Omer 2025 Day 37

Day 36 | Day 38

Day 37: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
Gevurah in Yesod, Bravery in Foundation

"The smallest one was Madeline. She was not afraid of mice. She loved winter, snow, and ice. To the tiger in the zoo, Madeline just said, 'pooh, pooh.'"

Madeline, Madeline's Rescue, and Madeline in London were my daughter's favorite books for a while when she was little. We read them on repeat and I can still recite the intro from memory. Unlike some of her other favorite books (cough cough Berenstain Bears cough cough), I never tried to talk her into reading something else when she pulled a Madeline book off the shelf. I was always happy to read about the old house in Paris. Why? Because Madeline is brave.

She is unafraid to take risks. She is always willing to speak her mind, even to adults, and stands up for what's right. She is fiercely loyal to her friends. She is exactly the kind of role model I wanted my daughters to have in their earliest years. Every time my older daughter climbs on top of the monkey bars, I can't help but think of Madeline balancing on the edge of the bridge, both of them frightening me and Ms. Clavel as they test the limits of their own abilities. When my younger daughter offers a hug when her friends are upset, I see echoes of Madeline rallying her classmates to support their friend Pepito after his lonely move to London. The Madeline books were more than just fun bedtime reading; they offered my daughters a blueprint for bravery in their own lives.

Omer 2025 Day 24

Day 23 | Day 25

Day 24: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault, illustrated by Lois Ehlert
Tiferet in Netzach, Compassion in Endurance

I read this book to my kids so many times between 2018-2021 that I have it memorized. At a certain point, just reciting it for them could help them fall asleep. What I love about it is the resilience and determination. Halfway through the book, all the letters make it up the coconut tree, but their weight tips the tree and they all fall to the ground. Hurt and jumbled, the lower case letters find compassion and care from their upper case grown ups ("mamas and papas and uncles and aunts") who come running to help. As quickly as they fell - despite skinned knees, stubbed toes, and black eyes - the letters all begin climbing the tree again, determined to succeed. By the time the sun goes down on the coconut tree, they have all successfully made it to the top.

Omer 2025 Day 20

Day 19 | Day 21

Day 20: The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King
Yesod in Tiferet, Connection in Compassion

I fondly remember many TV shows from my childhood: Sesame Street (back when Big Bird was all the rage), The Magic School Bus, Eureka's Castle (which I only vaguely remember, mostly a character called Batly who "meant to do that" whenever he made a clumsy mistake), Lambchop. And, of course, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. I loved Mister Rogers's Neighborhood and loved it again when I shared old episodes with my own kids. So I was excited to learn more about the man behind the show in this biography, and it did not disappoint! Rewatching the show after reading this biography makes it even clearer how Mister Rogers used compassion to forge a genuine connection with his young viewers through the screen. He managed to emphasize the importance of each individual viewer, and create a connection with them through stories, music, imagination, and lessons that brought everyone together as "neighbors."

Omer 2025 Day 8

Day 7 | Day 9

Day 8: I Am Abraham Lincoln by Brad Meltzer, illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos
Chesed in Gevurah, Loving-kindness in Strength/Justice

I love this whole Ordinary People Change the World series by Brad Meltzer and Christopher Eliopoulis. They do a great job of writing about larger-than-life people and difficult topics in ways that children can understand.

I Am Abraham Lincoln begins when Lincoln was a child and explains his upbringing using stories that demonstrate his kindness and his sense of justice, ultimately tying those threads from his youth into his legacy as the president who freed the slaves and kept our nation together. It hammers home the idea that anyone can speak up for what is right and take a stand for more kindness in this world.

I've been reading this book to my kids since my oldest was a baby and it gets better every time. Each time, they ask different questions and understand a little more a little differently. I read it to them again today and - maybe because we're finishing Passover - they had a lot of questions about the similarities and differences between the Israelites' slavery in Egypt and American slavery. We talked about freedom and justice and how to show kindness through strength by standing up for what is right.

Omer 2025 Day 6

 Day 5 | Day 7

Day 6: The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Yesod in Chesed, Connection in Loving-kindness

This book is full of examples of the sefirot. Honestly, it was hard to choose just one day for it. Elsa's mantra, "be brave" (gevurah). The beauty of the land juxtaposed with the despair of the Depression and the moments of compassion amid exploitation and disinterest (tiferet). The family's endurance through the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression (netzach). The glory/humility of surviving and holding onto their sense of self (hod). And, of course, Elsa's reluctant leadership (malchut). We could just stop counting the omer right here. This book covers them all. But there are other worthy books for the rest of our days, and ultimately, the relationship between Elsa and her daughter, Loreda, is a perfect example of yesod in chesed, connection in loving-kindness. 

