovereignty that the nation's "body" was connected with its "soul."

On Jerusalem Day, past and present come together. As mentioned above, the 28^th of Iyar is both the yarzheit of the Prophet Samuel - who was the one who revealed the spot where the Temple should be built - and the day when the site of the Temple was restored to our hands after a 2,000 year wait.

In the First Book of Samuel (15:29), the Prophet proclaims: The Netzach Yisrael will not lie. One interpretation of this verse is that the "eternity of Israel" will not lie - because God decreed that we become an eternal people, the Jewish people will be able to overcome every obstacle of history and survive as a nation until the end of time. The month of Iyar teaches us the secret of remaining connected to eternity: remember to count the days and remember that every day counts.