Counting Our Days

All year, one day a week, I notice. I notice that time between late afternoon and early evening when the slant of light in the sky tells me the sun is setting. I’ve set the table, I’ve poured the wine, and I’ve readied the candles. I have worked hard all week and, whether my work is done or not, it is enough. I strike the match and watch the flame catch the wick. I circle my hands around the fire three times and bring them to my face to make the blessing and welcome Shabbat. 

We first learn about Shabbat in the context of being a people when we gather an omer of manna per person in the wilderness. 

Not too fast, though. The first human being in the Torah to utter the word “shabbat” is Pharaoh. In Pharaoh’s mouth, “shabbat” is what we will not have. (Ex. 5:5) Pharaoh doesn’t only think he controls space, but also time. Moses and Aaron ask Pharaoh to grant the people a moment to hang out with God in the wilderness, and Pharaoh’s response? “The people of the land are already so numerous, and you would have them cease/rest from their labors?” What does his response have to do with their request? The people are so numerous? That’s the reason for his denial. He feels threatened by the sheer number of people under his control because he knows that in their place he would never stand for the social structure he created and is enforcing. It is only a matter of time. He locates the threat to his power over this people in their bodies. To maintain it, he must break them, or kill them. The same day, Pharaoh charged the taskmasters saying, “You shall no longer provide straw for making bricks as you have done. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. But impose upon them the same quota of bricks . . . for they are shirkers, that is why they cry, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God!’” (Exodus 5: 6-8) Pharaoh cannot subdue a people so numerous without significant support from the people doing his work for him. “They are shirkers,” he says, and ten verses later, “You are shirkers,” say the taskmasters.

When we symbolically left the oppression of that narrow place about three weeks ago as we observed and celebrated Passover, we began to count the 49 days of the omer. The omer is a measurement. What is it measuring?

Once across the Red Sea, traveling in the wilderness, we got hungry. It’s all very well to be a newly aware nation of free people, but as individuals, let’s get real, what are we going to eat? As the story goes, “man”, some kind of food we’d never known before – and still don’t know, fell like dew. And Moses told us that this was for us to eat, a gift from God, and that we should gather an omer –  just enough for each of us. We did that, but some took a bit more than they needed and some got a bit less than they needed, and yet when we came back to our tents we found that each person had enough. Each person had exactly what they needed . . . except for the sixth day. On the sixth day, each person gathered two omer(s) because, said Moses, “This is what God has spoken, ‘A resting, a holy Shabbat, it is to Adonai tomorrow.” (Exodus 16:23) 

How different “shabbat” sounds in the voice of a tyrant, an oppressor, an enslaver, than in the voice of the liberator, the redeemer. It’s almost as though God is sending a message: The only king you’ve known is Pharaoh. Me? I am not that kind of sovereign. I have power. I mean, I’m God. I have, technically, unlimited power. I will use my power to support and journey with you.  I didn’t make you for slavery. I didn’t make you to be an enslaver or enslaved. We have a lot of work to do together, but the first thing I command of you to give me isn’t your labor, or your productivity, it is your time. Your rest. I want you to stop working. I want you to invest in our relationship, and in your relationships. I want you to be in this world I created and that now we are creating together. I want you to have enough, to know you are enough. Each day you will have an omer to eat, and it will always be enough. 

In a system of oppression, nothing is ever enough. All the power in the world will not satisfy an oppressor. For the oppressed deprivation and lack are obvious, but slavery is slavery and systemic oppression is systemic oppression. Nothing can ever be enough. Enough is about who owns our time. Enough is liberation. What we mean by “freedom” is a choice we make as we create society together. Individually, how those of us with the liberty to do so realize the power of freedom in our own lives is also a choice. We could choose to use our power as Pharaoh did, or as the taskmasters did. Or, we could choose to model ourselves after a different kind of sovereign. We could work to create systems of liberation. 

Starting on the second day of Passover and concluding when we reach Shavuot, we count “the omer” every day. Each night, at the beginning of the new Jewish day, we recite the blessing for counting, and then we count time. Every day during the omer – every single day – I notice that time between late afternoon and early evening when the slant of light in the sky tells me the sun is setting. Every day as I read about what inner work of liberation this particular day of the 49 is dedicated to I reflect on how I can bring more loving kindness or discipline and boundaries into the world. I set my intention to make this day more balanced between justice and mercy. I think critically about humility meaning taking up the right amount of space, and I ask myself where I need to assert myself more, and where I must pull back. I am both obligated by tradition and personally dedicated to the work of justice; it is work without end. I remember that Shabbat is coming, and this day is an omer. It is enough – exactly enough – to accomplish the work that is my job to do in this one day. And then I bless. And then I count.

First Published at Convergence On Campus