Join the Little Minyan Kehilla
this Friday evening, April 10th,
7:30 p.m.
, as we welcome this year’s second Shabbat of Pesach. We will be guided in our worship by themes of the season as well as those of Shabbat.
On the first days of Passover and during Chol HaMo’ed – the weekdays of the festival of Passover – we return, in Torah, to read the story of the Exodus from Egypt. At the conclusion of this festival of freedom, we turn to passages in Torah that instruct us on when and how to observe this festival and how to count the days between Pesach and Shavuot.
On Passover we celebrate our redemption (to become a free People) and on Shavuot we commemorate the revelation of Torah at Mount Sinai. We mark the period of seven weeks in between the two celebrations with the counting of the omer (a measure of
barley). Biblically, this practice is rooted in our agrarian way of life: You shall count off seven weeks; start to count the seven weeks when the sickle is first put to the standing grain. (D’varim 16:9). In the Rabbinic period, our sages linked Shavuot with the revelation of Torah. Thus, today we count the omer as a spiritual practice of refinement and elevation as we make our way from the initial taste of freedom to the maturity with which we embrace Torah. How will we inhabit our freedom? What parts of our character still enslave us? How will our emotions guide us? What practices will help us to become more liberated? How will we hear Torah? Using Kabbalistic teachings about the structure of the soul, we count the omer using the 7 emotional attributes (Sefirot):
-
Chesed – lovingkindness, compassion
- Gevurah – discipline, justice, strength
- Tiferet – beauty, harmony, grace
- Netzach – endurance, fortitude
- Hod – splendor, humility
- Yesod – foundation, bonding
- Malchut – nobility, leadership
Each week and each day of each week (7 x 7) is given an attribute creating different combinations of emotional qualities and plenty of opportunity for self-reflection. Materials for counting the omer can be found in our Resources section .
Artwork of the ten s’firot by David Friedman, www.kosmic-kabbalah.com.
