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!

Omer 2021 Intro

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On Passover, we are supposed to see ourselves as if we had personally come out of Egypt. But as it turns out, we're not finished with this thought experiment. Last night as our second seders ended, we began counting the Omer. From day 1 to day 49, we are commanded to mark the time that the Israelites traveled in the wilderness from Egypt to Sinai. These 49 days are the crucial first steps for the Israelites in their journey to freedom. We, too, take this journey with them, seeing ourselves, once again, as if we had come out of Egypt. Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) attaches seven sephirot (attributes of God) to each of the seven weeks of the Omer, so that our counting becomes a time for reflection and spiritual growth. Just as the Israelites moved from slavery in Egypt to freedom and revelation at Sinai, we too should take this opportunity to change and grow and prepare ourselves for a closer relationship with God and with each other.

The seven sephirot are:

1. Chesed (חסד): loving kindness

2. Gevurah (גבורה): strength, power, justice, bravery

3. Tiferet (תפארת): beauty, balance, compassion

4. Netzach (נצח‎): eternity, endurance, victory

5. Hod (הוד): splendor, majesty, glory, humility

6. Yesod (יסוד): foundation, connection

7. Malchut (מלכות): leadership

Each week and each day have a sephira. The first week is the week is chesed. The first day is chesed, the second is gevurah, and so on, so that each sephira will be paired as we count. What does it mean to have endurance in loving kindness (day 4)? What does it mean to have loving kindness in balance (day 15)?

I think the pandemic has caused a lot of us to look inward, to reevaluate who we are and what is important to us in life. Over the past year, we have all struggled with loneliness and isolation, with loss and grief. We have also learned new ways of working and connecting with each other, taken on new challenges and opportunities to grow. I have friends who have taken up baking, are learning a new language, and have lost 30 pounds. Whether or not you are now a slimmer master baker with a 365+ day Duolingo streak, or still just getting by, I invite you to count the Omer with me this year. It provides structure and focus to your days and weeks, and a shared experience for us all.

This year, I'm only going to blog the weeks, but I'm counting every day with the help of a counting expert!

See you back here later this week for some chesed. For fun Simpson's-themed help counting each day, check out homercalendar.net. Want reflections on each day from me? Check out my posts from years past!

Vengeance and Compassion

This week’s parsha was B’Shalach, which features the beautiful Song at the Sea, Shirat ha-Yam. This melody elicits a sense of the Israelites' joy at their freedom from bondage and their excitement for the future. Given the beauty of the melody, it can be easy for us to gloss over the fact that the text is pretty violent. Among its many verses, Shirat Ha-Yam includes:

“I will sing to Adonai, for God has triumphed gloriously. Horse and driver God has hurled into the sea.”

“The deeps covered them. They went down into the depths like a stone.”

“You made Your wind blow, the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the majestic waters.”

This unapologetic display of joy at the death of the Egyptians might offend our modern sensibilities, but it’s also understandable and has so much to teach us about human nature and about our relationship with God.

The Israelites, pressed up against the banks of the Sea of Reeds, fleeing the advancing Egyptian army, miraculously find the water parted before them. They walk, in awe, safely between walls of water from slavery in Egypt to freedom at Sinai, and watch as God brings those waters crashing back down, drowning their pursuers - the Egyptians who oppressed them for 400 years, who threw their sons into the Nile, who would have murdered them at the sea had God not intervened. I don't blame them for rejoicing. These deaths bring closure and a definitive end to the Israelites’ enslavement. Their peace of mind comes because they have witnessed the destruction of their enemies. With the army destroyed, there is no one left to come after them.

It is a violent and vengeful act by God. The Torah explains that God goaded the Egyptians into pursuit and lured them into the sea. In Exodus chapter 14, God explains to Moses that sending the Israelites in a circle and back to the Sea of Reeds is a ploy to trick Pharaoh into thinking they are lost and will be easy to recapture. God says, “Then I will stiffen Pharaoh’s heart and he will pursue [the Israelites], that I may gain glory through Pharaoh and all his hosts.”

And when they reached the sea, God split the waters “with a strong east wind.” Ramban argues that God used wind so that the Egyptians would rationalize the parting of the sea as a natural phenomenon and not a miracle, thereby making it easier for them to charge into the sea and ultimately to their deaths. Once in the sea, God “threw the Egyptian army into a panic” and “locked the wheels of their chariots.” Based on this description, we can only conclude that God meticulously planned this series of events. This death by drowning mirrors the horror of the Israelites’ sons being thrown into the Nile. It is not only vengeance, but poetic justice.

