Tag Archives for counting the omer

haYom sh’losha yomim laOmer: tiferet she b’chesed

“Father of Compassion, favor Zion with your goodness”

think about it. at the beginning of the Torah reading service on shabbat morning we exultantly say “who is like You?” and then ” You are master, You were master, You will be master for eternity…G’d will give Israel strength…and bless his People with peace”  and then suddenly the niggun gets darker, almost pleading  “av harachamim…”

but wait. this sounds like a petitionary prayer….on shabbat? nu?

if ever known in your life, if even once, you know why compassion is so important that we crave it even during the otherwise peace and contentment of shabbat.  for  the sefirah of tiferet, ‘compassion, harmony, balance, beauty’ is on the mainline from haShem, the first full station stop in the central trunk of the tree.  tiferet is the sure-footed balancing of chesed and gevurah, neither too free nor too tight, but just right.

the hebrew rachamim is powerfully associated with death in many prayers…the kel molei rachamim….the full av harachamim….compassion is what one needs in hard times when the tendency is too easily to go gevurah (why did this one have to die? it isn’t fair), or too easily toward the loving-kind (it is a terrible thing…i know exactly how you feel…i lost my uncle bernie when i was 6…).  the prayer for compassion is a prayer for return to harmony in life.

if ever balanced, if ever truly living  compassion toward others, you will ever strive to get back to it when you tilt to extremes…..we know center when we feel it.  and we know the divine in ourselves when feel empathy for the situation of another AND also know just what to do…not too soft…not too hard…just right.  not too much good inclination, and not too much bad inclination.

the kabbalists teach that the central sefirot tend ever so slightly toward the right-side of the tree, a gravitational sort of attraction, so tiferet naturally ranges toward chesed. but the tending has no fixed point, so maybe it is more like the probability function….a region closer to chesed in which compassion is likely to be found.

and that feeds into another important aspect of tiferet: the readiness is all.  to be compassionate, one must be ready to do what is needed in the situation.  sometimes, as when visiting the sick, it is to speak and give cheer; other times, as when visiting the mourner, it may be to sit in silence.  the compassionate jew is one who is ready and nimble.

mussar for tiferet she b’chesed

tiferet-chesed with another….bein adam l’chaveiro   visit the sick with a smile.  smile upon the well. “greet every human with a cheerful and pleasant countenance” (Pirkei Avot 1:15), for it is the basic compassion.

tiferet-chesed with yourself…bein adam l’atzmo    this week we are all foregoing chametz as a matter of mitzvah and religious practice.  but as a special practice today, forego something else in empathy with others who simply don’t have.

kabbalah for tiferet she b’chesed

in assiyah….the world of doing/complation   these days, we take something like pride in being multi-taskers.  but research is beginning to show that multi-tasking is too often a matter of shortchanging everything…it is not necessarily more productive.  we end up astounded that we finish everything….but what if i asked you to be compassionate in all the many things you are doing?  would that interfering with the “getting things done”? consider which should matter more….and be sure you multi-task something just for you into your routine today….to keep yourself balanced, for from there you can extend harmony outward.

in yetzirah….the world of feeling/formation   worry is anathema to compassion. worry is by definition out of balance, and usually a cramping in gevurah.   we parents give youngins timeouts to get things back in manageable range. why do we think it won’t work for us as well?  go ahead, give yourself a timeout–you deserve it!  meditate on the centrality of compassion in G’d, and see yourself as a potential piece of the expression of G’d’s compassion here in Creation.  are you in harmony with creation?

in b’riyah….the world of thought/creation   r’ kantrowitz teaches us that we sometimes know compassion best in our friendships.  friends can observe flaws in each other and help correct them with compassion–and meet a compassionate response!  this is the full beauty of tiferet in a way.  so remember a time when you were a really good friend and knew exactly what to do and say because you were deeply empathetic in your feelings and hopes for your friend.  now what would it take to extend that to others?