Hannah has said of this book that she struggled to create conflict between characters whose main, if not only concern, would be survival, and then she thought of putting a teenage daughter in it. Between teenage angst and the inevitable mother-daughter drama that comes at that age, the relationship between Elsa and Loreda provided conflict and a sense of normalcy against the historical backdrop of climate disaster and financial ruin that was the 1930s. Elsa and Loreda have a bond that can't be broken, no matter their circumstances or their arguments. They come back to each other and support each other through every tragedy and every fight, because they love each other.

"You are of me, Loreda, in a way that can never be broken. You taught me love. You, first in the whole world, and my love for you will outlive me."

Omer 2025 Day 5

Day 4 | Day 6

Day 5: Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Hod in Chesed, Humility/Glory in Loving-kindness

I read this book two years ago in my previous job as part of a Jewish parenting program that we hosted for parents of young children. Special thanks to Rabbi Viki Bedo for introducing us all to the book and leading the discussions. The author, Rabbi Ruttenberg, does an excellent job of lifting up the mundane aspects of parenting (and of life in general) and demonstrating how they can be imbued with spiritual significance. Every year I say that hod is the most difficult of the sefirot, because it requires us to understand the seeming opposites of glory and humility as one. And, honestly, if anything is going to teach you how to understand hod, it's parenting. Watching my kids grow up is a daily exercise in glory/humility in loving-kindness, and Rabbi Ruttenberg provides a framework for holding onto those moments as they pass by at rapid speed.

Omer 2025 Day 1

 Omer Intro | Day 2

Day 1: The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown, pictures by Clement Hurd
Chesed in Chesed, Loving-kindness in Loving-kindness

I realized when I was preparing this year's theme that this first week is really all about relationships. You'll see throughout this week that loving-kindness plays out in each book through the relationships of the characters.

I chose this particular book to kick us off because the relationship piece works on two levels - both within the book and in my reading of it with my kids. My kids loved this book when they were little and I loved it too. I can't say that about every book they wanted to read on repeat, but this one was always a joy to read to them. 

The entire book is a conversation between a bunny and his mother. Seemingly out of the blue, the bunny announces that he is going to run away, and he and the mother take an imaginative journey through all the ways he could run away and all the ways that she could find him. If he becomes a rock on a mountain, she would be a mountain climber. If he becomes a bird, she would be the tree he comes home to. In the end, finding no scenario in which his mother will not provide a loving home for him, he gives up the idea and decides to stay right where he is. There was an opportunity for his mother to counter his outlandish plans with a dose of reality, telling him he can't turn into a rock or a bird or a boat, or arguing that he has everything he needs at home already. But his mother meets his need for creativity and adventure with imagination and love.

Omer 2024 Day 19

Day 18 | Day 20

Day 19: Hod in Tiferet, Humility in Beauty

Teaching a four-year-old to play a sport is one way to teach yourself humility. My daughter is learning t-ball and she already knows everything. I want her to choke up on the bat? No, she's going to hold the bat at the bottom. Her coach wants her (and all the other kids) to stop playing in the dirt? No, the dirt is fun. All the adults have said she needs her mitt to play catch? Nah, she's good. She can be particularly stubborn (I have no idea where she got that).

One would think with how much the parents and the coaches argue and repeat ourselves, that the level of baseball skill would stay about the same. But, no, the kids are all improving. Even when they're yelling about how they don't need to hold the ball by their ear, because they can just throw it from their chest, they're still somehow picking up the lessons. And the next week, the dirt is less interesting and they all grab their mitts when asked, and they mostly hold the ball by their ear when they throw (choking up on the bat is still out of the question, however). It's humbling and beautiful to watch my daughter learn this game that I love and that my family has loved for generations.

Omer 2024 Day 1

Omer Introduction

Omer Overview

The seven-week process of counting the omer prompts us to reflect on what the journey to freedom stirs in each of us. Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) attaches seven sephirot (attributes of God) to each of the seven weeks of the omer, and one to each day, to facilitate our reflection and spiritual growth.

The first day of the omer is chesed within chesed, lovingkindness within lovingkindness.

Day 1: Chesed within Chesed, Lovingkindness within Lovingkindness

This morning, ​I asked my 6-year-old, "What is love?"
She gave me a quizzical look, but thought about it for a minute before answering, "You already know."

You already know. This who​le period of counting the omer is a study in thinking deeply about concepts we​ already know. We know lovingkindness when we feel it, just as we can feel the loneliness of its absence.

