I called my full‐length shiur this week “No Shiur” because in our parasha, Kedoshim, we have the commandment: 􀃍 כָּמוֹ 􀃍 וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲ – Love! Love your fellow as yourself.1 As you know, it’s the main
principle of the Torah, Kelal gadol baTorah2, and it’s in this week’s reading as a foretaste of the Torah we’ll receive on Shavuot. The entire Torah is an elaboration of this main principle. The Ramban talks specifically about this principle: One should not specify shiurim – units of measure – of love.3 Basically, the Ramban is saying that love is unmeasurable. Don’t give a shiur on/of love. As it says, אִם יִתֵּן אִישׁ אֶת כָּל הוֹן בֵּיתוֹ בָּאַהֲבָה, בּוֹז יָבוּזוּ לו – If a man were to give his whole estate for love, it would be scornful in the extreme4 because love is priceless. So the big question is: if love has no measure, why, during S’firat Ha’Omer, which is supposed to be all about love, are we so preoccupied with counting and measuring?
Let’s start with the Omer itself – the amount of barley grains waved in the Beit HaMikdash on the
second day of Pesach – a measured volume of precisely three se’ah.

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