Making the Omer Count

Posted on 04/21/2016 by Guest Blogger in Holidays

by Rivka Levy

Back when I lived in London, few things excited me less, religiously, than the whole ‘Counting the Omer’ thing. Here’s what I knew about Counting the Omer back then: The day after the first Seder, we have to make a big hoo-hah about counting 49 days, which takes us up to the day we got the Torah on Mount Sinai, which we celebrate at Shavuot time.

I’m someone who always likes to know why: why do I have to count 49 days? What’s it all about?

The closest I got to an answer in London is that there were 49 days between the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. Like, color me underwhelmed.

It took a move to Israel to start to understand the deeper reasons for counting the Omer – and even then, I didn’t get with the program immediately. The first few years I was here, counting the Omer was something that only the super-religious people (like my husband…) did.

But then about five years ago, something changed. That year, as soon as the week of Passover concluded, I started getting hit by one crazy, strange occurrence after another. I’m not talking small "coincidences" here, I’m talking about very dramatic, unmissable challenges that started popping up all over the place.

Two weeks in, I suddenly had a light bulb go off in my head that maybe, all the weird stuff I was experiencing was connected to counting the Omer, in some way. I cracked open my copy of Advice, which is a shortened, English version of Rebbe Nachman of Breslev’s magnum opus called Likutey Moharan, and this is what I read:

“Each day of the Omer period is associated with a different aspect of the Sefirot. [I’ll explain what Sefirot are in a minute.] And on that day everything which everyone in the whole world is talking about is purely an expression of the particular aspect with which that day is associated.”

Now, I just had to figure out what the heck the Sefirot were and I’d be set.

This is what I learned: God created the world via 10 worlds or spheres of energy, that are commonly referred to in the Jewish mystical tradition, (a.k.a. Kabbalah) as Sefirot.

According to the Kabbalah, these 10 Sefirot are split into three higher ones, and seven lower ones – and the seven lower ones are associated with a whole bunch of different things, including the main attributes, or character traits, that us human beings are meant to work on and perfect throughout the course of our lives.

Each week of Counting the Omer, the focus is on a different one of these Sefirot, or attributes. In Hebrew, they are listed as:

Week 1: Chesed – often translated as love, or kindness
Week 2: Gevurah – often translated as strength, or self-control
Week 3: Tiferet – often translated as truth, beauty or splendor
Week 4: Netzach – often translated as referring to eternity, or being victorious, in some way
Week 5: Hod – often translated as humility, or gratitude
Week 6: Yesod – literally translated as ‘foundation’
Week 7: Malkhut – literally translated as royalty, or kingship

The trouble with Counting the Omer is that if you’re not a native Hebrew speaker (as I wasn’t), you kind of lose 98% of the meaning of these words, and then you have no idea what inner work you’re actually meant to be doing on what particular day.

It took me a few years, and a lot of reading, to get to a place where I felt that I’d have some idea of what the ‘energy’ of each day of the Omer actually was, so I could have some warning of what might be coming down the pipe in my interactions with people.

For example, in the week of Netzach, I guarantee that you will get into at least one massive argument with someone you’re close to. If you aren’t expecting that, and if you don’t know about what’s really going on throughout the period of Counting the Omer, that could come as quite a shock (as it did to me).

If you’re thinking that you’d really like to know what’s coming down the pipe, spiritually-speaking, over the next seven weeks or so, here’s the good news: I’ve put together an interactive journal of self-development called 49 Days, that will spell out what particular character traits need some work on each day.

Also, because it’s interactive, you’ll get an exercise to do that will really help you to tap in to the spiritual energy of that day, and hopefully get things moving in a positive way.

Like, if I’d known all those years ago that my friend was yelling at me because it was the day of ‘Self-improvement focusing on Love & relationships’, (and not just because she’d gone stark, raving bonkers) I probably wouldn’t have reacted quite as strongly as I did. (Well, it’s possible…)

But in the meantime, here’s my take on the seven main areas we need to work on over the seven week period of Counting the Omer:

Week 1: Love & relationships
Week 2: Self-improvement
Week 3: Truth
Week 4: Seeing the good / specialness
Week 5: Gratitude
Week 6: Sense of Purpose
Week 7: The Spiritual Dimension

So now, the choice is yours: Count the Omer in anticipation of the wheat harvest (like ooooh, super exciting) OR this year, really make the Omer count.

You can get a sneak peek of Rivka Levy’s new book: 49 Days: An Interactive Journal of Self-Development, and download a free PDF version.

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