I tell my daughters I love them all the time. Sometimes I yell it loudly through the car window as they are walking into school (they are not yet old enough to be embarrassed by that), sometimes I say it quietly, or off-handedly, just a comfortable part of any sentence. Sometimes, I say "I have to tell you a secret" and then whisper it in their ear. That's my favorite, because they both look incredulously at me and respond with, "I know! That's not a secret." And, of course, they're right, but I like how closely they listen to my whisper in that moment, because what I have to say is very important and very personal, even if I sometimes also shout it for the whole schoolyard to hear.

This morning, I came back to my daughter to press her to think more deeply. Not just about what we already know about love, but about what it means. I urged her gently, "I want to know what you think."
She thought again for a moment. "You can't love anybody if you don't love yourself," she said.

It reminded me of the flight safety instructions at the beginning of every flight: if the cabin loses air pressure, oxygen masks will deploy in front of you. Put your own mask on before helping those around you.

Lovingkindness in lovingkindness requires us to love ourselves first. Showing ourselves lovingkindness means that we trust that we are deserving of the love and kindness that we receive from others. It is a measure of self-respect. But loving only ourselves would be selfish and narcissistic. We love ourselves so that we have a self-assured foundation from which to give love to others, just as we secure our own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs. Lovingkindness in lovingkindness is about being in relationship. Love is sometimes big and loud, and sometimes quiet. It is both directed inward, creating a sense of calm and worth within ourselves, and directed outward to the people for whom we care.

As we work our way through the days of the omer, we will need to look both internally to our own selves, and externally to our relationships with others and with God. We need to be kind to ourselves as we reflect on the ways we may not fully measure up to the omer's attributes of God, and show others kindness as they grow as well. To do that, we begin with a foundation of love for ourselves and for others.

Response to Rabbi Ain's Pandemic Questions

I recently read an article by Rabbi Dan Ain in Tablet titled "The Four Questions of the Pandemic." I thought the premise had potential and I opened the article expecting a nuanced and thoughtful piece about what it means to lead and make community in these difficult times. As an active member of my Jewish community, a Jewish parent, and a Jewish professional, I knew that Rabbi Ain would be taking on tough issues with no easy answers. To my surprise and frustration, the article I read had neither nuance nor deep thought. Instead, Rabbi Ain took 1000 words to essentially say "I'm done."

So I'd like to take a few moments to unpack some of Rabbi Ain's accusations about the Jewish response to the pandemic and attempt to offer something of the nuance and thought I'd been hoping to find. Let's begin with Rabbi Ain's first accusation.

"If I can place my finger on the pulse of what’s been so dizzying to me—among an array of upside-downness—it is the refusal to ask questions. It is as though Jewish leaders took an oath of silence regarding pandemic measures, when Judaism itself is built on a foundation of inquiry and engagement." 

First, I would suggest that Rabbi Ain needs to reach out to more people in the Jewish community and Jewish communal leadership. Plenty of people are asking questions. I am in three separate Facebook groups specifically dedicated to conversations among Jewish professionals about Covid, in addition to the regular questions about Covid in pre-existing Jewish professional groups. Just within the synagogue world Rabbi Ain and I inhabit (let's leave aside other Jewish organizations like JCCs for now), these groups include rabbis and cantors, religious school educators, executive directors and program directors, and parents, all looking for ways to balance the competing Jewish values of communal gathering and public safety. On a more local level, congregants are definitely asking their synagogues what the health guidance is and when their favorite or most-needed aspects of the community will return in a mode meaningful to them (whether in-person, multi-access/hybrid, or virtual). Most synagogues I know have convened committees and task forces dedicated to asking questions and reevaluating the ever-changing guidance about Covid. Rabbis, directors, educators, and programmers are talking to our counterpoints at other shuls to compare notes. When synagogues make changes to their mask or vaccine policies, they send detailed information about the changes and are often transparent about the source of their policy (whether it is guidance from the CDC, their local health department, doctors within their membership, or a combination). Jewish leaders love to cite our sources, after all. If these are not questions that Rabbi Ain's community is asking him or steps that he and his leadership are taking, perhaps he should be asking himself why that is and how he can encourage that, rather than accusing the Jewish community at large of silence.

Count the Omer Week 7: Malchut

 Go back to Week 6

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! 

Count the Omer Week 6: Yesod

 Go back to Week 5 | Skip to Week 7

We are wrapping up week six of the Omer, the week of yesod, foundation and connection.

New in my life, my one-year-old started walking and my three-year-old can write 2-3 letters of her name, so we've been spending a lot of time explaining foundation to them. You have to walk before you can run and jump. You have to know the alphabet before you can read and write.

If you ask our three-year-old how old she is, she will tell you, "I'm one, two, three," and her phrasing got me thinking about how we see age. So often, we ask someone on their birthday, "Do you feel older?" But our whole lives have been building to that age. There's no clean break from 2 to 3 years old. Who I was at 27 informs who I am at 33, so really, aren't I 1, 2, skip a few, 32, 33 years old? It's certainly a good reminder of the foundation upon which our present-day lives are built.

