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The 21st Day of the Counting of the Omer

5/5/2014

 
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The 21st day of the Counting of the Omer begins on Monday night. Tonight we count three weeks of the Omer. This is also Yom HaAtzma'ut, Israel's Independence Day.

This is the day of Malchut within Tiferet, nobility within balance. On this day, I think about how reaching balance in life cannot be achieved passively. It requires sustained and devoted attention and action to living up to my vision for myself. I think about the high-minded ideals I try to live by and how, in reaching toward them, I bring greater satisfaction and peace into my life.

As Israel celebrates its sixty-sixth birthday, I believe that the Jewish state finds itself at a crossroads of how it will live up to its ideals – how it will find a peaceful and balanced future by pursuing its own high-minded values. In its so-far-unsuccessful efforts to negotiate an agreement with the Arab Palestinians, Israel has had to confront how it will realize the goal it set for itself on this Hebrew date 66 years ago in its Declaration of Independence – to build the State of Israel "on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions."

On this 21st day of the Counting of the Omer, I commit to action based on what I know to be the highest and best within myself. I do so with awareness that the effort toward my most noble self is also the path toward a peaceful and balanced life.

May this be a day in which you realize your greatest splendor by living up to your most cherished values.


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

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