Count the Omer Week 7: Malchut

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One of my daughter's favorite books is The Berenstain Bears Trouble With Friends. Each Berenstain Bears book begins with a little rhyming lesson. Here's the beginning of Trouble with Friends:

When making friends,

the cub whose wise

is the cub who learns

to compromise.

When my daughter reads it, she sometimes says "When making friends, the cub whose wise is the cub who learns to supervise." In the story, the two friends have a lot of fun together, but also struggle with their own bossiness as they each want to lead their activities.

The final week of the Omer is the week of malchut, leadership. Watching toddlers navigate friendships is an interesting lesson in leadership. When do they supervise and when do they compromise? In the story, the main character, Sister Bear, has an argument while playing school with her new friend, Lizzy, because they both want to be the teacher. Sister decides that it's better to play by herself so she can do what she wants, but she quickly learns that it's lonely to play by herself. The two friends make up and decide to take turns being the teacher, so they can play and both lead sometimes.

Leadership requires relationships, because you can't lead no one.

Counting the Omer, each sephira each week is an aspect of God that we should strive to better in ourselves. The week of malchut is the final week and the closest to God. As such, our leadership should reflect the fact that we are made in God's image. We should strive for leadership like God's that is kind and thoughtful, creative and constructive.

Thank you for counting the Omer with us this year! My daughter is very excited to celebrate Shavuot with ice cream. I hope you do the same!

Chag Sameach!