Despite being an avid participant in Jewish ritual, I have always had a hard time getting myself to count the OmerFrom the second day of Passover until Shavuot, Jews count seven weeks – seven times seven days – to commemorate the period between the Exodus from Egypt and the Revelation at Sinai. When the Temple stood, a certain measure (omer) of barley was offered on the altar each day; today, we merely count out the days.. I tried a variety of self-motivating and self-castigating tricks for three and a half decades, but Sefirat HaOmer suffered passive neglect as well as active resistance in my spiritual house.
Then, recently, something shifted. First, I wrote the poem (below): “Counting on the Covenant.” Then, I created a necklace and earrings (pictured below) as my Sefirat HaOmer counting tool. The necklace has 49 beads, with the first of every seven beads being a ruby. The ruby signals the first day of each week’s counting, the day in which an attribute is doubled (ex., HesedLit. Kindness It is said in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) that the world stands on three things: Torah (learning), Avodah (worship), and Gemilut Hasidim (acts of kindness). she’b’hesed – lovingkindness of lovingkindness). The last ruby bead, from either direction, is for ShavuotShavuot is the holiday fifty days after Passover and commemorates when the Israelite liberation from Egypt culminates with the giving of the Torah. Traditionally, Jews study in an all-night study session, eat dairy products (one interpretation is that the Torah is like milk to us), and read both the Ten Commandments and the Book of Ruth.. The earrings echo the necklace but each culminates in a faceted quartz crystal. I don’t have keen enough eyesight to count all the facets on them. However, I am reminded of the midrashic tradition that asserts that there are seventy faces of the one, unified TorahThe Five Books of Moses, and the foundation of all of Jewish life and lore. The Torah is considered the heart and soul of the Jewish people, and study of the Torah is a high mitzvah. The Torah itself a scroll that is hand lettered on parchment, elaborately dressed and decorated, and stored in a decorative ark. It is chanted aloud on Mondays, Thursdays, and Shabbat, according to a yearly cycle. Sometimes "Torah" is used as a colloquial term for Jewish learning and narrative in general. (Bamidbar Rabbah 13), which is revealed at SinaiAccording to the Torah, God, in the presence of the Jewish people, gave Moses the Torah on Mount Sinai (Har Sinai).. This Sefirat HaOmer tool echoes the understanding in Sefer Ha-Hinukh: “we always make what is secondary into a sign for what is the essence.”1
Tiferet, the sixth sefirah in the kabbalistic Tree of Life, has the common association of “Spirituality,” “Balance,” “Integration,” and “Beauty.” Playing with color, order, stones, movement – making jewelry – is one way that I connect with Tiferet, תפארת. Before I found this Tiferet way to help myself count the Omer, I relied on more obvious forms of Gevurah: boundary, will, judgment. But, ultimately, Gevurah alone could not create change. Gevurah is not always sustained by discipline alone. Sometimes Tiferet, beauty and balance, can draw one toward Gevurah. Today, we look to the strength that can be manifested within beauty, Gevurah she’b’Tiferet.
Counting On the Covenant
Every year,
halfway through Sefirat HaOmer,
I vow to count the Omer next year.
It is already half over,
so why start now?
It seems unkosher.
There is no principle in this matter,
just a feeling that if I can’t count the whole thing
it isn’t good enough.
Yet, when I find myself halfway through a meal
having not said a brakhahA blessing,
I always stop to say one.
I figure that awareness of gratitude halfway through my meal is better than
awareness of gratitude for none of my meal.
Perhaps the problem is with the counting itself.
Yet I have counted
the footsteps taken in a day,
the difference in minutes between taking this route or that route,
the numbers of times I chew my food,
the thousands of dollars’ difference between adopting a child from this country rather than that country
and now platelets and red and white blood cells.
I have counted
the seconds until a mammogram is over,
the breaths between contractions,
the eighteen, no nineteen, blessings of the AmidahLit. Standing One of the central prayers of the Jewish prayer service, recited silently while standing. – so many words,
the number of blocks that I can run
before I need to pee.
Like any good product of her capitalist milieu,
I quantify
and then qualify
most every aspect of my life
and of the world.
Yet, I have never tried to count the stars
or the grains of sand on the beach.2
The covenant I seek is uncountable:
I promise
to do what I need to do to be present enough
to witness the uncountable blessings
Even though, you, my dear God/world
cannot promise anything.
Image by D’vorah Horn from her set of Omer Practice Cards (2016).
Notes
1 Sefer Ha-Hinukh MitzvahLit. Commandment. It is traditionally held that there are 613 mitzvot (plural) in Judaism, both postive commandments (mandating actions) and negative commandments (prohibiting actions). Mitzvah has also become colloquially assumed to mean the idea of a “good deed." #306 (Book of Education, 13th century, Spain). “It is from the roots of the commandment from the angle of the simple understanding [that it is] since the entire essence of IsraelLit. ''the one who struggles with God.'' Israel means many things. It is first used with reference to Jacob, whose name is changed to Israel (Genesis 32:29), the one who struggles with God. Jacob's children, the Jewish people, become B'nai Israel, the children of Israel. The name also refers to the land of Israel and the State of Israel. is only the Torah, and because of the Torah were the heavens and earth created, and as it is stated (Jeremiah 33:25), ‘Were it not for my covenant day and night, etc.’ And it is the essence and the reason that they were redeemed and left from Egypt—in order that they receive the Torah at Sinai, and fulfill it. And [it is] like God said to MosheThe quintessential Jewish leader who spoke face to face with God, unlike any other prophet, and who freed the people from Egypt, led them through the desert for forty years, and received the Torah on Mt. Sinai. His Hebrew name is Moshe. (Exodus 3:12), ‘And this will be the sign for you that I have sent you; when you take out the people from Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.’ And the understanding of the verse is [that] your taking them out from Egypt is a sign for you that you shall worship God on this mountain—meaning that you shall receive the Torah, which is the great principle for which they were redeemed and it is their ultimate good. And it is a great matter for them, more than freedom from slavery. And hence God made a sign of their leaving Egypt for the receiving of the Torah; as we always make what is secondary into a sign for what is the essence.”
2 Genesis 22:17
