Starting with the second night of Passover we have entered into a new phase known as the counting of the omer. The Omer is the counting of the days between the second night of Passover and Shavuot. The tradition of counting the omer comes from the following passage in the Torah “you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the LORD” (Leviticus 23:16).
There is a spiritual significance to the counting of days between redemption from slavery, Passover, and revelation of Torah, Shavuot. This counting can be looked at as the necessary spiritual wandering in the wilderness that must occur in each of us in order to receive a type of revelation. These next seven weeks are meant to parallel the wandering the Hebrews did from the exodus from Egypt to the revelation of Torah at mount Sinai that Shavuot celebrates.
In order for any person or people to have the capacity to receive any divine message, we must first be free to hear it. However, freedom to hear a message is not enough. Leviticus tells us we must prepare and shift our mindset from oppressed to open. That is what the omer allows us to do. The omer is the time we take to prepare ourselves mentally to truly hear messages meant to allow us to grow.
For the next seven weeks the Institute for Jewish Spirituality is presenting a different soul trait to work on leading up to Shavuot. This weeks Middah, or trait, is Chesed, loving kindness. Join me tonight as I discuss this trait and how I think we should implement it in our daily lives.
Also, as a reminder, we will be having our Yizkor service this Sunday morning at 8am on zoom. Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom!
