Counting Of The Omer

Counting of the Omer: Week One

Our counting of the Omer this year will pick up on a theme we began to address in last year’s count. This year our intent is to develop the idea of the seven week count as a seven week step program for change. With the end in mind, the final week of the count, corresponding to the week of Malchut (manifestation) is realizing the change. Can you begin to change on the first day of the count? Absolutely. Or any time along the count. Yes. The method prescribed by the counting of seven weeks suggests that for change to be lasting it requires emotional preparation, thoughtful consideration and spiritual awareness.

Changing a behavior is often thought of as easier than changing a ‘character trait’. We learn in Kabbalah though, that behaviors always reflect an aspect of character and therefore we should never take lightly the challenge of changing what might seem to be an insignificant behavior. Changing even a ‘small’ behavior can have a deep impact on how we see ourselves. A small behavior change can influence a deep shift and we become a different person. (more…)

By Melanie Gruenwald, 12 years ago

Counting of the Omer

Counting On It

The Basics:

1. We will be counting 50 days (7weeks plus an additional day—the 50^th –which is the holiday of Shavuot—the receiving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai).
2. This count is a recount and a new count. It recounts the process of the Jews leaving Egyptian slavery and journeying 49 days in the desert—their moving from slavery to freedom. It is a new count for each of us every year to expose, examine and express our own freedom from that which limits or enslaves us.
3. The count starts this Saturday night (the ‘day’ starts at nightfall and ends at nightfall).
4. One says a blessing “…on the counting of the Omer” (it is called the Omer count as that was a grain that was brought to the Temple to start this period of counting—Omer means a measurement of grain) and then each day you count that day (today is…the eleventh day).
5. Each week of the count has a theme. This idea is an innovation of the Kabbalists but has been widely accepted into Jewish tradition as it appears in most prayer books. The theme of each week corresponds to different aspects of the Tree of Life (the seven ‘lower’ sefirot). (more…)

By Melanie Gruenwald, 12 years ago

Counting of the Omer

Productive Counting

We are just over a week away from counting the Omer—a fifty day count from Passover to the holiday of Shavuot—commemorating the journey the Jews traversed from Egyptian slavery to becoming a nation with the Torah as its religious covenant. This year we will again look at the fifty day count as a step program for learning to be fully present. In particular, present awareness is leaving behind the constraints of the past (which is different than ignoring the past). We will start the count on the second night of Passover and spend seven weeks working on living in the present by letting go of or altering our relationship with emotions and behaviors mired in the past that constrain (enslave) us. Next week I will suggest some of the basic emotions that constrain us as symbolized by the foods we place on the Seder plate and Passover table. (more…)

By Melanie Gruenwald, 12 years ago

Counting of the Omer

Counting of the Omer