One Day of the Omer
Barley Field at Sunrise, Felix Mittermeier, Pixabay
Forty-nine days. Seven weeks of seven days. Each day an omer. Each day a measure. The Torah commands setting aside one sheaf, one omer, of barley on each of the forty-nine days between the two spring festivals: Pesach and Shavuot. One omer - exactly enough for one day; all collected together intended as the barley sacrifice on Shavuot. A sacrifice made in the Temple. Then the Temple was destroyed - by infighting, by siege, by fire, by neglect, by starvation, by hatred, by fear, by greed, by . . .
And the omer, the sheaf, the exactly-enough-for-one-day became a counting. The counting of the Omer, spanning the forty-nine days beginning the second night of Passover and ending at Sinai. Last night we began to count: Today is one day of the Omer. Tomorrow it will be two days of the Omer, and soon a week, and then one week and one day of the Omer, and so on.
We count our days of wilderness wandering between freedom and revelation. We count every one. We insist that every day is exactly enough for us, and that we are exactly enough for this day. Well, some days we insist. Some days we shout with triumph. And some days we whisper, ‘I am enough’, through cracked lips. Some days, ‘enough’, scratches its way through our parched throats. Some days, ‘this day is enough’, murmurs salt water rivulets finding their way in streaks down our cheeks.
Dayenu. Would it have actually been enough? Freedom, but no split sea. A split sea, but starvation in the desert. Manna, but no Shabbat. Shabbat, but no Sinai. Sinai, but no Torah. Torah, but no Israel. Israel, but no Temple. On the other side of the first night of Passover, having now stepped into a journey with no foreseeable end, broken bits of matzah in our teeth, we have to ask ourselves whether it’s really so hard to understand crying out in fear in the unforgiving desert wilderness, ‘Why didn’t you just leave us in Egypt?’
We do understand.
Every cell born in the marrow of our bones understands.
Every fiber of our muscles.
Waves are lapping the shore behind us. The sun is already hot and it has only just risen. I see you, there rolling your shoulders to work out the tightness that has settled in that one spot in your back. And I see you, rubbing your face with your hands and trying not to imagine too much what is to come. You, giggling with some children. You, holding the hand of a confused older woman who had a hard enough time remembering when and where she was when everything was familiar. You, packing up the tent. You, playing with the dogs. You, taking stock of our provisions and calculating how long you can make them last. You see me, too, and our eyes meet. You nod. I nod back.
We start walking.
The sages teach that at Sinai, on Shavuot, we gather with every Jewish person who has ever been and will ever be.
The first day of the Omer is the day of chesed shebe chesed. The day of loving kindness of loving kindness. Looking across the people who have already begun to walk with us I see Adam and Chava and Lilith.
The Torah tells two versions of their story, but we can find so many more than that in other Jewish texts. In rabbinic literature, Lilith is variously told as the mother of Adam’s demonic offspring after his separation from Chava, or as his first spouse. Chava was created from the first human’s side in Genesis 2:22. Some accounts understand Lilith the implied woman in Genesis 1:27 made from the same soil as Adam. It is often told that in death Chava returned to that dust while Lilith endures as a spirit without a body. Or Lilith, perhaps, was created from the tohu and not the teva, from the void, the chaos, and not the earth. If the tohu was absolute, as some have taught, it was absolute light, absolute darkness, absolute harshness, and absolute kindness. Some say the Creation of creation was tikun - repair. Light with darkess and darkness with light. Kindness that knows what it means to be harsh. Kindness that could use harshness when necessary to attain greater kindness. Harshness, some say, that allows for the possibility that in the future it would lose its autonomous modality altogether, becoming only a function of kindness. Or maybe tikun, repair, allows us to see that we can be kind even when we are feeling harsh. Maybe that’s one way to understand chesed - not the swell of love as a feeling that compels us to be kind, but the choice of love even when we are feeling harsh. Maybe it’s the kind of love that motivated God to clothe Adam and Chava just after they had pushed God away, and even though they’d been hiding, and blaming, and lying. Maybe it’s the kind of love that Lilith and Chava can choose to engage in when interacting with each other, as they walk together, even with all of the water under all of the bridges.
