The Counting of the Omer
Level: Basic |
 |
You shall count for yourselves -- from the day after
the Shabbat, from the day when you bring the Omer of the waving -- seven
Shabbats, they shall be complete. Until the day after the seventh sabbath
you shall count, fifty days... -Leviticus 23:15-16
You shall count for yourselves seven weeks, from when
the sickle is first put to the standing crop shall you begin counting seven
weeks. Then you will observe the Festival of Shavu'ot for the L-RD, your
G-d -Deuteronomy 16:9-10
According to the Torah (Lev. 23:15), we are obligated to count the days from
Passover to
Shavu'ot. This period is known as the Counting
of the Omer. An omer is a unit of measure. On the second day of Passover,
in the days of the Temple, an omer of barley
was cut down and brought to the Temple as an
offering. This grain offering was referred
to as the Omer.
Every night, from the second night of Passover to the night before Shavu'ot,
we recite a blessing and state the count
of the omer in both weeks and days. So on the 16th day, you would say "Today
is sixteen days, which is two weeks and two days of the Omer." The
Orthodox Union has
a chart that provides the transliterated Hebrew and English text of the counting
day-by-day.
The counting is intended to remind us of the link between Passover, which
commemorates the Exodus, and Shavu'ot, which commemorates the giving of the
Torah. It reminds us that the redemption from slavery was not complete until
we received the Torah.
This period is a time of partial mourning, during which weddings, parties,
and dinners with dancing are not conducted, in memory of a plague during
the lifetime of Rabbi Akiba. Haircuts during
this time are also forbidden. The 33rd day of the Omer (the eighteenth of
Iyar) is a minor holiday commemorating a break
in the plague. The holiday is known as Lag b'Omer. The mourning practices
of the omer period are lifted on that date. The word "Lag" is not really
a word; it is the number 33 in Hebrew, as if you were to call the Fourth
of July "Iv July" (IV being 4 in Roman numerals). See
Hebrew Alphabet for more information
about using letters as numbers.
There was at one time a dispute as to when the counting should begin. The
Pharisees believed that G-d gave Moses an
oral Torah along with the
written Torah, and according to that oral
Torah the word "Shabbat" in Lev. 23:15 referred to the first day of Passover,
which is a "Shabbat" in the sense that no work is permitted on the day (Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur are both referred to as "Shabbat" in this sense,
though they cannot both occur on a Saturday in the same year; see Lev. 23:24
and 23:32; see also Lev. 23:39 the first and eight days of Sukkot are called
"Shabbat"). In this view, held by most Jews today, the counting begins on
the second night of Passover, that is, the day after the non-working day
of Passover. The Tzedukim (Sadducees) rejected the idea of an oral Torah
and believed that the word "Shabbat" in Lev. 23:15 referred to the Shabbat
of the week when Pesach began, so counting would always begin on a Saturday
night during Passover. The Sadducees no longer exist; today, only a small
sect call the Karaites follow this view.
Lag B'Omer will occur on the following days of the Gregorian calendar:
-
Jewish Year 5768: sunset May 22, 2008 - nightfall May 23, 2008
-
Jewish Year 5769: sunset May 11, 2009 - nightfall May 12, 2009
-
Jewish Year 5770: sunset May 1, 2010 - nightfall May 2, 2010
-
Jewish Year 5771: sunset May 21, 2011 - nightfall May 22, 2011
-
Jewish Year 5772: sunset May 9, 2012 - nightfall May 10, 2012
For additional holiday dates, see
Links to Jewish Calendars.
© Copyright 5756-5767 (1995-2007), Tracey
R Rich
|
