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! 

Count the Omer Week 6: Yesod

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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

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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.