My Rebby, shlita, once taught that the Maharal asks why we begin counting sefirah from the second night of Passover and not from the first. We know that one of the reasons for the mitzvah of counting is that the Children of Israel had sunken to the 49th level of tum'ah (spiritual impurity) while in Egypt, and they had to raise themselves one level a day until they would reach the 50th level of holiness on Shavuos, when they would be given the Holy Torah. If that is the case, asks the Maharal, why didn't they begin elevating themselves immediately upon the Exodus from Egypt, on the first day of Passover? Why did they wait to begin on the second day?

To answer this question, the Maharal brings a second, puzzling Chazal (teachings of the Talmudic Rabbis). The Gemarah (Niddah 30b) says that before a child is born, he is taught him the entire Torah in his mother's womb. Then, as he is born, an angel taps him above his lip and he forgets everything he learned. Asks the Maharal, what is the purpose of all of this? If Hashem wants man to be born knowing all of the Torah, then why does the angel cause him to forget? On the other hand, if Hashem does not want him to know the Torah when he is born, then why is it taught to him in the first place? What is the point of teaching him and then taking it all away from him, leaving him just as lacking as he was before he was taught?

The answer can be found after we have a deeper appreciation of what Torah is. Torah is not merely a collection of Supreme wisdom which one can grasp with a good mind if he studies diligently. The Midrash tells us (Tanchuma, Mishpatim) that Unkelos the Proselyte explained to his uncle, the Emperor Hadrian that unless he had circumcised himself he would not have been able to learn Torah, as it says (Tehilim 147:20), "He did not do such to all of the Nations, and they know not his laws...." After he was circumcised though, he became one of our greatest Torah scholars. This is certainly difficult to understand. A person learns with his head! What does his comprehension of the Torah have to do with whether or not he is circumcised?

The answer is that learning Torah is not just an educational experience. The Zohar says that Hashem, the Torah and Israel are all one. This means that the Torah is a manifestation of the wisdom and will of Hashem, and when one learns its words, they become a part of him and he becomes a part of them, and by so doing, he too becomes one with the Creator of the universe. But not with everyone does Hashem wish to be united. First of all, he must be a circumcised Jew. Then, we are taught in the sixth chapter of Avos that there are forty eight ways to acquire Torah. In other words, one must be on a high spiritual level to be able to learn Torah and become one with Hashem.

The Gemara (Megillah 6b) says that only if one claims, "yagati umatsasi - I toiled hard and I found the Torah," is he to be believed. For Torah can only come through hard toil. The Chidushei Harim asks that these two concepts are seemingly contradictory. "Toil" indicates hard work and strain, while "finding" indicates acquiring something with no effort, like walking down the street and finding some money. How then does the Gemara state that "finding" Torah is the result of "toil?"

His answer is based on what we have just explained. Since Torah is not merely a wisdom which can be learned with fine intellectual capabilities, but rather a spiritual being which one must be deserving of in order to comprehend, therefore the only way one can achieve success in Torah study is if it is given to him by Hashem as a present, something which he "found." However, as a prerequisite for this present, one must prove himself deserving of it. How is this done? By hard toil to learn Torah, one shows that he realizes how precious the Torah is and only then is he granted it as a gift.

Consequently, it is not the toil itself which makes the Torah comprehensible to the student, for no matter how hard he works he could never understand the Torah on his own. But rather it is the toil which proves that he deserves to be given Torah as a present. Therefore, only if one says, "I have toiled and I have found the Torah," is he to be believed.

Similarly, says the Maharal, no mortal could ever possibly grasp the true understanding of the Torah if it were merely taught to him by another human being. The Torah is a spiritual phenomenon which cannot possibly be transmitted by non- spiritual people. Therefore, before one is born, it is essential that a spiritual being learn with him the entire Torah, in order to enable him to understand what he will learn when he comes into this world.

Certainly, though, it would not make sense for him to be born knowing the entire Torah, since the whole purpose of man's creation is to learn Torah and obey its commandments and he has to exert himself to accomplish this, otherwise he would not be deserving of reward in the World-to-Come. That is why the angel makes him forget everything he learned. Nevertheless, even after he forgets what he learned he is not the same as he was before he learned the entire Torah. What was accomplished was that the child was given the potential to be able to learn Torah once its knowledge was planted into the depths of his being. Now, when he is born, it is his mission on earth to bring the Torah from potential into existence, by learning the Torah according to the rules set down by the Creator. Without this potential, however, no matter how hard he would try he would never be able to grasp the true understanding of the Torah, just as a non-Jew cannot.

This same process, continues the Maharal, was performed upon the Children of Israel when they left the Land of Egypt. For hundreds of years they were born into bondage and were so much engulfed in Egyptian culture that they were compared to a child in its mother's womb. Now, finally, they were taken out of their suffering and were destined to accept the Torah and serve the world as the Chosen People. However, they had sunk to the depths of spiritual impurity, and had reached the forty ninth level of tum'ah. How could they, on their own, bring themselves up to the fiftieth level of holiness? It was an impossibility.

Therefore, on the first day of Passover, the day they left Egypt, Hashem presented them with all fifty levels of kedusha (holiness) without them achieving it on their own. It was given to them, just as the entire Torah is taught to the unborn child. Certainly, once again, they could not have remained on this lofty level which they had not achieved on their own, for "Man was created to toil" (Iyov 5,7). Therefore, on the second day, Hashem took back all of the levels he had bestowed upon them. However, they were not now as they had been before the elevation. Now they had been given the potential to reach the fiftieth level of holiness, and it was their mission on earth to turn the potential into reality, and climb the spiritual stepladder until they would reach its crescent, fifty days later, on the day of the giving of the Torah on the mountain of Sinai, on the holiday of Shavuos.

Therefore, since their service and toil began on the second day after the exodus, we were commanded to count the days of sefiras ha'omer from the second day of Passover, not from the first, since the achievements of the first day were bestowed upon them, not achieved through their own labor, and the real service of Hashem began on the second day when they began to work on reaching the potential they had been granted yesterday.

In practical terms, what we can learn from this is never to say, "I cannot learn Torah. I just don't have it in me." That is not true. For every Jew was taught the entire Torah before he was born, and he was given the potential to understand it properly. All that he has to do now is toil and work diligently, in holiness and in purity, to reach his potential and Hashem will surely help him to reach the heights of Torah and yir'as Shamayim (fear of Heaven).