They wave.
I wave back.
Here we are in this day. The first day of these days.
What will be in it? What will it bring?
Who's to say?
We are walking toward a story.
In a story.
Our story.
In some ways, it’s the same story we’ve been walking all our lives, but of course this year we are different than we were last year, and if we pay attention we will see something we’ve never seen before. Counting the omer is a commitment that we will bring ourselves to each day. We will show up.
You are enough for this story . . . you are an omer.
And me, too.
And this day?
This day is an omer.
This day is enough.
This first day.
Day one.
See you at Sinai!
How to say the blessing:
Choose the language that resonates with you the most.
Non-gendered Hebrew based on grammar system built by Lior Gross and Eyal Rivlin,
available at www.nonbinaryhebrew.com
Gender Expansive:
הִנְנִי מוּכָנֶה וּמְזֻמֶּנֶה
Hineni muchaneh um’zumeneh …
Here I am, ready and prepared …
Feminine:
הִנְנִי מוּכָנָה וּמְזֻמֶּנֶת
Hineni muchanah um’zumenet …
Here I am, ready and prepared …
Masculine:
הִנְנִי מוּכָן וּמְזֻמַן
Hineni muchan um’zuman …
Here I am, ready and prepared …
All Continue:
… לְקַיֵּם מִצְוַת עֲשֵׂה שֶׁל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר כְּמוֹ שֶׁכָּתוּב בַּתּוֹרָה וּסְפַרְתֶּם לָכֶם מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת
מִיּוֹם הַבִיאֳכֶם אֶת עֹמֶר הַתְּנוּפָה שֶׁבַע שַׁבָּתוֹת תְּמִימוֹת תִּהְיֶנָה. עַד מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת
הַשְּׁבִיעִית תִּסְפְּרוּ חֲמִשִּׁים יוֹם וְהִקְרַבְתֶם מִנְחָה חֲדָשָה לַיי
… lekayyem mitzvat aseh shel sefirat ha-omer, kemo shekatuv batorah: us’fartem lakhem mimacharat hashabbat, miyom havi’akhem et omer hat’nufah, sheva shabbatot temimot tih’yena, ad mimacharat hashabbat hash’vi’it tis’peru khamishim yom, vehikravtem minkha khadasha l’adonai.
… to fulfill the mitzvah of counting the Omer, as it is written in the Torah: And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the day of rest, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the wave-offering, you shall count seven full weeks. Until the day after the seventh Shabbat, you shall count fifty days, until you bring a new gift to the Eternal.
Gender-Expansive Language for God
בְּרוּכֶה אַתֶּה יי אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ חֵי הָעוֹלָמִים אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשֶׁנוּ בְּמִצַוְּתֶהּ וְצִוֶּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר
Brucheh ateh Adonai, Eloheinu khei ha’olamim, asher kidshenu bemitzvoteh v’tzivenu al sefirat ha’omer.
Blessed are You, Eternal, Life of all worlds who has made us holy with Their commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.
Feminine Language for God
בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ יָ-הּ אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוְּתָהּ וְצִוָּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר
Bruchah at Yah, ru’akh ha’olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotah v’tzivanu al sefirat ha’omer
Blessed are You, Yah, our God, Spirit of the universe who has made us holy with Her commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.
Masculine Language for God
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל סְפִירַת הָעֹמֶר
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kidshanu bemitzvotav v’tzivanu al sefirat ha’omer.
Blessed are You, LORD, our God, ruler of the universe who has made us holy with His commandments, and commanded us to count the Omer.
Count the day and week
Today is the _________ day, which is _________ weeks and _________ days of the Omer.
Today:
Hayom yom echad la’omer.
Today is the first day of the omer.
Sefirat HaOmer Blessing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8hCiPI1tMQ