Do you count the Omer? If you are Jewish, you may know about this practice. If you aren’t, you likely have no idea to what I’m referring. However, anyone can count the Omer, and in the process you can refine your character.
The process of receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai began 49 days before the actual even occurred. It began with the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt. The 49 days between the Exodus and Shavuot, the holiday that celebrate the forming of the covenant and God’s giving of the Torah to his Chosen People, is called Sefirat Ha’Omer, or counting of the Omer.
In Leviticus, the third book of the Torah, (23:15) we are instructed to count from the day we brought the Omer as a “wave offering.” An omer was a measure of barley the Jews brought as the afternoon offering on the second day of Passover. Even today, at the end of evening prayers on each night–or for less observant Jews at some time during the day, a Jew recites a blessing and then verbalizes the number of that day. On the 50th day, the holiday of Shavuot was celebrated.
However, this counting has also been associated with the sefirot on the Tree of Life. Each of the seven weeks relates to one of the lower seven sefirot and each of the seven days of the week also relates to a sefirah. And so the sefirot are paired up during the course of the 49 day period.
By looking at each day’s pairing and examining how those characteristics or character traits apply to our own character, we can refine ourselves and make ourselves ready to receive the Torah each year. This takes honest and introspection. By traveling up the emotional ladder, so to speak, we see how we are or have been slaves to our personalities–how the forces of our emotions and ego control our lives. We work during these seven weeks to “free ourselves from bondage.” Then, like the Israelites, we are read to enter into a covenant with God–or with our true selves. we can reconnect with our souls.
By going through this process each year, we help ourselves refine our character and achieve personal freedom from those things that hold us back from achieving our human potential.
It always amazes me to realize how many times during the Jewish year we are given a chance to go inward and refine our character, purify our selves, improve our way of being in the world we can grow and learn and become our best selves. Yet, most of these processes can be used by anyone; you need not be Jewish to use them.
I highly suggest getting a copy of Spiritual Guide to Counting the Omer by Rabbi Simon Jacobson. Anyone can use it–Jewish or not. I use it each year.
Today is fifteen days, which are two weeks and one day, of the Omer: Chesed of Tiferet–Lovingkindness in Compassion.
