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D'var Torah on Shabbat Shemini
Given by Arlene Berger on April 14, 2007 (12 Nissan 5767
)
Counting the Omer
Shabbat Shalom,
As I begin my descent into the world of Rabbi school, I am scheduled to take many introductory courses. So welcome to my world as we enter: The Omer 101.
- The laws of counting the Omer are specific.
- At nightfall, say the blessing and count
- If you forget to count at night, you can count anytime the following day without a blessing and then, begin to count with a blessing, the following night.
- However, if you forget to count during the day as well, you must count without the blessing for the rest of the Omer.
- Finally, if you are in doubt as to whether you actually had counted on the previous night, and, you did not count during the day, you may continue to count with a blessing that night.
Thus ends our class on Omer Counting. But wait, there's more.
Welcome to Omer 102.
Most people begin counting the Omer somewhere between the 3rd and 4th cups of wine at the second Seder. If one does not get to that point in the Seder, well... one usually forgets to count the Omer. As happened at the Berger home this year. Oops.
The Omer is often an afterthought - partly, because people don't really understand why we count it; partly, because there is a feeling that it lacks relevance in today's world where we do not bring grain offerings to the Temple; and partly, well, in part due to the rules surrounding Omer counting -as illustrated in the passage I read a few minutes ago. It makes the Omer seem silly or insignificant. But in fact, the Omer is neither of these things.
So let's go back to Omer 101 for a moment. Starting on the second night of Pesach, we begin every evening with the counting of the Omer. We count during Maariv, right before Aleinu. We find the ritual on page 237 of Sim Shalom for those who want to follow along. We begin with a kavannah, a line stating our intention "I am ready to fulfill the mitzvah of counting the Omer, as it is ordained in the Torah."
Then we recite from Leviticus the injunction by God to count the Omer and learn the definition of an Omer, which is a sheaf of grain: "And you shall count from the eve of the second day of Pesach, when an Omer of grain (also translated as a sheaf of the waving) is to be brought as an offering, seven complete weeks. The day after the seventh week of your counting will make fifty days. (Vayikra 23:15-16a)"
Now our intent is set - we are counting the Omer, the days between Pesach and Shavuot when an Omer of grain was offered daily - we are remembering that time and the specific injunction. We are ready to recite our prayer: "Blessed are You, Adonai, our G-d, Ruler of the Universe Who sanctified us with Your commandments and Commanded us regarding the Counting of the Omer."
After the blessing we recite the line for the appropriate day. So last night we would have said: "Today is eleven days, which is one week and four days of the Omer."
In traditional Siddurim, after this there may be some psalms and prayers praising God and reminding us of the rebuilding of the Temple. There might also be a reference to our desire to embody whichever of the Sefirot are associated with that day.
The Sefirot are often referred to as the emanations or the qualities of God. They play an important role in kabalistic tradition and include both the masculine and feminine qualities of the Divine. The seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot are associated with 7 of the Sefirot. Rabbi Jill Hammer calls them "The bonds with God that make us human --- the seven expressive aspects of Godliness."
They are:
- chessed - "kindness"
- gevurah - "strength" or "empowerment"
- tiferet - "beauty"
- netzach - "endurance or infinity"
- hod - "gratitude"
- yesod - "foundation" and
- malchut - "kingship"
When counting the Omer, we can meditate on a particular divine characteristic, with each week representing one characteristic and each day representing a nuance of a different Sefirah. So, for example, the Sefirah associated with the second week of the Omer is Gevurah, strength or empowerment. And today, which was counted as the 11th day last night, represents Netzach shebeGevurah or Endurance within Strength.
People have been reclaiming the Omer in recent years. We've all seen the trends - the search for spirituality, for a way to connect to the godliness within us and around us. We see it in Hollywood in the red string bracelets on the wrists of celebrities and we see it here at Tikvat Israel with our strong meditation practice and the topics of God and spirituality that pepper our Adult Education offerings. The renewed interest in the Omer is an example of taking something of traditional Judaism and reframing it - or one could even say "reconstructing it" - and making it relevant for today's world.
However, this reframing of the Omer is really not new at all; it's been going on for a long time.
