The 34th day of the Counting of the Omer begins on Sunday night. Tonight we count four weeks and six days of the Omer. 

This is the day of Yesod within Hod, connection within humility. On this day, I think about how humility should be a quality that draws me closer to other people. It should make me more open and accepting of differences. It should not be an isolating experience of self-degredation, but an enriching experience that encourages greater connection.

Rabbi Akiva, the sage of the Talmud who is closely associated with Sunday's holiday of Lag B'Omer, said that the commandment to "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18)  is "The great principle of the Torah" (Leviticus 19:18; Y. Nedarim 30b). There is a teaching that Akiva's students were struck by a plague when they misinterpreted the verse to mean, "Love your neighbor who is as yourself." In other words, they thought that the commandment to "love your neighbor" only applied to neighbors who shared their opinions and practices. 

That is a plague that is becoming more common in our society. As our culture becomes more segmented and polarized, even people who call themselves religious seem to find it easier to reserve their love only for those whom they perceive to be "like minded." True religious humility is an experience that makes us humble in our view of other people, more able to treat others with compassion, and more able to see value in people, even when they are not "as ourselves."

On this 34th day of the Counting of the Omer, I commit to finding commonality and compassion for others as a practice of love and humility. May this be a day in which you lower your ego and discover unexpected connection with others.


For the introduction to the Counting of the Omer, click on this link:
The First Day of the Counting of the Omer

The 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer begins as Shabbat ends on Saturday night. Tonight we count four weeks and five days of the Omer. It is the minor holiday of Lag B'Omer, which means "33rd of the Omer."

This is the day of Hod within Hod, humility within humility. On this day, I think about how my humility is deepened when I appreciate other people – the strengths they have in areas where I am weak, the insights they have from which I can learn, and the struggles they have endured. I remember that there are great lessons in life that can be learned only when I lower my egos to value others.

Lag B'Omer has many different meanings in Jewish tradition. The Talmud explains that it was a day that brought relief to a plague that struck the students of Rabbi Akiva (B. Yevamot 62b). In Israel, Lag B'Omer is celebrated by religious and secular Jews with bonfires and outdoor games. The origin of the bonfire celebrations probably comes from a story that connects the holiday to the death of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the teacher of mysteries who is the central figure of the Zohar.

According to the Zohar, the most important text of Jewish mysticism, Shimon bar Yochai pronounced his final and greatest revelation of the Torah's secrets on Lag B'Omer, the day of his death. In his vision, he saw nothing but the fire of God's presence and revealed that the inmost reality of the universe is that "there is nothing by the High Spark, hidden, unrevealed!” 

Lag B'Omer, therefore, stands as I day in which we celebrate the greatest lesson of humility we could ever learn. Everything is a manifestation of God. All of our conceits about our abilities, our qualities, and our very existence is nothing but an illusion. God is the only real reality that is present, unrevealed, in each moment.

On this 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer, I commit to seeing the presence of God in each person I encounter. To remember that their life's stories, their blessings and burdens, are all a part of the story of God who fills everything.

May this be a day in which you find the peace that comes from quieting your ego enough to see the resplendent divinity that lies at the heart of all things. 


For the introduction to the Counting of the Omer, click on this link:
The First Day of the Counting of the Omer

According to tradition, the plague was a punishment for the students' lack of respect for one another. Before it ended, the plague killed 24,000 of Akiva's students (B. Yevamot 62b). 

My nephew, Dovid Reed, recently pointed out a teaching to me that observes that Rabbi Akiva was a great teacher of the ideal, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). In the Talmud, Akiva is quoted to say that this is a great principle of the Torah. So how is it possible that his students would act so unkindly to each other? So much so, that they were punished with a plague?

One interpretation is that Akiva's students took the "as yourself" part of the commandment too literally. They were willing to love each other, but only to the extent that they saw their fellow students to be like themselves. If another student had a different opinion or a different understanding of the tradition, they saw no need to love the part that was not "as yourself."

