Finding Inner Meaning Within the Counting Of the Omer

We have come to the month of May and as spring arrives we contemplate the newness of the season, the beginning of summer. For us Jews we have an odd custom of counting from Passover until we reach the holiday of Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, in which we celebrate the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.
The Torah speaks of this odd ritual of counting the days that lead to this unique time of the bridge between spring and summer. Leviticus and Deuteronomy both speak of this:
You shall count for yourselves — from the day after the Shabbat, from the day when you bring the Omer of the waving — seven Shabbats, they shall be complete. Until the day after the seventh Sabbath you shall count, 50 days… -Leviticus 23:15-16
You shall count for yourselves seven weeks; from when the sickle is first put to the standing crop shall you begin counting seven weeks.
Then you will observe the Festival of Shavuot for the Lord, your God -Deuteronomy 16:9-10
According to the Torah, we are obligated to count the days from Passover to Shavuot. This period is known as the Counting of the Omer. An omer is a unit of measure. On the second day of Passover, in the days of the Temple, an omer of barley was cut down and brought to the Temple as an offering. This grain offering was referred to as the Omer.
Every night, from the second night of Passover to the night before Shavuot, we recite a blessing and state the count of the omer in both weeks and days. So on the 16th day, you would say “Today is 16 days, which is two weeks and two days of the Omer.” We end up becoming semi mathematicians during this time discovering our inner Einstein connecting to this ancient ritual.
The counting is intended to remind us of the link between Passover, which commemorates the Exodus from Egypt, and Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah. It reminds us that the redemption from slavery was not complete until we received the Torah and finally became a holy people.
During this season, it is recounted in the Talmud that the students of Rabbi Akiva died in a plague because they did not give each other proper respect. Some manuscripts recount the plague ending on Lag B’Omer–the 33rd day of the 50. Kabbalistic tradition recounts the great sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in a folktale told of this saint that when he died on Lag B’Omer, the sun miraculously refused to set until he expired, hence the Chasidic tradition of candles and bonfires on Lag B’Omer and for the rest of us having a BBQ making it a sort of Jewish July 4th celebration. Beth Judah Temple will be having a BBQ on May 22 at 12:15 in commemoration of Lag B’ Omer in the spirit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.
As spring transitions into summer, we count and we contemplate the bridge of life and death and our experiences before Sinai and the celebration of the holiness of great men and the tragedy of the loss of so many. The counting has become a great symbol of faith. Some have the custom of not shaving during the month of the Omer and some do not permit weddings and other joyous celebrations in memory of the students lost to the great Sage Akivah. Even though the Omer counting is preparing us for celebration it is also a time for contemplation of loss.
On the last day of Passover as we began counting the Omer we recite the Yizkor memorial prayer and remember those who have passed in our lives. We give them an honor by saying ‘I remember who you were and you were important in my life.’ The counting of the days during the Omer is often a symbol for the counting we make when we lose people we love when we look back to how long our lives have been without them and what we would be like today if they were still around.
As I count the Omer this year I think of the time I had with my brother David who died almost eight years ago in a skiing accident. As I get older and turn the page on a new significant moment in my life as rabbi, husband, and father I often wonder where he would have been with me in this new stage and what he would think of my son who now carries his name. For years I would not delete letters or email he had sent me feeling that it would somehow erase my memory of him. I miss him terribly and even after almost eight years not a day goes by without him on my mind. I wish he was here so badly, but he is not so I count like the rest of my people.
When Log B’Omer arrives the counting takes a break and we celebrate the uniqueness of our counting and our mourning in the count. We celebrate the life of the great Sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and rather than weep we sing as we contemplate his death as his ascension to heaven. I think this is what we are meant to learn though all this counting of the Omer: to stop for a moment and think about what we are asked to remember and how we will prepare ourselves before we see God at Sinai when we reach the holiday of Shavuot. Find that peace and we find our faith in the Torah and our daily counting will have a greater purpose.
Rabbi Jeffrey Lipschultz is the spiritual leader Beth Judah Temple in Wildwood. He welcomes your comments at dvjewish@rof.net
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