Today, April 25, is Day 26. Tonight’s count is below.
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik taught:
When one counts, one ushers in a continuum… At any position in which you find yourself while counting, you have to be aware of two things: of the preceding position and of the following position….
This experience of past and future, of recollection and anticipation, is not just given to the Jew as a gratuity. This “time awareness,” having one’s roots in the past and looking forward to an uncharted future is a challenge. Man has to attain this “time awareness.” If he is, indeed, questing for the synthesis of memory and anticipation. he can attain the goal if he is ready to pay the price. What is the price? Time; time to learn. The Jew is a perennial student. The “time experience,” notwithstanding the fact that it is basically of an emotional nature, must be nurtured by knowledge…
Judaism is not only an experience. It is also a way of thinking. It is a _modus cogitandi_*… _Halachah_ is more than a collection of laws; it is a method of thought. It has it’s own unique approach to both physical and spiritiual reality, its own method of forming value judgements and moral norms… To be sure, this halachic way of thinking manifests itself in action, in laws pertaining to external deeds. _Halachah_ as a _modus cogitandi_ is concretized in a _modus existential_, in a way of living.
… …we also find precepts that do not tell us WHAT* to do, but HOW to do it. For instance, the commandment of “_kedoshim tihiyu_,” “be holy,” does not spell out any new duty. It is concerned with HOW to do things, not with WHAT to do… Similarly in counting you start with single positions and thereby create an entity. You count, for instance, from one to ten; at “ten” you have an entity consisting of the ten you have just counted. It is not a unit. Thus, in _sefiras ha-omer_ you count up to “seven” in single positions, in single days. But when you reach seven days what do you say? “_She-heim shavu’a echad ba-omer._” “They comprise a week.” It’s a new entity.
We are interested in both: in each count separately and in the new entity that emerges….
This thought is shared from the book Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on Pesach, Sefirot ha-Omer and Shavu’ot by David Shapiro (Jerusalem: Urim, 2005). These are remarks given in Boston in 1973:
*The style of the blog — which was not noticed until it was too cumbersome to change — italicizes every word in a block quote. So, CAPS are where the text used italics for EMPHASIS and the _underline indications_ are where the text _italicized foreign expressions._
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During evening prayers, add:
A) (Address for God:) Barukh ata YHVH, eloheinu melekh ha-olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sefirat ha-omer.
We praise You, Adonai, Our God, Master of time and space whose commandments add holiness to our lives, Who commanded us to count the omer.
B) (Address God as feminine:) Beruchah at yah, eloheinu ruach haolam, asher kidshatnu bemitzvoteha vetzivatnu al sefirat ha’omer.
Blessed are You, God, Ruler/Spirit of the Universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments and commanded us to count the Omer.
Ha-yom shivah v’esrim yom, shehem shlishah sh’vuot v’shishi yamim la’omer.
Today is day twenty-seven, which are three weeks and and six days of the omer.
[This translation and transliteration was borrowed from the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and from Jill Hammer's Omer Calendar of Biblical Women at RitualWell.org. For additional text to accompany the counting, see Five Steps.]
