Counting the Omer

I remember when I was a young girl, I would think about my birthday for months before the big day. Together, with my family, we would figure out what we wanted to do to make the day special.  We still have pictures of some of those milestones; tables filled with classmates some years, pictures of intimate groups of friends enjoying some activity together on other years, but each big day, early on, seemed to bring with it another cause for celebration.  Somewhere along the way though, birthdays and other special occasions became more complicated.  Nowadays, it seems that the big question for many of us, on any of our special milestones, is if we should or want to do something special to mark the day.  Sometimes, it feels easier to do something "low key" maybe going out to dinner with family or a small group of friends and enjoying a tantalizing dessert at the end.  Then you have those people who don't  love being at the center of celebrations, have schedules that already feel overwhelming, or worry about the potential for disappointment in envisioning and actualizing big days, and if you fall into that camp,  it’s sometimes easier to treat even the big days as “just another day”.  But then….comes the Omer.

The Omer is a period of time that begs us to recognize that even the baby steps, the minor events in life, the day to day occurrences deserve to be acknowledged.  Through the counting of the Omer, we are reminded that when we intentionally count our days, they end up mattering more than we may think.  So what is this "Omer" to which I am referring?  The Omer is a period of time between Passover and Shavuot that we are literally commanded to count the days.  We begin this counting immediately after our second night seder  (from the day that the Omer of the waving was historically brought) and we continue the counting for 49 days while the 50th day begins the holiday of Shavuot.  Each night, we are instructed to recite a special blessing and to count the time in both weeks and days.  The counting serves to link the holidays of Passover and Shavuot and by bridging the holidays we are reminded that as a People, we were not fully redeemed from slavery until we received the Torah.

One of the most interesting aspects of counting the Omer to me though, is that we count upward in numbers each night while in most aspects of our lives we generally count down.  We count down the days until our vacations, last day of school, until our anniversaries, reunions or whatever big event may be happening.   Yet when we count the Omer we count up and this to me has become meaningful.  You see, we count down to things when we know what awaits us.  Yet, when the Israelites were counting the days beginning with Passover, they weren't quite sure what the future would hold.   So perhaps, there’s something special about this idea as well:  that oftentimes in life, we don’t have a special occasion on the horizon, no big vacations, milestones or gatherings planned, but in those times too, if we can just have faith that with the unknown can come our most unexpected blessings and special experiences, we can hold on to the optimistic outlook that has always kept our people going.  Perhaps looking forward to the known and unknown is something that our tradition encourages after all!

Wishing you all meaningful counting, holidays and may each day bring you blessings!