Counting the Omer is remarkably similar to my daughter's method of counting her age. When we count a day, we say "Today is the 40th day of the Omer, making 5 weeks and 5 days of the Omer." Counting the Omer is a method of marking time and growth from who the Israelites were at the Exodus to who they would become upon receiving the Torah at Sinai. Our past is the foundation for our present and we are always connected to it, even as we grow and change.

Six! Six weeks of the Omer! Ah ah ah!

Count the Omer Week 5: Hod

 Go back to Week 4 | Skip to Week 6

It's week five of the Omer, the week of hod, glory and humility. I asked my daughter if she knew what glory and humility meant and she's only three, so she said no. So this week, I'm going to reflect on the hod of motherhood and parenthood.

"Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, 'I have gained a male child with the help of God.'" Genesis 4:1

I have two amazing daughters. They are inquisitive and smart, funny and caring. Bringing them into the world and raising them to be women of poise and purpose is the best lesson in hod that I will ever get. The process of giving birth defined glory and humility not as the opposites that they may seem, but as two sides of the same coin - a process of hope, life, fear, and pain. Every day that I have to explain the world to them, to try to define things that I have long since taken for granted, is another reminder that the world is a majestic and fascinating place, and that no matter how much I know, there will always be a "why?" that I can't answer. Being responsible for these two lives and helping to mold their understanding of the world is a humbling power.

This week, try asking yourself "why?" for everything. Why is the sky blue? Why do some of your friends live far away? Why is that plane flying up there? Why did Elsa freeze Anna's heart in Frozen? What is your favorite color and why? Why is it bedtime? Why are we counting the Omer?

Asking "why" is an acknowledgement that we don't know everything. Answering the "whys" of life is part of this lifelong learning in which we're all engaged.

Count the Omer Week 4: Netzach

Go back to Week 3 | Skip to Week 5

Week 4 is the week of netzach: eternity, endurance, or victory. Those are difficult ideas for my toddler to conceptualize enough to talk about, but that doesn't stop us from counting the Omer.

My daughter loves to play games. She got Candy Land for Chanukah and this is how she plays it:

Everyone is assigned a little plastic pawn, whether or not you are actually planning to play the game, and she lines all the pawns up at the start. If two people are playing, all four pawns still stand at the start. Everyone is included. Her baby sister is allowed to hold her pawn and sneaks it into her mouth to chew on when no one is looking. We pick cards and move our pawns accordingly until someone wins. When my daughter wins, she celebrates for a few seconds, and moves right on to setting up the pawns at the start for another game. When she loses, she does the same. We play an endless loop of reaching King Candy's castle and returning to start until she decides it's time to play something else. A victory is not the point, it's playing the game itself. 

Rather, I should say that the time spent playing together is the victory. The game is finite, but the relationships between the players endure.

Count the Omer Week 3: Tiferet

 Go back to Week 2 | Skip to Week 4

"What's something that's beautiful?" I asked my toddler today.

"A rainbow," she said. "Because of the colors."

Scientifically, rainbows are a reflection of sunlight bending through raindrops that cause an arc of light across the sky. The colors of the rainbow, each color blending into the next, are indeed beautiful. Every time I see one, it stops me in my tracks. 

In the Torah, the rainbow is a symbol of God's promise to Noah that God will never again flood the earth. It is a symbol of compassion and hope.

This is the third week of the Omer, the week of tiferet: beauty, balance, compassion. Think of something you find beautiful and hold onto that feeling this week.

Count the Omer Week 2: Gevurah

 Go back to Week 1 | Skip to Week 3

We are in the second week of the Omer, which is the week of gevurah - strength, power, justice, and bravery. This year, I'm sharing my conversations with my toddler about the seven sephirot of the Omer.

"Who do you know who is strong?" I asked her.

She answered, "Me. I'm strong. And [a friend at daycare], and daddy."

I love that her first response was herself and I love the confidence with which she said it. I love that her list is diverse - she named three very different people. It's an important reminder that there are different kinds of strength - physical, emotional - and also that one's strength does not need to be measured against another. Is my daughter as physically strong as my husband? No, because she's three and he's an adult. But that doesn't mean she's not strong.

When I asked her how she was strong, she said, "Like this," and stretched her hands up in the air as high as she could, demonstrating how tall she is. She has grown a lot in the past year, both in height and in maturity, and she is always reaching for new heights.

How are you strong? How can you empower others and create a more just world? How can you grow and stretch yourself in the coming year?

Count the Omer Week 1: Chesed

Go back to the intro | Skip to Week 2

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!