Rabbi David Hoffman, in this week's JTS Torah Commentary, writes: "The rabbis of the Medieval period were the first to articulate that this counting [of the Omer] is not exclusively about the offering of the new grain that was brought while the Temple still stood. We count from Passover to Shavuot because these two holidays are conceptually tied to one another. Passover is the holiday of our liberation and freedom. Shavuot, according to the rabbis, is the holiday of the receiving of the Torah - the holiday where we enter our covenantal relationship with God. Freedom (Passover) without Shavuot (Torah) is incomplete; and Shavuot (Torah) would be impossible without Passover ... The freedom of Pesach gives us the opportunity to enter into relationship with God."
Not only does the freedom of Pesach gives us the opportunity to enter in to a relationship with God, but I would go further and say that it gives us the opportunity to enter into a relationship not only with God but also with the Jewish people as a whole. As Jews we are blessed with the ability to have individual, personal relationships with God. This makes each of us personally responsible for our own relationship with the Divine.
Shavuot, the holiday that comes 50 days after Pesach, is our holiday of revelation and covenant. As the Midrash goes - all Jewish souls stood at Sinai and heard God's voice. We all received the Torah - it is the glue that binds us together as a people. And it doesn't matter if you believe that the Torah is divinely written, divinely inspired or totally man made - the Torah is our Etz Chayim, our tree of life, without whose guidance you would not be sitting here in shul today as a captive audience listening to me!
It is up to us, in the myriad decisions that we make each day, to determine how the godliness within each of us manifests and what our relationship with the rest of the Jewish world is going to look like. Counting the Omer is experiencing a resurgence precisely because is it a tool provided to us, either by the Divine, or by some very wise men from long ago, to help us focus in this task of spirituality and peoplehood.
I started with Omer 101, a review of the traditional way to count the Omer. Let me now share some ways the tradition has been enhanced - if this were a class it might be called "Omer 103: Ways to Creatively Count the Omer." I must admit that I found most of them while searching the internet - but in my defense, I was familiar with the more serious ones before.
First, there is Counting the Omer With the 48 ways of Wisdom which can be found at Aish.com. This site demystifies the sefirot and gives us pithy catchphrases for each day. For example, on the 11th day of the Omer, the way of wisdom is "Work It Through With Friends", and tomorrow it is "Growth through Teaching".
Then there is the webpage called: Count the days! Count the ways! S'firat Ha'Omer: The Four Children Count the Omer; this can be found at the website of JRF, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. This includes a take on counting the Omer by the 4 children we met at the Seder. It also has links to a few other Omer sites including: Counting the Homer -- a website with a Simpsons' theme and aids for counting each day of the Omer. It's pretty scary.
However, my favorite is the Omer Calendar of Biblical Women authored by Rabbi Hammer. Marsha Lyons introduced this at our Iyar Rosh Chodesh group about 5 years ago. This Calendar takes the Sefirot and their associated strengths for each day and attributes them to different women from Jewish history. As an example, let me share the part of the reading for today, the 11th day of the Omer.
Day 11. Netzach shebeGevurah -- Endurance within Strength
Our example is Dinah (Genesis 30:21; 34)
Dinah, daughter of Jacob and Leah, is named "judgment." Dinah is born into a world of limitation, of gevurah, simply because she is a girl. When Dinah grows up, the severity of her world becomes even more apparent. She is raped by a local prince, and her brothers slaughter an entire town to avenge her rape...
The Bible does not give Dinah a voice to tell of her experience. Yet Dinah's spirit has somehow survived. Though Jacob gives Dinah no blessing and Moses gives her descendants no tribe, Jewish women can acknowledge one another as Dinah's lost tribe. We ourselves can give Dinah a voice. We can imagine that Dinah found the persevering strength, the netzach shebe'gevurah, to go past her victimhood and become truly free. We are most like Dinah when we find a voice to speak of our tragedies, and transcend them.
So... How does all this relate to the texts that we read today. In this Parasha we have the deaths of Aaron's sons, Nadav and Avihu. The story ends with Aarons response to their death - silence. Just as Dinah didn't have a voice, we have to speak in her stead. So too, we don't know what Aaron's silence represents in this Parasha - so, perhaps as a kavannah when you count the Omer tonight, you could speak for him.
The rest of the Parasha is concerned with kashrut, an exercise in mindfulness if I've ever seen one. The Omer entices us to be mindful for 50 days, with kashrut, we choose to be mindful every time we eat.
Lastly, the very long Haftorah includes the story of Michal, wife of David. Check out Omer Calendar of Biblical Women on day 44 and learn how Michal represents Gevurah shebeMalkhut -- Strength within Majesty.
May the remaining days of the Omer bring with them a sense of mindfulness, connectedness and purpose to us all.
Shabbat Shalom.
Sources:
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