Make Each Day Count: The Hidden Meaning Behind the Counting of the Omer
One of the most curious commandments in the Torah conceals a profound mystery about self growth.
Between the festival of Passover and the festival of Shavuot stretches a period of 49 days, exactly seven weeks, called the Counting of the Omer.
It’s called that way because we are commanded to literally count our days during it. Beginning with the evening after Passover and ending with the night before Shavuot eve, one must stand each evening, after the stars come out, and, after reciting a blessing, say “Today is [such and such] days of the Omer” (one day of the Omer, two days of the Omer, and so on). The fiftieth day of the count is the holiday of Shavuot itself, which we do not count.1
So much for Counting the Omer on the surface, in general terms. But like every one of the Torah’s commandments, counting the Omer also contains a wealth of broad meanings and embodies several deep processes—processes we have undergone in history, processes we are undergoing as a society, and processes that each of us must undergo with ourselves.
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Heaven and Earth
One can point to two overlapping journeys embodied in the transition from Passover to Shavuot, one earthly and one spiritual.
On the earthly level, the Omer Counting is the harvest period between Passover, the “spring festival” (chag ha-aviv), when we begin the harvest, and Shavuot, the “festival of first fruits” (chag ha-bikurim) on which we bring the first fruits to the Temple.
On the spiritual level, the Omer Counting is the period of spiritual preparation bridging Passover as the “festival of freedom” (chag ha-cherut), when the people of Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt, and Shavuot, the “festival of the Giving of the Torah” (chag matan Torah), when the people stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and received the Torah.
The purpose of this essay is to expound upon the spiritual meaning of Omer Counting. We shall do so by examining the Hebrew word for “counting,” sefirah. Hasidic writings2 have pointed to three main meanings of the root of this word, s-f-r, that pertain to the Omer Counting:
1. Mispar (“number”)
2. Sipur (“story”)
3. Sapir (“luminosity”)
Now, these three meanings beautifully correspond to the three main characteristics of counting the Omer. Together they form a complete picture of the inner work we must perform during this period.
“Number”: Mourning
The days of the Omer Counting constitute, among other things, a period of mourning: We mourn the death of no less than twenty-four thousand of Rabbi Akiva’s students who all perished in a plague during this time because “they did not treat each other with respect.”3 The mourning customs include the prohibition to marry during this period, the prohibition to cut one’s hair or shave, and more (depending on the custom, some of these prohibitions are only observed until Lag Ba’omer, the 33rd day of the counting).
Even though the event of the students’ deaths is seemingly unrelated to the Counting of the Omer, the fact that it occurred during this time, and that for generations we commemorate it then, has made it an integral element of it.
Mourning is a reminder of our mortality. A person’s death—especially if it is premature, as in the case of Rabbi Akiva’s students—reminds us that our own lives are finite and will eventually come to an end. This is the connection between the mourning customs of the Omer Counting and its numerical aspect: During the Omer days we count and measure our days on earth with the awareness that they are numbered, that each day could be our last. We take stock of what we have and haven’t achieved in our lives, and ask ourselves what we want to do with the time we have left and what we want to bequeath to those who come after us.
Counting our days in the shadow of death need not be a depressing experience. On the contrary: Remembrance of death can actually imbue life with renewed vitality and purpose. The Book of Proverbs even says of the “woman of valor” that she “laughs at the last day” (vatischak le-yom acharon, Proverbs 31:25)—for her, the thought of the last day is a source of joy. When we remember that each day could be our last, we begin to make each day count—meaning, we learn to appreciate and treasure it. By counting the days we unravel the fabric of our day-to-day routine to reveal the individual strands of each day.
The experience that this day could be our last, however, can take on two forms, one negative and one positive. The negative form is embodied in the verse “eat and drink for tomorrow we die” (Isaiah 22:13): If today is our last day, says this approach, we must use it to accumulate as many earthly experiences as we can. This approach seeks to receive from the world (to eat and drink), not to give to it.
In contrast, the rectified version of experiencing today as our last day is expressed in the saying of Rabbi Eliezer “repent [shuv] one day before your death.”4 When Rabbi Eliezer’s students asked how a person could know when he will die, he replied: “All the more so! Let him repent today lest he die tomorrow, and thus all his days will be in repentance.”5 This approach also sees today as the last day but uses it for giving, for doing more good deeds in order to repair the world.
It is told of Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli that every night before going to sleep he would say to the God: “Master of the universe, today Zusha was not alright, but with Your help tomorrow Zusha will be better"! We too, when counting the Omer each evening, should say something in the lines of “Blessed is God who for granting me the merit of living one more day, to be among the counted and not among the uncounted. I commit to dedicating this new day to making improving the world, so that it may be better than it was the day before.”
“Story”: Building Your Character
When we count our days, each one becomes important, but not necessarily different. To acknowledge each day’s unique quality, it is not enough to count them (lispor); one must tell their story (lesaper). Each day has a different story, and all our days together form the great story of our lives. The Omer Counting is a time to take seriously the craft of writing our life story. This is one form of art that belongs to each and every one of us, and for which we alone are endowed with the artistic talent to perform.
The “story” level of Omer Counting corresponds to another aspect that characterizes this period: Its being dedicated to improving our character traits and behavior. This aspect is expressed in two custom: that of studying Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) during this period, one chapter on each of the six Sabbaths after Passover; and that of focusing each day on improving a different character trait based on the Kabbalistic map of the sefirot.
