A word of Torah:

          Truth/Emet
                This week we move from the second week of counting the Omer to the third week. The kabbalists associated each week with a quality of God. In contemporary Jewish life, this has also become a focus on these qualities in our inner life. The third week is associated with the quality of truth/(emet).
                What is truth? The word emet is made up of three letters: aleph, mem, and tav. Emet then, as truth, encompasses everything from A-Z, from aleph to tav, the whole Hebrew alphabet. Truth is all-inclusive. Sometimes we bring forth only the good parts of ourselves. Other times, all we can focus on is how terrible we are, how much a failure. Yet, the truth about us is not just the extremes; it is everything. It is both what we proudly display and what we try to hide in the shadows. It is not just the extremes; it is the extremes plus everything in between.
                 Often the above teaching continues by stating that the letter mem is the middle of the alphabet and suggests a call to achieve a balance between opposing qualities. The medieval rabbinic authority, Maimonides, encouraged everyone to strive for a golden mean –between patience and impatience, between caring for others and caring for oneself etc. Yet, a closer examination reveals that mem is not the mid-point of the Hebrew alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters meaning there are two letters that are the middle letters. Mem is not one of them. The two middle letters are khof and lamed.
               While a perfect balance might be an aspiration, it is not a possibility. At best, we can achieve the two middle letters, which spell out the word for everything (khol). The truth about us is everything. We are all imperfect. We are born that way and then raised by imperfect people. Perfection isn’t the goal. An exact mid-point isn’t achievable, but getting near the middle is the whole story.
                Genesis Rabbah 8:5 tells that when God was about to create the first human, the angels divided into two groups, those who said humans should be created and those led by Truth, who said humans should not be created because they will be full of lies. In response, God took Truth and threw it down to earth. While the angels continued to argue with each other, God created humans and presented the angels with a fait accompli.
                In this midrash, God quotes a verse from Psalm 85:12 that says: From the earth, truth will spring up. This teaches us that perhaps there is an absolute truth in heaven but here on earth truth is partial. We strive for truth here on earth and that human truth rises up to heaven.
                In a world that seems increasingly broken, we need to embrace the truth of our imperfection. We need only to look in a mirror to see hair that is too long or hair color in undesired shades.  As we move to be ready to receive the Torah on Shavuot, the qualities of each week of the Omer remind us that perfection isn’t the goal. A never-ending search for the truth is. By living with the contradictions of the truth of our love and our limitations, we demonstrate why God correctly didn’t listen to the angels. God insisted on creating human beings, thereby upholding a more complex understanding of truth.
 
 
 
 
 
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