16 Days of the Omer. That is 2 Weeks and 2 Days.
Pixabay, Olichel
Gevurah shebe Tiferet
Strength//Boundaries within Harmony
Wednesday evening May 8 and Thursday May 9
Strength and boundaries within harmony.
Holding hard things with grace.
My Hineini students are eight and nine and ten and eleven and twelve.
If you know me at all, you know I’m always walking with my students.
In some kind of very real way, we are always walking toward Sinai.
Last week we observed Yom HaShoah, Holocaust remembrance day, together.
Tonight we celebrated Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel’s independence.
It is hard to know how to talk about any of this.
That's often true when we are talking with our own kids, and it's true when we are talking - as a teacher and a rabbi - with a group of other peoples' children who are coming together from very different school settings and communities.
We do the best we can.
One of the gifts and challenges of the Hebrew calendar, of the Torah, and of Judaism is that we get invitation after invitation to talk about challenging things.
I feel strongly about not making hard things collectively taboo.
I appreciate, and do not ever take for granted, that people trust me with their children.
Our children.
We celebrated Yom Ha’Atzmaut by learning and thinking about Israel.
Maybe you’d like to walk with us for a while.
We opened with a song and video welcoming us to Israel and imagining that we could take a field trip and fly there together.
We talked about the idea of Israel being a place of vibrant Jewish life.
We thought about that word, "vibrant" and all of the things it could mean.
Here were some of our ideas:
Lively
Full of life
Abundant
Lots of different ideas
Lots of different people
Lots of different ways to be Israeli
Bouncy
Happy
All of it - like, all of the things it could be
We talked about what we need to do when we want to get to know a person or a place.
We talked about things like having curiosity and asking questions, really listening and paying attention, not expecting people to be perfect, knowing we might really like someone or some place but might not like everything about them, not making assumptions, having expectations but trying to be reasonable about them, reading about a place, going to a place and just seeing what it's like.
We talked about how sometimes we get to know someone and find out we have lots in common. Sometimes the more we know, the more we like. Sometimes the more we know the more connected we feel.
We were honest that sometimes that's not how it goes.
Sometimes we really, really like someone or really, really like a place and then . . .
Here were some of our examples:
. . . then we find out that place makes A LOT of trash and isn't always responsible about it, that person isn't always so nice, that place is too hot for us in the summer, that person doesn't always include us the way we'd like to be.
And sometimes, we agreed, that's okay. Hard, and okay.
People and places aren't perfect.
Sometimes the things we like are bigger than the things we don't like and we still overall like that person or place, but now we just know them well enough to know it's not perfect - they aren't perfect. Sometimes the people are family and we love them even though we don’t always like them.
We agreed feelings can be complicated.
And we were honest that sometimes we get to know someone better and it means we decide we just can't actually be friends with them, and that's okay, too.
We had some experiences with that, too.
We find out someone is antisemitic and we just can't be friends anymore.
Someone says or does things that are really homophobic to another friend and even though we really liked their personality and they had been a good friend we just can't be friends with them now - and it's hard because they are still in our class.
Someone we thought was a friend actually turns out to be kind of (or really) mean to us.
We made space for how hard it can be when things like that happen.
We acknowledged that when we learn about Israel it's like learning about other places or people. It's good to be curious and ask questions, to listen and pay attention, to not expect Israel to be perfect, to know there will be things we like and things we don't, to not make assumptions . . . all of those things. And because Israel is special to us, we know our feelings about Israel might be complicated and that's just fine because we are capable of having complicated feelings.
We have before, and we will again.
All of that brought us back to our ideas about "vibrant" . . . because "vibrant" is complicated, too.
A place with:
Lots of different ideas
Lots of different people
Lots of different ways to be Israeli
is going to be a complicated place.
NOW we were ready to jump in and get to know Israel better.
We introduced ourselves to some Israel highlights and sounds.
We talked about swimming with dolphins, seeing a fennec fox, street art, and more.
We imagined ourselves on the Israel National Trail, starting in the north and hiking all the way to the south. We all thought the idea of being able to hike the entire length of the country sounded very cool, whether or not we personally wanted to go on a long hike like that! We met animals in five different ecosystems.
We remembered last week and our Yom HaShoah memorial.
We remembered that there were whole countries where it wasn't safe to be Jewish.
We thought a bit about why Jewish people before and after the Holocaust might have wanted a Jewish country.
We remembered being with Abraham and Sarah way back in the fall. We looked again at the map of where Ur was and where Canaan was, where their story started and where they ended up. It made sense to all of us that a lot of Jewish people would have wanted their Jewish country to be where these Torah stories happen. It made sense to a lot of us that for many Jewish people going back to this land would have felt like going home.
We also learned about how there were people already living in that land, and that the way Israel became a country was messy . . . the way countries become countries is pretty much always messy. We thought about how many things can be true at the same time. It is true that the Jewish people needed a country - a homeland. It is true there were Arab people calling that same place home. It is true that there was a war about it. It is true that at the end of the war Israel became a country and now we celebrate Israel's independence. It is true that many Jewish people and many Arab people were hurt and died in that war. It is true that for the Arab people that time is called the Nakba - the catastrophe. We can care about Israel, we can love Israel, and we can also know there are a lot of complicated true things.
We considered together:
Today on Yom Ha’Atzmaut we celebrate our
Jewish home in Israel.
We know the Palestinian people need a home, too.
|Our hearts are big.
Our hearts are strong.
There is room in our hearts for
ALL of the true things.
We watched the video of "One Day" that we watched back in October.
We all remembered it.
What I noticed was how intently everyone watched this time.
Some of us were singing along.
While we watched, a few of us wrote in the chat:
"I love this video"
"I feel good hearing this song"
"I'm glad this song is in Hebrew and Arabic."
Sunday May 12th 1:30pm EST there will be a joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony.
May 12-13 is Yom HaZikaron.
The 5th of the Hebrew month of Iyar is Yom Ha’Atzmaut.
This year that’s the evening of Monday May 13th and the day of the 14th.
The Jewish calendar keeps moving forward and we keep moving forward with it.
If you’d like some gentle company, you are welcome to walk with me and my students for as long as you’d like.
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 שִׁשָׁה עָשָׂר יוֹם
שֶׁהֵם שְׁנֵי שָׁבוּעוֹת וּשְׁנֵי יָמִים לָעוֹמֶר.
Hayom shishah asar yom
shehem sh’nei shavuot u’shnei yamim la’omer
Today is sixteen days of the Omer.
That is two weeks and two days of the Omer.
Sefirat HaOmer Blessing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8hCiPI1tMQ