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April 17, 2020
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“You shall count from the second day of Passover, when an Omer of grain is to be brought as an offering, seven complete weeks. The day after the seventh week of your counting will make fifty days.” — Leviticus 23:15-16

Counting the Omer refers to the biblical commandment to celebrate the new barley harvest by numbering and counting seven-times-seven evenings from Passover to the subsequent pilgrimage festival of Shavuot, which occurs on the evening after the Omer counting is complete. Forty-nine nights, counting each successive evening in a unique fashion (calling out first the number of days, then the number of weeks and days), we and our ancestors chip away at the long, slow, endless procession of days and nights leading from our leaving Egypt until our arrival at Mount Sinai according to one level of meaning, at the delivery of the barley harvest to the Temple in Jerusalem on another.

And we, too, in this age of self-quarantine, sheltering at home during this lengthy pandemic, we also are biding our time, counting our nights, hoping that this journey through the coronavirus will lead to a liberation, an emergence into freedom, community, and to breathing easy again.

Can we use this time of isolation to prepare for the great celebration that awaits us at its conclusion?

Maybe this is the year to take up the practice of counting the Omer (sefirat ha-Omer) if it is new to you. For those who have been observing this mitzvah in the past, this year can offer a deeper, additional layer of significance in the light of our current isolation.

We, like our ancestors, are on a journey that makes demands of us: to exhibit care for one  another, solidarity with our traditions and one another, responsiveness to what is right and proper behavior. Can we use this time of isolation to prepare for the great celebration that awaits us at its conclusion?

What if we think of this period of seclusion as sheltering in a grand, cosmic cocoon? Just as the caterpillar shelters in a self-built container in order to emerge over time as a radiant and  beautiful flying creature, so we can act now so that we emerge at the end better, more resilient, ready to soar in a new way.

Have we been too busy, too social to fashion our diet to reflect more healthy choices? Maybe this can be a focus of this time in the cocoon of sheltering? Has life made regular exercise impossible? Could this more settled time offer opportunities for calisthenics and walks previously postponed? Good books we’ve intended to read (or write?) Audio classes to savor? Time with a loved one (face to face or online)? A chance to learn with a hevruta (study partner)? Dipping into meditation? Leaning into prayer?

Since we have to endure this period of day-after-day seclusion, let’s rethink it also as an opportunity to live mindfully, with intention.

Just as the ancient mitzvah of counting the Omer provides a framework for marking our progress from Exodus to Revelation, so too our time sheltering in place can provide an opportunity for mindful growth, undertaken in a spirit of possibility and hope.

Tomorrow will come. We will survive this pandemic. We will emerge into the light of community and life once more.

Let’s make the choices now that will make that re-entry more satisfying, more reflective of our best values and our truest selves.

Let’s make the days count!


Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson holds the Abner and Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and is vice president of American Jewish University in Los Angeles.

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