On the second night of Passover, we begin to count. One day of the Omer. Then another. And another. Seven weeks, forty-nine days, an ancient ritual that stretches like a thread between two peaks of Jewish experience: the sea and the mountain. Freedom and revelation. Exodus and Sinai. It is a journey that begins with rupture and ends with covenant—but it’s the space in between that contains the deepest work.
The Torah tells us to count these days, but it doesn’t say why. It gives no context for this strange commandment, only that we should begin the count from the day after the holiday and continue until we reach the fiftieth. The mystics, the rabbis, and the poets rush in to fill the silence. They tell us that the Israelites may have been physically liberated in one miraculous night, but spiritual liberation takes time. That redemption is not just about crossing the sea—it’s about standing at Sinai ready to receive. Counting, then, becomes a way of preparing the soul. Of stretching the self slowly into readiness.
Each night of the Omer, we pause and declare: “Today is the Xth day of the Omer.” It’s a small act, easily forgotten, often rushed. But embedded in that act is a deep theology of time. When you count something, you sanctify it. You say: this matters. I am not rushing through my life, I am noticing it. Naming it. Marking this moment in the slow work of becoming.
The question we rarely ask is: becoming what?
The mystics help here. They assigned each of the seven weeks of the Omer a divine quality—hesed (lovingkindness), gevurah (strength or restraint), tiferet (balance), netzach (endurance), hod (humility), yesod (foundation), and malchut (sovereignty). Every day, we are meant to reflect on how these divine energies manifest within us and between us. Not as abstract theology, but as the fabric of our character. What does love look like when tempered by discipline? Can humility be courageous? What does it mean to stand in our own sovereignty? The Omer becomes a soul curriculum, guiding us not only to Sinai, but to ourselves.
And still, it’s hard. We want transformation to be fast. We want freedom to feel immediate and uncomplicated. But the truth is, the Israelites may have left Egypt in one night, but it took forty-nine days—and arguably forty years—for Egypt to leave them. We know that rhythm well. It takes only a moment to break something—a habit, a heart, a trust—but it takes much longer to rebuild. Redemption is dramatic, but revelation is slow. And the Omer is honest about that.
What’s most striking to me is that we count up, not down. When you count down, you’re waiting for something to end—a race to the bottom, a blastoff, a deadline. But counting up means something else. It’s an ascent. A reminder that each day builds on the one before it. That we are not just moving through time, we are rising through it. That we are not waiting for revelation—we are preparing for it.
And preparation, by nature, is imperfect. Halakhically, if you miss a full day of counting—if the sun sets and you forgot entirely—you can still count the remaining days, but without a blessing. It’s a painful rule, and it feels harsh. But maybe it teaches something essential: that the spiritual path is cumulative. That presence matters. That wholeness is built, one day at a time, and even when broken, the work must go on. You don’t stop just because you slipped. You keep counting. Without the blessing, perhaps, but with deeper humility.
This year, I find the Omer especially resonant. We are in a season of spiritual dislocation. For many of us, the Jewish calendar has felt out of sync with our emotional lives. We are grieving and angry and uncertain. And we are awake—painfully, permanently—in ways we were not before. The world feels like a wilderness again, unpredictable and harsh. And the Omer shows up in that wilderness, quietly reminding us that the only way forward is through—step by step, count by count, day by day.
I’ve come to believe that the Omer is one of our most radical rituals. In a culture that celebrates immediacy, it dares to offer slow growth. In a world that prizes productivity, it commands presence. In a society that treats time as currency, it reclaims time as sacred. It is not a ritual of information—it is a ritual of formation. It doesn’t just teach us to wait—it teaches us how to become worthy of what we are waiting for.
On Shavuot, we will stand at Sinai and say that we are ready. That we accept. That we do and we will understand. But it’s the Omer that gets us there. Not as an obligation, but as an invitation. Not as a countdown, but as a journey into our own becoming.
There is a midrash that says when the Israelites stood at Sinai, each person heard the voice of God in a way they could uniquely understand. I like to think that’s not just about language, but about readiness. That each person, having walked their own path from Egypt, having counted their own forty-nine days, stood there uniquely prepared to hear something that no one else could hear.
That’s the promise of the Omer. That if we count—not just numbers, but blessings, boundaries, intentions, and questions—we too might arrive at revelation ready. Not perfect, but present. Not finished, but formed.
One day at a time.
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