Tonight's the second night of Pesach, the night to begin the Counting of the Omer,which lasts for 49 days until Shavuot.
As someone who feels uncomfortable even using the word “God,” I find I look forward to this mystical, kabbalistic practice of mindfulness. In the early years, when it was all I could do to take five minutes each night to count the day, but even then, I felt it was worth doing.
Long an obscure practice, in recent years Counting the Omer has been making a comeback. Several Omer Guides have been written, including thisby Rabbi Rami Shapiro, and a book by Rabbi Min Kantrowitz.
Rabbi Yael Levy, a Jewish Mindfulness teacher, also has written a guide to Counting the Omer as Jewish Mindfulness practice, drawing together many of her teachings over many years.
This year, the Jewish Mindfulness program is doing an experiment – posting each day’s blessing and intention on its Web site and asking people to share their experiences.
Poet Susan Windle has created a Facebook pagein which she will be posting messages for every day of the Omer.
Some background: Like most Jewish holidays, Counting the Omer began as an agricultural ritual. People would go out into the fields each night and, just as they saw three stars in the sky, would wave an omer – a sheaf of barley – to ask for a good harvest.
Then the rabbis took the agricultural holiday and overlaid it with Torah – specifically, the Omer time was observed as a period of preparation between leaving Egypt and receiving Torah at Mount Sinai.
And the kabbalists took the Counting of the Omer to a new level, tying it to the seven lower sephirot(emanations of God). They assigned a quality to each of the seven weeks and each of the seven days, so every day has a unique quality to govern it.
Complicated? It can be, but you don't have to go there, really. Just counting, paying attention for a few minutes, can be transformative.