Water is both a source of death and life. The same Nile that Pharoah used to drown a generation of Israelite boys also carried Moses to safety. The same sea that parted for the Israelites crushed the Egyptians. The lack of water and its miraculous appearance in the desert later in this parsha and throughout the Israelites’ 40-year journey through the desert will remain a constant reminder of its power over life and death. Moses is sentenced to death for striking a rock in anger to make water flow from it. The journey through the wilderness begins and ends with water as a life-saving and life-taking source of wonderment. It’s a challenging duality, as illustrated by the conflict between vengeance and compassion throughout this parsha.

God’s actions in the first part of the parsha through the end of Shirat ha-Yam lean toward a portrayal of God as vengeful. However, following the Israelites’ praise for God’s vengeance in Shirat ha-Yam, the rest of the parsha shows God to be extremely restrained and compassionate. God spends a lot of time frustrated with humanity throughout the Torah, but not in this parsha.

In Genesis, we see God’s temper, destroying humanity in the Great Flood (another example of the destructive power of water). We see God, frustrated with humanity’s sinfulness and willing to destroy entire cities, reconsider the fate of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah after Abraham suggests that they need not be destroyed. When, during their journey in the desert, the Israelites build and idolize a golden calf, God threatens to destroy them and start a new covenant with Moses, an offer that Moses (thankfully) refuses. There are plenty of examples of God’s short temper and vengeance, but this week, God is extremely patient despite a lot of complaints and doubt from the Israelites.

Whenever God is short-tempered, angry, or frustrated with humanity, I like to remember that we are made in God’s image. If I lose my temper more quickly than I’d like, or gloat too much when my team’s biggest rival suffers a humiliating loss, I can take some comfort in the fact that it’s a natural reaction, even though I know I need to strive to be better. God works on God’s own temper throughout the Torah, so it’s no failing that I need to work on mine too, as long as I actually put in the work to improve. It's no failing if your temper runs short.

In Shirat ha-Yam, the Israelites praise God for destroying the Egyptians and God responds to this praise by demonstrating love, not through vengeful protection, but through patient compassion. When, on their march through the desert, the Israelites grumble about bitter waters, God makes them sweet. When they grumble about hunger, God provides quail and manna. When they grumble again about thirst, God causes water to flow from a rock. Each time the Israelites become frustrated about their situation, they question whether it would have been better to remain in Egypt and doubt God’s power and ability to provide for them. They lack faith. God could have taken offense and punished them for each transgression, but instead of focusing on their ungratefulness, God demonstrated understanding of their underlying fears and met them with patience and compassion. Just as water can be both a source of sustenance and a source of destruction, God - and humanity made in God’s image - has the ability to be both short-tempered and compassionate.

The Israelites clearly needed God’s compassion in this parsha. They hadn’t been on the receiving end of patience or understanding for generations; they had been slaves for 400 years. And they deserved compassion, because their lives, even in freedom, would not be easy. With the larger threat of attack from the Egyptians resolved, the Israelites, of course, turned their attention to the everyday concerns of nomadic survival: of feeding themselves and their families and surviving in a hostile wilderness. When the Israelites faced an enemy, God crushed them. By destroying the Egyptian army, God offered the Israelites justice and peace of mind. But when they faced starvation and thirst, and a long period of persistent hardships, God offered them help and compassion.

As I read this parsha, I couldn't help but think about the days when we could all be together. And now, after ten and a half months and over four hundred and thirty thousand deaths, COVID has really put B'Shalach's themes of life and death and God's patience and compassion into a new light.

In the face of our own long period of hardships, we are all striving to live up to God’s example of compassion. We may not always succeed. We are all understandably on edge, our nerves frayed and patience run down by ten and a half months of life and death, of uncertainty. Of course we're struggling. I will continue to lose my temper from time to time, and if the Chiefs win the Super Bowl next week, I’ll not only celebrate, but I’ll probably also gloat about Tom Brady’s loss. I can only hope that when that happens, I am met with God’s patience and I correct myself quickly. To be made in God’s image in this moment means that we all need to try to fill the world with more lovingkindness, to give others grace, to offer a helping hand, and show a little bit more patience. These times call us to put Hillel’s Golden Rule into action: to treat others as each of us would like to be treated. May we all see God’s compassion reflected in each other and continue to find reasons to sing God’s praises.

Shabbat shalom.