(15) And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: (16) you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the LORD.
(א) סדר תפל' ליל שני של פסח וספירת העומר. ובו י"ס:
בליל שני אחר תפל' ערבית מתחילין לספור העומר ואם שכח לספור בתחל' הלילה הולך וסופר כל הלילה ומצוה על כל אחד לספור לעצמו וצריך לספור מעומד ולברך תחל' וסופר הימים והשבועו' כיצד ביום הראשון אומר היום יום אחד (בעומר) עד שמגיע לשבעה ימים ואז יאמר היום שבעה ימים שהם שבוע אחד (בעומר) וביום שמיני אומר היום שמונה ימים שהם שבוע א' ויום א' (בעומר) וכן עד שיגיע לארבע' עשר יאמר היום ארבעה עשר ימים שהם שני שבועו' (בעומר) ועל דרך זה מונה והולך עד מ"ט יום:
(ז) שכח ולא בירך כל הלילה יספור ביום בלא ברכה:
(ח) אם שכח לברך באחד מהימים בין יום ראשון בין משאר ימים סופר בשאר ימים בלא ברכה אבל אם הוא מסופק אם דילג יום אחד ולא ספר יספור בשאר ימים בברכה:
(1) On the second night after the evening prayer, we begin to count the Omer. And if someone forgot to count, [that one may count] from the beginning of the evening onwards. Shee may account all night. It is a mitzvah for each person to count for themselves. He needs to count standing and bless before. He should count the days and weeks. How? On the first day he should say “today is day one of the Omer”, until he arrives to seven days. [At which point he should say], “they are one week of the Omer.” And on the eighth day he should say “today is eight days and they are one week and one day of the Omer.” And also, when he arrives to the 14th day, he should say “today is 14 days, they are two weeks of the Omer.” And in this way he should count and onwards until the 49th day...
(7) If he forgot [to count] and did not do the blessing all night, he should count during the day without a blessing.
(8) If he forgot to bless on one of the days, between the first day [of the omer] and the rest of the days, he should count the rest of the days without a blessing. But, if he uncertain if he skipped a single day and didn’t count, he should count the days with a blessing.
By Rabbi Jill Jacobs
What to Say
One stands when counting the omer, and begins by reciting the following blessing:
Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu Melekh ha’Olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tizivanu al sefirat ha’omer.
Blessed are you, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who has sanctified us with your commandments and commanded us to count the omer.
After the blessing, one recites the appropriate day of the count. For example:
Hayom yom echad la’omer
Today is the first day of the omer.
After the first six days, one also includes the number of weeks that one has counted. For example:
Hayom sh’losha asar yom, she’hem shavuah echad v’shisha yamim la’omer
Today is 13 days, which is one week and six days of the omer
The inclusion of both the day (13) and the week (one week and six days) stems from a rabbinic argument about whether the Torah mandates counting days or weeks. On the one hand, the biblical text instructs, “you shall count 50 days;” on the other hand, the text also says to “count. . . seven complete weeks.” The compromise position, manifested in the ritual, is to count both days and weeks.
The blessing for counting the omer, as well as the language for each day of counting, appears in most prayer books at the end of the text for the evening service.
Because the blessing should precede the counting (and not the other way around), many Jews will not say what day of the omer it is until after the ritual counting. Thus, the reminder about what day to count is often phrased as “yesterday was the fifth day of the omer.”
Sefirat HaOmer is the 49 day cycle between the holidays of Passover (when the Jewish people find freedom) and the holiday of Shavout (the day the Torah was received on Mount Sinai).
There is deep meaning in every aspect of this ritual. The word Sefirat comes from the hebrew root SFR which means to count or to tell, and HaOmer means “the sheaf.” There are agricultural and historical reasons for this marking of time, as well as spiritual meanings marking our journey from slavery to freedom:
Agricultural Cycle
Passover represents the beginning of the harvest season. In the times of the Temple, Jews would bring a measure of the spring barley harvest to the Temple as a form of gratitude and prayer for a successful harvest.
There was a ceremony conducted by priests, waving the offerings in the 6 directions which acknowledged the role of G-d in the harvest. Once this ceremony was completed, people could enjoy the harvest. Sefirat HaOmer counts 49 the days between the initial harvest of the simple grains, to the more luxurious grain, wheat.
Spiritual Rhythms of Hebrew Calendar
Sefirat HaOmer starts in the evening of the second night of Passover, when we celebrate our freedom from Egypt - the ultimate Jewish liberation story.
Yet, once we are freed from the bondage of slavery, we are not fully prepared to stand up as free people.
Rather, we need to undergo a transformative process to spiritually and psychologically prepare and cleanse ourselves. Once we have fully come into our liberated state, we are ready to receive the Torah on Shavout - true wisdom, the divine word, direct experience of revelation.
Sefirat HaOmer counts the days between Passover and Shavout as a marking of time to prepare ourselves for our freedom.
It is not enough to be free, we must do the hard work of introspection and self-examination to truly know our freedom.
Sefirat HaOmer mirrors the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Sinai - we left as oppressed people and we became liberated through the time we spent in the desert.
It is a spiritual spring cleaning inviting us into inner transformation.
What are the Sefirot?
Sefirot can most simply be described as aspects of divine consciousness as laid out in Jewish wisdom; ten manifestations of divine light.
Sefirot, like Sefirat, come from the root SFR which means to count, or to tell. Sefira describes an aspect of God. The Sefirot are often depicted in a diagram called the Tree of Life:
Jewish wisdom teaches that we are created in the image of the Divine; the body is a physical manifestation of the Divine image. We can connect to the Divine most directly through our connection and relationship to our bodies. The Sefirot are aspects of Divinity in the world that manifest particularly in our bodies....
Of the 10 Sefirot, three are called “Upper Sefirot,” described as particularly divine and mostly inaccessible to the human experience. Then there are the seven lower Sefirot, understood as the foundational building blocks of humanity.
The 7 Lower Sefirot
Chesed
Loving-kindness, grace, compassion, divine flow, abundance, river.
Gevurah
Strength, discernment, constraint, boundaries, container, judgement, restraint, containment.
Tiferet
Beauty, balance, harmony, order, heart space, splendor, trunk, symmetry, the sun.
Netzach
Endurance, victory physical energy, persistence, dedication, Moses-style of leadership.
Hod
Splendor, glory of physical forms, radiance, diversity, variety, Aaron’s priestly style of leadership.
Yesod
Foundation, basis, groundwork, ultimate access and channel that permits communication and transmitting light.
Malchut / Shechina
Indwelling presence, soverniety, Divine royalty, manifestation, liminal, does not produce its own light, receiving upper light and delivering.
