10

We are now a full one fifth of the way through the Omer.
Today throws us the beginning of a curve ball that runs through the middle of the Omer. In addition to this explicitly religious, Temple-oriented 50-day observance, we’re also in a period of the year that brings us all of our modern nationalist holidays. [...]

9

We’re now over one seventh of the way through the Omer!
Today’s Omer-related inteligibility comes from the blog of Rivy Poupko Kletenik, All Things Jewish.
The article addresses the idea of making the seder more gender-inclusive without adding extraneous foods to the seder plate and symbols to the seder table. What follows is the intro paragraph to the article. I encourage everyone to [...]

8

We continue with day 8 of the Omer.
So we’re back with stuff from Rabbi Jill Jacobs today. It comes today not from My Jewish Learning, but from jspot.org. Read something I agree with.

7

50 is coming. I can feel it.
Yesterday, in services we read Shir Hashirim, The Song of Songs, yesterday. The presence of this text in the Tanach seems an ongoing mystery. Arguably, the greatest, most epic love poem ever written, we traditionally pass it off as a metaphor for our loving relationship with God. I don’t [...]

6

Wow! Only forty-some-odd days left!
Again, Rabbi Jill Jacobs and My Jewish Learning:
The counting of the omer begins on the second night of Pesach. Jews in the Diaspora generally integrate this counting into the second seder.
The omer is counted each evening after sundown. The counting of the omer is generally appended to the end of Ma’ariv (the evening service), as well.

5

Onward! From redemption to revelation!
Again, Rabbi Jill Jacobs and My Jewish Learning:
While Pesach celebrates the initial liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, Shavuot marks the culmination of the process of liberation, when the Jews became an autonomous community with their own laws and standards. Counting up to Shavuot reminds us of this process of moving from a slave mentality [...]

4

And so the Omer marches on with day 4.
Again, Rabbi Jill Jacobs and My Jewish Learning:
In its biblical context, this counting appears only to connect the first grain offering to the offering made at the peak of the harvest. As the holiday of Shavuot became associated with the giving of the Torah, and not only with a celebration of agricultural bounty, the [...]

3

Today continues my uphill battle to do a simple ritual for 49 days. I can smell the impending failure. I almost forgot tonight.
Today’s intelligibility comes again from Rabbi Jill Jacobs and My Jewish Learning.
The Torah itself dictates the counting of the seven weeks following Pesach:
“You shall count from the eve of the second day of Pesach, when an omer of grain is to be brought as [...]

2

I am going to attempt–watch this fail miserably–to also post something intelligible about the season for the reamining 48 days of counting. Right.
Today’s intelligibility comes from Rabbi Jill Jacobs and My Jewish Learning.
The omer refers to the forty-nine day period between the second night of Passover (Pesach) and the holiday of Shavuot. This period marks the beginning of the barley harvest when, in ancient times, [...]

1

These last two nights we were born as a child-nation, emerging from the narrowness of Mitzraim, Egypt, where we gestated. And over the next 50 days, as we do every year, we will mature. And upon maturing, 50 days from now, God will reveal to us the laws that have made a complete nation and [...]