Count the Omer Week 1: Chesed

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The first week of the Omer is the week of chesed (loving-kindness). Because we start counting the Omer on the second night of Passover, the entire week of Passover takes place in the week of chesed, so let's take a moment to examine the loving-kindness in this holiday.

Passover commands us to love the stranger and to feed all who are hungry. Even as we focus on the history of our peoples' enslavement and liberation, we are encouraged to broaden our thinking and draw parallels to present-day suffering. It is an exercise in empathy.

I asked my almost-three-year-old daughter what she thought of loving-kindness and, as is usually the case with toddlers, she brought insight and understanding to a difficult concept. We broke down chesed into two parts:

Love

"Who do you love?" I asked her. I expected her to answer with a family member, maybe me, her dad, or her sister. Maybe a grandparent, uncle, or cousin. Instead, she answered, "Judah and Asher," two of her best friends who moved away last summer. Chesed, as my daughter reminded me, is not bound by blood or time or distance. We love the people we love, family and friends, near and far. At Passover, when so much of the holiday is spent with family and friends, hosting and attending seders (virtually again this year for many of us), the people we love are at the forefront of our minds. We spent our seders this year telling the story of the Exodus, but also reminiscing about past seders with friends where we drank too much wine, and laughing about the weird combinations of Passover foods that our daughters' Great-Grandpa Marvin (z"l) used to enjoy. It is a holiday that invites love into our homes.

Kindness

I asked my daughter, "How are you nice to people?" In reply, she told me that she had been playing at daycare with a friend in the play house in the backyard. Another friend wanted to join them and my daughter told me, "I opened the door and told her she could come in the house with us." Inclusion is an important aspect of chesed. We show our friends that we care about them by inviting them to join us, instead of leaving them out. When someone reaches out to us, we invite them in. On Passover, we recall what it meant to be the other, to be downtrodden and oppressed, and to cry out for help. Then, we recall the joy of finding an outstretched arm guiding us toward safety, love, and home. How are you nice to people? By extending an outstretched arm and an open door.

One! One week of the Omer! Ah ah ah!