Early on in this time of social distancing, or whatever we are currently calling it, someone sent me a video of a colleague teaching about counting the days of isolation as we count the days of the Omer—the time between Passover and Shavuot, 49 days. My initial reactive was negative; how can we count this time when we do not know when, or how, it will end? We count the Omer, I thought, only to guide us to Shavuot, to the moment we stood at Sinai and received Torah. What does it mean to count towards an unknown end?
And yet—here we are. This strange time now coincides with the Omer, and like it or not, I am counting. We are counting.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow—a longtime eco-activist—reminds us that the Omer, in its origins, is agricultural, it is tied to our world and to the land. Our Biblical ancestors, wandering in the desert and dependent on it for sustenance, did not know they would arrive at the foot of Sinai. Rather, Rabbi Waskow teaches: Day by day, week by week, the community watches the spring grain grow, watches with hope and with anxiety….Day by day, week by week; for this is no holy day, not even a week-long festival—but truly a season of the year. A season full of hope, full of anxiety that hope may fail.
Anxiety and hope are emotions that we are holding close in this particular season, in this particular Omer. But I am comforted by the reminder that our ancestors did not know when their wandering would come to an end—that they could only move forward day after day, creating ritual and community and signs of growth in an arid land. Rabbi Waskow continues, explaining that as the Biblical understand of the Omer is agricultural, the later rabbinic understanding is spiritual; he teaches that we travel from political liberation (Egypt) to spiritual revelation. So too do we continue to create ritual and community, and we continue to grow together through this time. We pray that we are getting closer to physical liberation, to the time when we can be together, to see and hug loved ones, and to return to the places and people that anchor our lives. But, along the way, we invite you—through connecting with us in learning, prayer, and community, to find spiritual growth…and even revelation.
Today is the 7th day of the Omer, which is one week of the Omer.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer