Thank you to Aryae Coopersmith
Co-chair of The CJC Spirituality Chavurah
The spiritual practice of Counting the Omer lasts for 49 days, divided into seven weeks of seven days each, from the second day of Pesach until the day before Shavuot. Our practice today emerges from three layers of Jewish history, each with it’s own layer of meaning.
The Torah
Leviticus 23:15 — “You shall count for yourselves, from the day after the day of rest (Pesach) from the day on which you will bring the omer wave offering, seven complete weeks they shall be. Until the day after the seventh week, you shall count fifty days, and you shall bring a new meal-offering to Adonoy.”
An omer was a unit of dry measure, equal to about two quarts of grain. The fiftieth day marks the festival of Shavuot, when two loaves of wheat bread
were brought as an offering — the culmination of the grain harvest that began with barley and ended with wheat. In this original agricultural sense, the counting stitched together the rhythms of the land, binding the community to the earth and to God through the weeks between planting and harvest, from first grain to full abundance.
The Talmud
The rabbis of the Talmud looked beyond the fields and heard in the count a second story: the story of the Exodus itself. The counting of the Omer became a
re-enactment of the walk through the desert. Each day was a day further from Egypt and closer to Mount Sinai.
The Kabbalists
The Kabbists gave the Counting the Omer a third layer of meaning: healing the Sefirot — the levels through which humans experience connection with God — that had been damaged during the time of slavery. Counting the Omer works with these seven Sefirot:
Hesed (Loving Kindness)
Gevurah (Strength/Limits)
Tiferet (Compassion/Balance)
Netzach (Perseverence)
Hod (Splendor/Sanctuary)
Yesod (Foundation/Connection)
Malchut (Presence)
Each of the seven weeks is one sefira. And each day in each week is a sefira within a sefira. So for example:
Omer Day 1: Hesed within Hesed
Omer Day 2: Gevurah within Hesed
Omer Day 3: Tiferet within Hesed
… etc…
Omer Day 8: Hesed within Gevurah
Omer Day 9: Gevurah within Gevurah
Omer Day 10: Tiferet within Gevurah
…etc…
Pulling It All Together
Counting the Omer offers us a remarkable opportunity to pull together these three levels into one spiritual practice — celebrating the gift of the harvest, reliving the journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai, and re-activating our levels of God connection through the sefirot.
Some Resources for Counting the Omer
• Neohasid Omer Counter App by R. David Seidenberg and R. David Cooper. https://www.neohasid.org/omer/apps/
• Chabad Omer Counter App https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2907734/jewish/Omer-Counter.htm
• Aryae’s Omer Counter — A photo (mostly Coastside) and a haiku for each day of the Omer. https://blog.owl1.net/view/omer-counting/
Hebrew calendar https://www.hebcal.com/omer/5786 – Lists the dates with the day of the Omer, and the dual intention for that day. The name for the intention varies with interpretation.