Counting the Omer (Taylor Swift’s Version) 5784

Who knew that Taylor Swift’s music and the Jewish tradition of counting the Omer could be so intertwined? Both offer opportunities for personal growth, reflection, and a deeper connection with the world around us🌾

The period of the counting of the Omer is a time of introspection and growth – for a person to work on one’s good characteristics (middot) through reflection and development of one aspect each day for the 49 days of the counting.

In Kabbalah, each of the seven weeks of the Omer-counting is associated with one of the seven lower sefirot:

Chesed (loving-kindness)
Gevurah (might)
Tipheret (beauty)
Netzach (victory)
Hod (acknowledgment)
Yesod (foundation)
Malchut (kingdom)

Each day of each week is also associated with one of these same seven sefirot, creating forty-nine permutations. The first day of the Omer is therefore associated with “chesed that is in chesed” (loving-kindness within loving-kindness), the second day with “gevurah that is in chesed” (might within loving-kindness); the first day of the second week is associated with “chesed that is in gevurah” (loving-kindness within might), the second day of the second week with “gevurah that is in gevurah” (might within might), and so on.

Based on these themes, I assigned each day of the Omer a Taylor Swift song!