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On Counting the Omer

It feels like we’ve been counting the Omer for around seven months now.
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April 25, 2024
Olena Malik/Getty Images

It feels like we’ve been counting the Omer for around seven months now.

Though the formal Jewish ritual of rattling off seven weeks began the second night of Passover, ever since Oct. 7, the somber season bracketed between the evening after the Seder and the holiday of Shavuot has been felt viscerally, even if not officially tallied, for well over half a year.

For those in need of a refresher, the counting of the Omer is first mentioned in the biblical book of Leviticus’ 23rd chapter. God instructs the Israelites to begin counting 49 days “from the day after the Sabbath,” the day you bring the sheave, or Omer, offering in the Sanctuary. Traditional interpretation understood the reference to the “Sabbath” to refer to the first day of Passover — probably because that’s the day of rest from utilizing leaven, per Exodus 12:15’s commandment to take a break from bread over the festival.

The Omer sequence, beginning on the holiday in which rising dough — that symbol of our own inflated egos — is forbidden, ends on the eve of the holiday commemorating the day in which the Jewish people were worthy enough to receive God’s Word.  

The Omer sequence, beginning on the holiday in which rising dough — that symbol of our own inflated egos — is forbidden, ends on the eve of the holiday commemorating the day in which the Jewish people were worthy enough to receive God’s Word.  

No surprise, then, that the counting has long been understood as an impetus for introspection. Many who observe the tradition recite, along with the daily blessing with the evening’s number, attributes of God we are meant to imitate — compassion and kindness, harmony and humility.

And about as long as Jews have been calculating the Omer, we’ve been falling far short of its call for communal and covenantal betterment.

The Talmud relates that Rabbi Akiva, that renowned ancient sage, saw 24,000 of his students dying between Passover and Shavuot. Why? Because they were more enticed by the desire to dunk on their coreligionists and “own” the other side of whatever it was they were bickering about than stand side-by-side respectfully despite their valid and deeply felt disagreements. Arrogance and abrasiveness had left intellectual and spiritual leaders seeking individual victory in lieu of collective redemption. For centuries since, Jews have marked that memory by refraining from live music and unbridled expressions of joy, be it wedding celebrations or catching Mumford and Sons at Madison Square Garden.

Marked by marches against antisemitism, wearing tape marked with ever-increasing tallies, and countless Psalms recited in synagogues as missiles rained down on Israel, this year’s counting has blown past 200 days. Beginning on a Sabbath day in October that would become Israel’s lowest, it has continued with mounting mourning, fraying societal ties in both America and Israel, and only the vaguest recollection of what joy used to feel like. 

Yet the Omer reminds us, this year more than ever, how a simple call to count can continue to matter in our national calculus.

In fact, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the 19th century German scholar, noted that the Omer isn’t the Jewish tradition’s only instance of totaling up towards 50. Its individual-focused effort on building character, abstaining from the unimportant, and focusing on faith exists alongside a parallel national effort, that of summing up seven sabbatical cycles into a Jubilee. That latter effort is a reminder that, in resting from farming every seven years and allowing others into our fields to enjoy the fruits of our labor, national renewal emerges. Through shared gratitude in what God has given all of us, regardless of our social station, economic bracket, or the political bumper stickers adorning our cars, the Jewish people earn that call of freedom echoing throughout the land at that Jubilee. Self-improvement only moves the national needle when it is aimed with the collective cohesion in mind.

Lamenting contemporary secular culture with its “relentless focus on the moment, its short attention spans, its fleeting fashions and flash mobs, its texts and tweets, its 15 minutes of fame, and its fixation with today’s headlines and ‘the power of now,’” the late Lord Jonathan Sacks noted the wisdom in Judaism’s dual counting of both Omer and Jubilee. The balance of being mindful of both — our own days and our country’s years — remind us that “as private persons we can think about tomorrow, but in our role as leaders we must think long-term, focusing our eyes on the far horizon.” 

Keep faith with the past but our eyes firmly fixed on the future, Rabbi Sacks reminded us. And with this year’s Omer — in the shadow of the events of Oct. 7 and with continued hope for a safer and more unified global Jewish community — that fixation is most fitting. If our marking the Omer is eventually to end, with revelation merited, Jewish unity restored, Israel at peace and hostages returned, it will be because our individual efforts at healing ourselves and our people have clung stubbornly to that ancient belief that how we spend our days continues to count.


Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include “The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada,” which examines the Exodus story’s impact on the United States, “Esther in America,” “Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth” and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States.”

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