A Home in Time.

First, I want to talk a little about counting the omer, and the observances that come along with it, and then I hope you won’t mind if I get a little more philosophical and talk about the reason we have these kinds of observances.

It is written, “And you will count for yourself beginning after the Sabbath, from the day that you bring the omer of the wave offering, seven weeks should be completed.” (Leviticus 23:15) This is why, in our liturgy, every day between Passover and Pentecost we recite “Today is ____ day(s) of the Omer, which are _____ week(s) of the Omer.” This comes after the evening prayers, so that it’s at the beginning of the day (R. Israel Meir Kagan, The Concise Book of Mitzvoth, positive commandment 26).

The “Sabbath” mentioned here is understood by the sages to refer to the festval Sabbath, which is the day of Passover. They give several different reasons why it is not the day after the weekly Sabbath instead of the festival sabbath, but the most self-evident one is given by R. Yose the Galilean, “Does Scripture say ‘On the morrow after the Sabbath that is in the Passover week?’ It merely says, ‘On the morrow after the Sabbath’; and the year is full of Sabbaths, then go and find out which Sabbath is meant.” (Babylonian Talmud, Menahoth 65a) In other words, if it isn’t after the Passover Sabbath, we don’t have any way of knowing which Sabbath it is supposed to follow.

In Temple times, mourning was restricted and the period between Passover and Pentecost was reserved as a time of joy (Mishna, Moed Qatan 3), however, now the first thirty three days of the Omer are observed as a time of semi-mourning in which we do not hold weddings, cut our hair, or listen to live music. This is to commemorate the death of R. Akiva and his disciples by plague during these weeks.

But why do we observe this kind of counting, and these odd semi-mourning practices for people who died two thousand years ago? Why do we keep festivals at all? It’s for the same reason that we build houses. We want a place to go back to where we know we belong, a place that we can center our lives around. Travelling and exploring are good, but at the end of the day it’s good to have a place to go back to, to know where we belong. The festivals do that for us in more ways that one.

First, the festivals set us apart from other members of the population. We know where we belong in society because of the unique practices that make us who we are. They also give us a connection to the past, a reminder of those who have gone before, and that we are a part of the same cycle as they were. Think of it as our home in time. If our houses are homes in space, holidays are homes in time. The rest of the days of the year we may wander about, trying new things, but on the festivals we return home, and we rise above the constraints of time to reconnect with all of our relatives who have celebrated them before.