Strung out between Passover and Shavuot like an exquisite pearl necklace are the days of the Omer – 49 in all – linking the two major festivals and, according to some commentators, forging them into one.
One of the names of the Feast of Weeks, Shavuot, is Atzeret, meaning conclusion, recalling the seven-week journey taken by the Children of Israel from the decadent land of the pyramids to the foot of Mount Sinai, where they were to receive the living Torah. This move, from Thanatos to Eros, is highlighted by the sages through this seven week bridge that provides an elemental and evocative metaphor for the transformation from the darkness of slavery to the revelation at Sinai.
The origin and development of the Omer period are nevertheless obscure. The first reference to this seven-week period is found in the Book of Leviticus (23:9-16), where the Children of Israel are reassured that they will enter the land of Canaan and harvest their crops, from which they are to bring a symbolic Omer (two unleavened loaves made of the finest flour) to the priest in the Temple, without which they cannot eat of their produce.
Later, in the Book of Deuteronomy (16:9) Moses tells the people of Israel: “You shall count seven weeks from the moment you first put the sickle to the corn,” thus linking the two major festivities of Passover and Shavuot.
Yet even if the original impulse behind this period had been one of joyous expectation, or at least of quiet optimism, historical events were to subvert its origins in the cycle of nature and give it a newer and more grim meaning.
Towards the end of the second Temple period, a new reality takes over for the Jews living in the land of Israel. It is a restless, dark time, marked by external struggles against the mighty Roman Empire, and internally religious schisms that were to shake the foundations of Judaism. Both of these were to have profound consequences for the next two millennia.
In the wake of the Bar Kochba rebellion (circa 132-135 CE) and its brutal suppression by the Roman legions, this period was turned into one of semi-mourning.
According to one Talmudic source, it was between Pesach and Shavuot during this dark period that a terrifying plague swept the students of the most prominent religious leader of his time, Rabbi Akiva. With 24,000 disciples, Rabbi Akiva was the head of the largest center of advanced studies in the entire land.
Yet why the students were meant to have been afflicted precisely in this period, or why, as another tradition has it, this was a period of particularly heavy military losses for the followers of Bar Kochba – among whom of course Rabbi Akiva himself is to be counted – is shrouded in uncertainty (Yevamot 62).
Even in the largest diaspora of the time this change was registered. Though the basis of their livelihood was no longer agrarian the Jews in Babylon and other diasporas having become urbanized the old feelings of uncertainty attached to this time of the year seem to have become exacerbated by the events in the Holy Land.
Speculation about the nature of this mysterious plague is rife. Some authorities suggest it was physical; but others prefer to understand it spiritually. According to this latter opinion, Rabbi Akiva’s students did not show each other the mutual respect that was due to them. For their insensitivity, the period was turned into one of sorrow and privation; no marriages were allowed, and hair was to remain unshorn. The hassidic master, Pinhas of Koretz, suggests that the hair, which grows out of the skull, is a reminder of the Torah intellects who proved so wanting in those far-off days.
Certainly the lack of clarity about the actual cause for the shift in emphasis regarding this period could well reflect the inner transmogrification of this key figure of rabbinic and historical legend.
Rabbi Akiva was drawn to Torah by his love of his future wife, Rachel the daughter of the merchant Kalva Savua. When he “saved” the sensual, yearning “Song of Songs,” it was because he was able to see a clear parallel between divine love and human passion. He was a lover of both. Perhaps when he saw the Temple go up in flames and then, 60 years later (legend also has it that he lived 120 years), the Romans brutally crush the rebellion of the man he called messiah, he had reason to despair for the future of the people.
In place of joy and nature, he saw only tragedy, bloodshed and exile. Any reference to his beloved book, any reference to this spontaneous life of the senses must have seemed like a cruel joke. In place of the hope of spring he (or his followers) designated a period of mourning, just as the three weeks of summer (from the 17th of Tamuz to the ninth of Av) were turning into a period of national mourning over the destruction of the Temple.
The later medieval period only increased this sense of angst and of being alienation from all the natural sources with which the Torah had identified this period.
With all the traditional reference points gone, with the spontaneous rhythms of the agricultural year broken for good what was there to celebrate?
Indeed, it is noteworthy that, despite these serious theological and historical associations, no less an authority than Maimonides, while acknowledging sefirat ha’omer the counting of the days and weeks of the Omer as a positive mitzva, does not mention it in the context of the other Temple-related festivals in his magnum opus, the Mishneh Torah. Is it perhaps because the juxtaposition of spring, harvests, the memory of Eretz Israel, and the Song of Songs all subjects dear to Rabbi Akiva and reminders of defeat and the tragedy of exile – was too momentous to fix into a mundane halachic framework?
The fine, almost invisible thread that links the Exodus from Egypt and the Giving of the Torah receives typical treatment in more mystical and hassidic texts. For hassidic commentators the word sefira is connected to the sephirot which link God’s personality to the divine potential that is in every mortal creatures of flesh and blood.
Each of the lower sephirot, seven in all – hesed, gevura, tiferet, netzach, hod, yesod, malchut (love, power, beauty, victory, glory, foundation and kingdom) contains an aspect of every other sephira. In 49 days, the entire network of these links can be traversed. Knowing oneself and knowing God is an ongoing, dialectic process.
According to the Bnei Yissaschar, the link between the two festivals at each end of the Omer period is not arbitrary. Passover is a major spectacle the “big bang” that gets the process of liberation started. It demands analysis, searching and researching, questions and answers, delving into the vast sources of our rich history and traditions.
The more you expound, the more you are to be praised. The need of the hour is to talk, to use one’s God-given gift of speech as the supreme expression of the human intellect. The word “Passover” means literally ‘the mouth that speaks.’
But the human intellect, as glorious as it has proven itself in the fields of science, art, technology, engineering, medicine, philosophy and so forth, is limited if it is divorced from morality and ethics. It is in this sense that the quieter, less dramatic days of the counting of the Omer take on a profounder resonance.
Just as the world of nature in this spring season is coming into bloom, so does the Omer provide a framework for rebirth. In order to be creative, the individual has to confront the deepest aspects of himself and herself, the parts that language doesn’t reach, desire and fear being prominent among them. Only when these deeper, and even subconscious, parts of our personality are brought to the surface and ‘numbered,’ are we really in a position to receive the Torah, or at least reach the foot of Sinai.
The Omer period is not an awesome occasion like the Exodus or Sinai; it is not holiness or revelation at one jump. Rather, it is the daily process of checking ourselves, of keeping in touch with our real feelings, (as opposed to those imposed upon us from the outside, or from peer pressure, or from inertia.) Through this daily and weekly process we can build a solid basis for our intellect neither so arrogant that we cannot see the good in others, and, like the yeshiva students of Rabbi Akiva’s time, fail to show respect for the presence or opinions of others; nor so bashful as to refuse to demonstrate for justice and truth where and when it is demanded.
In Temple times, the Omer was brought to the priest to wave in public to show who we were and where we stood.
The Bnei Yissaschar further observes that the command to count is couched in terms that the counting is done lachem, for yourselves. The steps towards sanctifying ourselves come ultimately from within (with a little help from Hashem). He relates sefira to another Hebrew word, saphir – meaning brightness – here used to signify real clarity and enlightenment, which is the ultimate goal of anyone on a path of true spirituality.