This is a plague in our times, too. How often do we see people who claim that they love everyone, but who are willing to spit venom at people who disagree with them? In politics and in the Jewish community, we see that we are like Akiva's students who resent each other for seeing things differently. 

Why did the plague end on the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer? Every day of the Counting of the Omer is connected to the pairing of two divine attributes. This is the day of Hod within Hod — Humility within Humility. This is the day that teaches us that the real way to love others is to lower our egos, put aside our personal opinions, and see that creating peace between us is more important than being right, or proving that somebody else is wrong. It is humility before each other that allows us to love our neighbors in the way that God intends us to.

Happy Lag B'Omer.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Emor: Counting to Revelation
Vayishlach: Let's Get Small

The counting of the forty-nine days (a week of weeks) from Passover until the day before the festival of Shavuot has been imbued with different meanings over the course of Jewish history. In the days of the First Temple, its was primarily agricultural—a way to set the date of harvest festivals. The later rabbis of the Talmud made it a period of semi-mourning in memory of Torah students killed by the Romans. In Kabbalah, the Counting of the Omer became a mystical journey through forty-nine gates of divine emanations to reach the transcendent moment in which Torah is received from Mount Sinai on Shavuot. 

Last year, I wrote a post for each week of the Counting of the Omer to describe my journey through the mystical associations of each day. The first week is devoted to the divine emanation of Chesed, or "lovingkindness." The second week is focused on G'vurah, understood as "strength" and "discipline." The third week is Tiferet, the emanation of "harmony," "balance" and "splendor." The fourth week takes us to Netzach, meaning "eternity" and "endurance." The fifth week is about Hod for "humility." The sixth week is based in Yesod, the emanation of "foundation," "groundedness" and "connection." Finally, the seventh week we reach up into Malchut, "sovereignty," "nobility" and "leadership."

Today is the thirty-third day of the Counting of the Omer, the fifth day of the fifth week. It is a semi-holiday called Lag B'Omer. The "Lag" is an acronym in Hebrew for the number 33. (The letter Lamed = 30; Gimel = 3). Like the Omer period itself, Lag B'Omer has many meanings. In Israel, it is celebrated with bonfires and outdoor games. Lag B'Omer also is regarded as the yahrtzeit, the anniversary of the death, of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. That association gives Lag B'Omer great mystical importance.

According to tradition, Rabbi Shimon was the author of the Zohar, the greatest book of Jewish mysticism. He also is the central character of the book. A famous passage in the Zohar  (III, 287b -296b) tells how Rabbi Shimon made his final revelation of the Torah’s secrets to his disciples on the night he died, Lag B'Omer. The passage is known as the Idra Zuta, and it describes how Rabbi Shimon did not just die a normal death that night. He left this world in a torrent of supernatural fire that surrounded him as the words of his revelation came pouring out of him in ecstasy. His disciples heard his words, but they were unable to reach him through the fire.

"The light that is revealed is called the Garment of the King," declared Rabbi Shimon from the midst of the divine fire. In language that is obscured by mystical terms that each resonate with multiple meanings, Rabbi Shimon says that all that we know and experience about God is nothing more than an outer garment that hides an unrevealed truth beyond our conception. "The light within, within is a concealed light. In that light dwells the Ineffable One, the Unrevealed."

Finally, Rabbi Shimon's revelation was crowned with the greatest truth of all about the "High Spark," the most hidden truth that lies at the foundation of all reality. Rabbi Shimon cried out, "There is nothing but the High Spark, hidden, unrevealed!” If we were able to truly know and understand God, we also would know that there is nothing but God. Everything that appears to exist is merely a ripple upon the surface of God. That is the great truth, the only truth, that lies at the center of all.

On this day every year, tens of thousands of people travel to Meron, the place where Shimon bar Yochai is said to be buried, to celebrate the revelation of all revelations.