According to Kabbalah, there are seven main emotional attributes, corresponding to the seven lower sefirot—chessed (lovingkindness), gevurah (might), tiferet (beauty), etc., and each of them includes an aspect of all the others (chessed within chessed, gevurah within chessed, tiferet within chessed, and so on). There are thus a total of seven-times-seven aspects or shades in the soul, and each day of the 49 days of the Omer should be dedicated to rectifying one of them. The week and the day are like two coordinates pointing to a specific point in the soul, and during the Counting of the Omer we use them to map our entire inner space in order to rectify it completely.
One who studies the properties of the various sefirot in Kabbalistic and Hasidic books gradually develops a “sense” of how to use each day of the Omer to rectify the appropriate character trait. But one need not be an expert in Kabbalah to dedicate this period to self-improvement. Everyone, at any moment, can pick up the metaphorical pen and begin to take responsibility for writing the story of their life. From proofreading “typos” in our behavior patterns, through polishing our lifestyle, to introducing a new plot twist that could lead to rewriting entire chapters of our personality—writing the story of our lives is our most important task, and the Omer Counting is a perfect opportunity to invest in it more than usual.
When we read a good book, we get carried away by its plot and ideas, borne aloft by the fluent stream of words to wherever the author wants to take us. While reading, it seems to us that the writing process must have also been as smooth and natural as our reading experience. But as anyone who has ever tried their hand in writing (or engaged in any other serious artform, for that matter) knows, the writing experience is utterly different from the reading experience. For a passage to flow smoothly in the reader’s ear, the writer must labor at formulating and re-formulating it, craftily choosing the right words, combining them and changing their order, until the result is pleasing to the ear.
The same principle applies to writing the story of our lives: In order to be rectified people, with whom others are content, we must labor at improving our character traits like authors toiling over their greatest work (and just as the mark of good writing is that we don’t feel the writer’s effort, so too our self-improvement should be done discreetly, far from the eyes of others).
Take a time each evening, after counting, to summarize to yourself your behavior on the day that has passed and to take upon yourself to repair and improve on it the next day. Keep a diary documenting your development during the period of Omer Counting. In this way, when the Shavuot arrives, you will be able to bring forth a book of “first fruits”—none other than yourselves, revealed to the world in a new light.
“Luminosity”: Preparation for the Giving of the Torah
The counting of days in the shadow of mourning and the work of building your character both take place in a broader and higher context: They move towards a destination, towards a light at the end of the tunnel that grows clearer the closer one gets to it. This light is the fetival of Shavuot, which marks the Giving of the Torah, the day on which we saw and heard the word of God.
The counting of the Omer reenacts the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Mount Sinai, from the liberation from bondage to the threshold of a new path—the Torah’s path, which is also their own. We reenact this process every year because we need to undergo it again and again, each time on a higher level. Each year we must once again be liberated, mature, and become worthy of a “new Torah” suited to our level.
The journey toward the light of the Torah is embodied in the third meaning of s-f-r, embodied in the word sapir. The literal meaning of this word is sapphire. In the Torah the sapphire is the epitome of clear transparency, the material that best reflects spirituality. For example, God’s throne of glory, the thing closest to God that the people of Israel see in the wilderness, is described in the Torah with the words “as a paved work of sapphire stone” (Exodus 24:10). Therefore, the sapphire also suggests luminosity, the property of having or transmitting light.
If the “number” aspect of the Counting constantly harkens to the past (the days are counted from a past event), and the “story” aspect focuses on the present (what is the importance of this day), then the “luminosity” aspect can be seen as future-oriented.
Firstly, it symbolizes the experience that, the closer we get to the time of the Giving of the Torah, the more God’s light becomes felt. It’s as if the closer we get to God, the closer He also gets to us. But beyond that, one can say that if we are properly focused on counting the Omer and connected to its pulse, what changes is us. The humility acquired by walking in the shadow of mourning, coupled with the building of our character, gradually transform us into a sapphire capable of reflecting the Torah’s light with increasing clarity.
Unlike the two previous levels, this level does not demand strenuous work or meticulous self-examination; the luminosity quality is mainly associated with being vessels for a new Torah. Take a few moments each evening to study something new in the Torah, with the aim of letting it introduce a new ray of light into your life. Focus on the fact that the light of the Torah shining within you is none other than the light of God, which through the Torah also becomes part of you.
After reciting the Counting of the Omer, the Hasidic custom is to say a short prayer, written in the prayerbooks. The prayer ends with the words:
May it be Your will, Lord our God and God of our fathers, that by the merit of the Counting of the Omer that I have counted today... I will be purified and sanctified with supernal holiness, and through this, abundant flow will be bestowed upon all the worlds, and will repair our animas, spirits and souls from all dross and blemish, and purify us and sanctify us with Your supernal holiness, Amen Selah.
The end of the prayer switches from the singular (“I will be purified”) to the plural (“purify us”), and requests rectification for all in “all the worlds.” When discussing the three levels above we dealt only with the individual level, with our personal improvement. But we must remember that we are not rootless beings: we are part of a nation, and a world, and many worlds. Part of the work of counting is to intend that it spread out from us and touch the souls of others.
Translated from the book Olamot by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh and Rabbi Nir Menussi
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The blessing and the counting formula are found in every prayer book, after the evening prayer.
See for example: Rabbi Hillel of Paritch, Pelach HaRimon, portion Chayei Sarah.
Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 62b.
Mishnah Avot 2:10.
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 153a.