38 Days of the Omer. That is 5 Weeks and 3 Days.

Ri_Ya Pixabay Dead Sea Salt

Tiferet shebe Yesod
Compassion in Foundation (the salt of the earth)
Thursday evening May 30 and Friday May 31

וְכָל־קָרְבַּ֣ן מִנְחָתְךָ֮ בַּמֶּ֣לַח תִּמְלָח֒ וְלֹ֣א תַשְׁבִּ֗ית מֶ֚לַח בְּרִ֣ית אֱ-לֹהֶ֔יךָ מֵעַ֖ל מִנְחָתֶ֑ךָ עַ֥ל כָּל־קָרְבָּנְךָ֖ תַּקְרִ֥יב מֶֽלַח׃

You shall season your every offering of meal with salt; you shall not omit from your meal offering the salt of your covenant with God; with all your offerings you must offer salt. (Lev. 2:13)

All the sacred gifts that the Israelites set aside for God I give to you, to your sons, and to the daughters that are with you, as a due for all time. It shall be an everlasting covenant of salt before God for you and for your offspring as well. (Num. 18:19)

Surely you know that the God of Israel gave David kingship over Israel forever—to him and his sons—by a covenant of salt. (2 Chron. 13:5) 

“I wasn’t jealous,” she sounds put off, but also deeply sad.
The ox she leads has no bells on its horns
“Okay,” I say.
“When those men came, how was I to know they were angels?” she asks, but doesn’t. She looks at me expectantly.
“Okay,” I say again.
“If you think I’m going to tell you my story, you are mistaken,” she points at me.
“Okay,” I half-turn to continue on my own.
“Lot never thought he was good enough. He was always comparing himself to Abraham and me to Sarah,” Idit says. I keep walking with her and hold my peace. “It was tiresome,” she says and then waits for me to respond.

“It sounds tiresome,” I say.

“‘Bake cakes like Sarah does.’ ‘Care for the animals like Sarah does.’ ‘Welcome guests like Sarah does.’ Think it ever occurred to him that I might like to do things ‘like Idit does’? Like my mother did and her mother before her? What was wrong with our ways?”
She’s asking rhetorically, but, I mean, the woman was from Sodom. The ways of Sodom were ways of scarcity, radical unhospitality and incivility. I raise an eyebrow, but continue to listen to what she has to say.
“Does he ask me if it’s okay with me if he brings home guests? Of course he doesn’t. Nevermind that it’s more mouths to feed. Nevermind that our home is already small and crowded. Nevermind that we are in the midst of planning the wedding of our third child. Nevermind that I already have enough to do. No, never you mind, just, ‘Idit, go get more salt and bake cakes like Sarah for these guests.’” Her voice is getting louder and louder. People are turning to look at us, but no one stops to greet her. “It’s an ill wind that blows no good. I knew those men would bring us bad luck. ‘If you want to welcome them,’ I said to Lot, ‘You bake the cakes, you prepare their beds, and you clean up after them when they leave.’ Do you think he listened to me?” I don’t respond. “Well DO you?” Idit presses.

“No,” I say quietly.
“No! Of course not! That man is insufferable!” She sounds triumphant, but looks about to crumble. 
“What did you do?” I ask with trepidation.
“Oh, I went and got more salt. ‘Oh, my head!’ I said to my neighbors. ‘Oh, my back!’ ‘And wouldn’t you know it, Mr. Too-Big-For-His-Britches brought home guests and now I have to bake them cakes! Have any salt to spare?’”
“I thought the people of Sodom didn’t share like that with their neighbors,” I say.
“What? Oh. Well, most of the women didn’t give me a thing. Some gave me a teaspoonful of salt,” she says, shrugging and tugging at the ox’s lead.
“You asked them all?” I ask, now understanding.
“Every. Single. One. Lot wanted to invite guests, fine. Everyone would know about it.”
“So it was because of you that everyone in Sodom knew the angels were in your house,” I say.

Idit looks at me without turning her head. 
“Judging me now?” she coughs a wet, rattly cough and clears her throat. “Just like Lot. You know that Sarah, she wasn’t so perfect. She threw out that woman and her child.”
“Hagar? They were walking together a few weeks ago,” I say.
“What?” shouts Idit. “That’s impossible!”
“Hard to imagine, maybe,” I say. “Even unexpected. Not impossible.”
Idit sniffs. “Well, I made sure everyone in Sodom knew about Lot’s guests, didn’t I?” 
I say nothing. Something has changed in her tone. Her voice almost cracked. Her steps have slowed and become heavy. 

“They stormed my house, you know.”

“What did you think would happen?” I ask.
“I didn’t think of what would happen,” she says. “I was upset. Years, a lifetime, raising a houseful of children, and still Lot wants me to be someone I am not. Why did he marry me if he didn’t want . . . me.” It isn’t a question.
“They stormed my house. They demanded the guests. And my husband . . .” her voice trails off. “My husband offered them our daughters. My daughters. He never even looked at me that night. He never looked at the girls. In the end I guess he was just like Abraham, sacrificing his own children,” her voice catches. 

Wind whips around us and stirs up a small dirt devil.
It stirs up the smell of the ox, too. 

“And you were like Sarah,” I say.
“What?” Idit looks confused, disrupted.
“Sarah also died when her child was taken and offered.”
“Those girls didn’t die, though,” she says.
“Neither did Isaac,” I say.
 “I’ll concede the point, but I am nothing like Sarah,” she says.
“Okay,” I say.

Idit takes a deep breath and wipes her eyes with the hem of her sleeve.

“Everyone else did,” she says.
“What?”
“Everyone else. My elderly mother, my neighbors, the young men who were to be my sons in law - marriages I had worked hard to arrange, my other two daughters and their husbands, their children . . . everyone. How is it merciful to be allowed to be the one who survives that?” A harsh laugh escapes her lungs. “How is that a blessing? How was I to go on into a world without my children and grandchildren?”
My heart aches with hers. 

“You know my name, Idit, means witness, yes?” she asks me.
“Yes.”

“Some things are too much to see, too much to bear, but I am a mother. I am a mother and we bear. . . we bear the unbearable. Lot went on ahead unwilling to face what was happening to our children and grandchildren. I turned and looked. I watched God turn his back on me.” 

Moses saw the pillar of Idit when God showed him all the land of Canaan before his death. In the Talmud, Berakhot 54a-b we are taught to say two blessings when we see her.

“Blessed be the One who remembers the righteous,” I say. “Baruch dayan emet, Blessed be the true judge,” I say, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I pause a moment and then add, “Blessed is the one who counts our tears.”

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 שְׁמוֹנָה וּשְׁלֹשִׁים יוֹם
שֶׁהֵם חֲמִשָּׁה שָׁבוּעוֹת וּשְׁלוֹשָׁה יָמִים לָעוֹמֶר.

Hayom shmonah u’shloshim yom
shehem chamishah shavuot u’shloshah yamim la’omer

Today is thirty-eight days.
That is five weeks and three days of the Omer.

Sefirat HaOmer Blessing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8hCiPI1tMQ