9 Days of the Omer. That is 1 Week and 2 Days.

Pixabay Ippicture

Gevurah of Gevurah
Discipline/Justice/Boundaries of Discipline/Justice/Boundaries

Gevurah is also Strength

Wednesday evening and Tuesday
Evening May 1 and Day of May 2

I’ve secretly always wondered what Rebecca saw in him.
In Isaac.
Well, it was a secret.
Now you know.
Do I feel for the guy? Of course I do! How could I not?
I have tremendous compassion for him on every level.

Rebecca, though? The way the story reads, she fell off her camel when she saw him. It’s right there in the Torah, this isn’t even midrash. Okay, so it is the midrash that gives meaning to the fall, rather than just leaving us to think she was clumsy, but don’t accept those translations that say ‘alighted’. The word here means to fall, stumble, or drop - in this case off her camel. And . . .

They are walking together. Still. Just there, not far from us at all.
Even when he isn’t leaning on her, he is leaning on her.
The attribute Rebecca is associated with most often in our tradition is Binah, understanding. What does she understand about her husband that I am missing?
Today especially I want to know why our tradition associates this ancestor - of all of our ancestors with - Gevurah? Gevurah literally means strength. Within the system of sefirot it means discipline or justice or boundaries.
And Isaac? 

When he was born, which was how we first met him, Isaac was a vulnerable infant.

When he was bound, readied for sacrifice, he was passive. His arms and legs were tied under Abraham’s blade and God’s command. Is it a surprise that later he preferred his strong son? The one who was not like him? When Abraham died and Isaac was left in control of the family’s water wells, competing clans moved in and obstructed them. Isaac makes new ones, and those are immediately contested. Finally, he got a well. In the later story he was befuddled (27:1) unable to distinguish between hunted game (27:4) and goat meat (27:25); between hair skin and a costume (27:22), and most critically between his sons Esau and Yaakov (27:23). He was powerless to decide the direction of his own blessing and legacy. 

We could try to explain all of this away. We could argue that Isaac’s passivity was his strength, as was his eventual ability to outmaneuver the competition and establish space to increase his territory. We could revise our reading and find a way to twist the verses to fit a narrative of strength. We could rely on Pirkei Avot 4:1, “Who is strong? One who conquers their own desires” and take Isaac’s seeming weakness as a moral message. Did he, though? Did he conquer his own desires? 

Watching them walk together, not talking, just walking, I’m so curious about their life together. What has it been like for them? For both of them?

Maybe we need to accept Isaac as he is.
He is by no means the embodiment of strength, and for good reason given all he experienced. Everything about his story seems to tell of the absence of strength and its challenges.
But . . . Rebecca has her hand on his arm. She is so tender.
She knows something I don’t. What does she know?

Rabbi Ben Greenfield sees me watching them and comes over to walk with me. 
He points out that the Zohar Hadash says in a passage that Isaac knew God through Gevurah.This might mean, he says, that knowing God “through the looking glass” of one of the sefirot means to struggle with that sefirah - not to have mastered that attribute. “It is fairly bold,” Rabbi Greenfield continues, “to construe Abraham as the model of kindness, Isaac as the champion of strength, or Jacob as the embodiment of truth.” Of course they weren’t, he says. He gives me a nod and then quickens his pace. He recognized someone ahead of us.

Of course they weren’t.
Of course Isaac wasn’t. 

Was Gevurah the thing Isaac wrestled with all of his life?
Maybe. I can see that.
I also see he never gave up. He never gave up on his brother, Ishmael. He never gave up on his wife, Rebecca. Or his children. 
Just as I’m about to turn away Rebecca turns her head in my direction.
Her eyes blink slowly, and she smiles. 

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 Shabbat, 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:

הַיּוֹם תִשְׁעָה יָמִים לָעֹֽמֶר.

שָׁבוּעַ אֶחָד וּשְׁנֵי יָמִים  לָעוֹמֶר.

Hayom  tishah  yamim la-omer.

Today is nine days of the Omer.
Shavua echad ushnei yamim laomer
One week and two days of the Omer.
Sefirat HaOmer Blessing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8hCiPI1tMQ