in atzilut….the world of nearness to G’d/intuition  tiferet can be in the bond of mates in love making. it can be in the cooldown  following exercise.  chazal took time to prepare before prayer so as to be in tiferet before uttering a word….and they remained silent after prayer for a time to hold onto the compassion that had been given them through prayer.  find your time for ‘afterglow’ and use it to instill balance from which you can live the rest of the day.

kinyan 3 of 48 ways to acquire Torah

Arichat S’fatayim….Speak-Teaching   the Vilna Gaon would stress the learning of Mishlei (Proverbs) in his first year students at yeshiva specifically so that they would be able to go out and teach others.  and he would require that they teach orally both in reading the text and in explaining it.  speaking what you learn is the balance between learning on your own and being able to hear, truly hear what is being taught. hence, taught the Gaon, the learning of Mishlei brings forth 2 gifts: a gift of adam l’chaveiro when each student goes out to share and reteach what is learned, and a gift of G’d l’adam for the Holy One is inspired by the character improvements that the learning brings to the students and responds immediately from his rachamim to assist all who teach and all who study. the character improvements are a surefire way to awaken G’d’s compassion!  So speak up and teach!

sefirat haOmer T-2: words, words, words

because T-1 is Pesach and Shabbat this year, baruch haShem, this is the last post before the onset of the count itself. we will all begin on saturday night, 7 april 2012 of the secular calendar, to count the Omer!

look for a now hidden post on the sefirah of the week, ie, chesed, and the interinclusion of the day, ie, chesed that is in chesed, to appear at 3 stars saturday night…..

you should notice that 3 menus have been added to the left under the header. in each of them, and in order, you will find a kavanah to be heartily said, the blessing for the mitzvah of sefirat haOmer, and the formulae for the phrasing of the counting itself.  you can turn to them at any time that you wish to count.  but rest assured that each day’s correct phrase for counting will be posted in the main area at around dusk each day….

why dusk? well, the jewish day begins with darkness as it was in the first days of Creation itself.  so counting at night is a show of zerizut…a diligent, energetic eagerness to do a mitzvah at the first opportunity.  “seek peace and pursue it” (Psalms 34:15) and “righteousness, righteousness,  shall you pursue“(Devarim 16:20) show us that we should go after (stronger: ‘hunt down’) all mitzvot with energy;  David haMelekh sums it up in Psalm 119:60:

“i hastened and did not delay to perform Your Mitzvot” 

zerizut is zeal in time…alacrity…..why waste time when you could/should be doing a mitzvah?  and what exactly is the excuse for not counting the Omer?  we’ve all been counting since our toddlerhood.  seriously, can you think of an easier mitzvah to do in its mechanical essence?  we aren’t talkin differential equations, after all….so go bananas about sefirat haOmer…nightime come and me wan’ go count!

the mussar exercises and kabbalistic meditations, the foci in prayer and additional prayers for each day or week that will be offered in the walkinTorah posts can wait for any hour in the day. a more contemplative and unhurried pace is the proper walk for them…just as one runs to mitzvah, one can profitably saunter in meditation!

so next time we meet in the ether, b’ezrat haShem, we begin the jewish long count toward Sinai.

to be clear: don’t go lookin for a T-1 text here…after all, the text for T-1 is quite well established….and remember that the mitzvah on Passover itself is in the sipur, the telling.  why with all that sipurring, we ought to be well warmed up for saturday night sefirring, don’t you think?

chag kasher v’sameach, v’shabbat shalom

sefirat haOmer T-3: one way or another, you’re gonna find you

2 ways of counting: days and then weeks and days. and 2 ways of making it count more: mussar and kabbalah. it’s not at all that they are divorced from each other, and we will be doing a bit of both over the course of the 49 days. but i thought we should know a tad more about why we are doing a bit of each.

