Counting the Omer

During the seven weeks between Pesah and Shavuot every night is counted. This is called “counting the Omer” – there’s a blessing for it that’s recited at night before the next day is counted. In Jewish mystical thought, each week of the Omer is associated with one of the sephirot, the emanations which are considered to be manifestations of different aspects of God. And then each day of the week is also associated a sephirah. So tonight, for instance, is the 30th day of the Omer; this falls within the week of “Hod”, and the manifestation associated with the day is “Gevurah”, so the day is considered to be “Gevurah she’be’Hod” – Gevurah within Hod, or the Gevurah aspect of Hod.

What in the world do those words mean? Hod is a hard one to translate, and in fact it often is translated into various words that don’t seem like that have any connection. Sometimes Hod is translated as humility, sometimes as empathy, sometimes as majesty. I think it’s significant that we can have a Jewish concept where humility is considered a synonym for majesty! What could that teach us about ourselves?

Gevurah means strength. So we have Strength within Humility. Now that’s interesting – strength is often considered to be the very opposite of humility! Well, if you think that humility means weakness or meekness, that’s a misunderstanding of humility. If you think humility means low self-esteem, that’s a misunderstanding also.

Humility is the realization the we are but one small element of God’s creation, but Strength in Humility means that even so, we also understand that each of us is has a unique role to play in that creation - that no one could do what each of us is here to do here but each of us.

Or, as Rabbi Tarfon is quoted as saying in Avot 2:21: You are not expected to complete the task, but that doesn’t excuse you from beginning it.