The Twelve-Step Program has a special chip for ninety days sober. They also encourage ninety meetings in ninety days. TIn a light-hearted vein, Rabbi Twerski sent this to us:
n a light-hearted vein, Rabbi Twerski sent this to us:
The transformation that occurred at the Exodus from Egypt, from a slave mentality to the spirituality of “naaseh venishma,” was miraculous. How did it occur? With the mitzvah of Sefirah, taking it “one day at a time.”
Why then, was there so great a failure at the episode of the golden calf? Perhaps because it was only forty-nine days, not
ninety.
The Bnei Yissaschar notes that the giving of the Torah was a
“wedding,” a union of Hashem and klal Yisrael. Prior thereto, the Jews had been bound to the avodah zarah of Egypt. He then asks, the halachah says that a widow or divorcee must wait ninety days before taking a new husband. Shouldn’t there have been a ninety-day waiting period before Matan Torah?
He answers that beginning with the seventh day of Sefirah, we do a “double count,” e.g., “Today is seven days, which is one week.” “Today is eleven days, which is one week plus four days.” Thus we count six single days, and forty-three “double days.” The double days = 43 x 2 = 86, plus six single days, so you have more than the requisite 90.
(Rabbi Twerski then adds in jest:)
But if so, why did they relapse to the avodah zarah of the golden calf?
Because the program requires ninety meetings in ninety days. Doubling up and making ninety meetings in forty-five days doesn’t work.