the way of mussar

the mussar way is based on contemplative practices, actions mapped to each day.  simply put, you do each spirit exercise in order to focus on and then clear away the accretions of habits, leanings, and just plain imbalances that prevent the inner light of your soul from shining forth.  just as in mainstream kabbalah, the crucial understanding is that each of us is a soul yearning for the G’dly.  hence it should be no surprise to any of us that major kabbalistic thinkers often are associated with the most powerful mussar texts….

and we are reminded of that  today as it just happens to be the yahrtzeit of r’ yosef karo, master halachist and kabbalist who worked no small amount of mussar  (derech eretz) into the weft of the warp he is best known for, the Shulchan Aruch.

there are a couple of touchstones for mussar in sefirat haOmer.

one springs from the Pirke Avot 6:6 where we learn that there are 48 kinyanei Torah, ie, 48 ways to acquire Torah.  48 is mighty close to 49, and the plan is to study 1 of the 48 each day of the counting, leaving the 49th day for review of the lot. we will touch on one of the kinyanim (or middot) each day.

the other approach stems from r’ elazar’s teaching, also in Avot, that the most important middah is a lev tov (a good heart), which has a gematria of 32.  so on each of the first 32 days of sefirat haOmer we will dwell on actions that improve relations ben adam l’chavero (between person and person), using the last 17 days to do mitzvot ben adam l’makom (between man and G’d).  those of you who remember lag b’omer, ie, the 33rd day of omer, will immediately see that it would correspond to the day on which the work changes from the human-human sphere to the human-divine sphere.  a lot of you may also notice that this 2-part approach parallels the work of the Days of Awe, during which we set things right with people before we can finish the setting aright with G’d.  we’ll try to honor this approach as well during the sefirah.

the way of kabbalah

the kabbalistic way is polymorphic, but focuses on a more purely mystical meditation or hitbonenut. we will try to relate each interincluded day (interinclusion is the all in one idea that each sefira comprises all the other sefirot within it) of the count to meditations rooted in the spiritual levels of the 4 worlds:

assiyah…the world of completion/doing associated with nefesh (the indwelling/resting soul)

yetzirah…the world of formation associated with ruach (the free will/turbulent soul)

b’riyah…the world of creation associated with neshamah (the renewable/breathing soul)

atzilut…the world of nearness to G’d associated with chayah (the life-force/living essence soul)

we will examine/contemplate on aspects of our existence that allow for the soul to shine forth and rise up through the levels of the worlds to get closer to our root in G’d.  ideally, these contemplative exercises will dovetail into the mussar practices more days than not!

so that is the sheaf of mindblowing, soulglowing methods we will ripen into for each of our days, shredding the husks that confine us as we swell in soul…nurturing our individual hearts of wisdom….readying better selves for the receipt of Torah again in Shavuot.

sefirat haOmer T-5: all in one, one in all

Norman Fischer seems to grasp the counting of the Omer in his lovely translation of Psalm 90:12:

“help me understand how to count my days…how to embrace my life…that i may nourish a heart of wisdom”

we have to count the days, AND we have to count the weeks.  it isn’t a simple count that gets you to a heart of wisdom, it seems.  oh, and that ‘how to embrace my life‘ part isn’t literally in the hebrew of the psalm at all….but boy is it ever in sefirat haOmer, in the understanding of counting the days.

we have to cycle and cycle again…7 days per week, 7 weeks (each of 7 days) for the whole of sefirat haOmer.  and in each day we have a reciprocating cycle of interactions of sefirah that is in sefirah.  7 paired interactions, 1 pair per day,  of sefirot in each other ; every week focusing on another of the sefirot as the dominant aspect of the week, and working through the 7 sets of interactions each has with each other.

chesed with gevurah with tiferet with netzach with hod with yesod with malchut….working through each interaction down the tree…but simultaneously up from selflessness in chesed to majesty in malchut.

so while we will follow the interaction of each sefirah in every other sefirah as we move down the lower 7 of the etz chaim, we will with every day of week add up to a week. we move down the sefirot as we count up the days…not unlike the angels of Yaacov’s vision of the ladder:

