Passover is now complete and hopefully yours provided many pleasant connections and memories with family and friends. On the second night of Passover, many Jews began the 49-day period of counting the Omer which will end on Shavuot. According to the Torah, this period marked the beginning of the barley harvest when Jews were to bring an omer (sheaf) of barley to the Temple as a means of thanking God for the harvest (refer to Leviticus 23:15-16).
Today the meaning of Counting the Omer, if one so chooses to keep the custom, is more spiritual. The counting begins with the escape from enslavement to the wandering path of freedom, which leads to a mystical encounter with God, Sinai, and Torah. It is therefore a fitting structure for a personal journey toward meaningful and purposeful living.
There are many organizations offering structures to follow. A semi-traditional approach is offered by Reconstructing Judaism. The seven spiritual principles for the seven weeks are the following:
1.) Chesed/Heart Expansion; 2.) Gevurah/Strength; 3.) Tiferet/Compassion, Harmony; 4.) Netzakh/Endurance; 5.) Hod/Humility; 6.) Yesod/Foundation; 7.) Malkhut/ Immanent Manifestation.
Rabbi Karyn Kedar of the Reform movement offered a fresh list of spiritual principles in her 2014 book, Omer: A Counting published by the CCAR Press. Her principles are points of light to illuminate a path toward spiritual awareness. Each one, powerful on its own, offers a sort of North Star as you count each day, each week.
Her principles are the following:
- Decide (focus on what needs to be changed in our behavior or way of living and develop a plan)
- Discern (sort through advice given by friends and teachers, challenge our fears, listen to our souls. Discernment is clarity. It is self-actualization, leading to a more meaningful life.)
- Choose (choice is empowerment when we choose to live differently, but it is hard work. It takes us back and forth between choice and discernment, reaffirming our decisions, reexamining everything.)
- Hope (anticipating, believing, affirming, thinking abundantly, envisioning ourselves as strong, healthy, and loving)
- Imagine (having an expansive, abundant way of seeing the world. We are limited only by our imaginations)
- Courage (having the courage to live, to love, to risk, to fail. This takes patience.)
- Pray (by offering a prayer, we confess the boundaries of our powers to know and understand everything. Prayer gives us the strength to decide and change, the guidance to choose well, the imagination to dream and the courage to keep going.)
Omer: A Counting offers stories, poetry, and thoughts and each day of the 49-day period. This book has a free study guide which can be used to facilitate discussion in a study group. If there is interest, this is something we might consider next year.
L’Shalom,
Sharon Berman, co-president
Temple Shalom