“….and here, messengers of G’d were going up and down on it'” (Genesis 28:12)

up and down, back and forth, each in each to each from each.  our messengers from G’d are found in the way we interact with ourselves and the world, for in our spiritual character, our emotional responses, our ethical ways of interacting that we find our clear vision of G’d in the world.  it is in the aspects of ourselves as affected by all else that we find the image of G’d in which we have been uniquely created.

to sum up, we perceive G’d in the world according to how we relate with the world in all its myriad differences.

let’s make it simple, yes? say we have a family of 7, from 2 grandparents through 2 parents with 3 kids.  we will be exploring the affect of the grandfather on himself, the grandmother on the grandfather, the father on the grandfather, the mother on the grandfather, the eldest child on the grandfather, the middle child on the grandfather, and the youngest child on the grandfather.  that is 1 week. then we do the same with each on the grandmother, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

we all of us understand that each is affected by every other in a family, right?  and maybe that the dynamic of the interactions between them is more than the mere sum of the parts?  each of us is more than just the sum of our encounters with each other and the world…..but in each encounter all are touched, and from each touch we affect our next touch of another…up and down, back and forth, cycling each in each to each from each.

hugs all round, i say, and somewhere in that embrace of life we will each find that heart of wisdom that we were born to nourish.

sefirat haOmer T-6, but not yet counting

today we start to countdown to the time we begin to count up…again…as Leviticus 23:15 requires we should:

“You shall count for yourselves…from the day when you bring the Omer of the waving…7 weeks, they shall be complete.”

we count up 49 days and the 7 weeks from the night of the second day of Pesach (feast of passover) right up to the night before the festival of Shavuot (feast of weeks…get it?!)…itself the 50th day.  jubilation!

the simple mitzvah is literally to say a blessing and count each night for the full 7 weeks. you will find the text of the blessing and the formula for the counting the Omer in just about any siddur….take a look. now, we have been minding these 49 days every year since the exodus from egypt, for we know from Torah that it took 49 days for the People to reach Sinai and to encounter the beginning of the Torah journey that has been our walk ever since.

but numbering alone hasn’t been enough for spiritual jews for centuries.  the Israelites began the work of walking out of spiritual bondage into freedom, and since then we have seen the time between Pesach and Shavuot as a long march of self-reflection and self-redirection–‘count for yourselves’–much like the instruction to Avraham Avinu to ‘lech l’cha’ or ‘go toward yourself”.  it is a time for reaching into our emotions, our opinions, our acts and efforts…for reaching into our very souls.  we try to build up our character traits; build up our prayer ability;  build up our ability to love one another; build up our ability to be closer to G’d.  we build our abilities to ascend Sinai one day at a time; week by week.

and the kabbalists among us recognized that the  7 weeks corresponded to the 7 ’emotional’ sefirot from chesed through malchut.  each week is associated with 1 major sefirah:  and since each sefira contains the aspects of all the others, each day focuses on the affect of another of the 7 sefirot on that week’s major sefirah.  for those of you with the tree of life in hand, take a look.  we will speak more of the plan in the day’s leading up to Pesach.

what we will try to do this season here at walkinTorah is offer thoughts, meditations, emotional and spiritual exercises…and encouragement!… to help all of us reach into ourselves daily in order to open out to the world of G’d’s creation more fully as each day and each week passes.

for those who are members of congregation beth shalom–and you know who you are–we will try to meet each sunday morning EXCEPT on 8 April 2012, which is the the second day of Pesach (and the first day of the Omer count), to share the week past and prep for the week to come.  for those who join us but can’t do the face-to-face meetings, we’ll try to make sure that enough information is published daily on walkinTorah to help you keep up the pace.

let us go then, you and i, when the evening is spread out against the sky…..and learn to measure out our lives in more than coffee spoons!