Why We Celebrate

There are a few explanations why we celebrate Lag Ba’omer, but none is definitive.

The Omer is a time of semi-mourning, when weddings and other celebrations are forbidden, and as a sign of grief, observant Jews do not cut their hair. Anthropologists say that many peoples have similar periods of restraint in the early spring to symbolize their concerns about the growth of their crops. But the most often cited explanation for the Jewish practice comes from the Talmud, which tells us that during this season a plague killed thousands of Rabbi Akiva‘s students because they did not treat one another respectfully. (Yevamot 62b) The mourning behavior is presumably in memory of those students and their severe punishment.

According to a medieval tradition, the plague ceased on Lag Ba’omer, the 33rd day of the Omer.  (The Hebrew letters lamed and gimel which make up the acronym “Lag” have the combined numerical value of 33.) As a result, Lag Ba’omer became a happy day, interrupting the sad­ness of the Omer period for 24 hours.

Rabbi Akiva and the Bar Kochba Rebellion

The Talmudic explanation makes most sense when put into historical context. The outstanding sage Rabbi Akiva became an ardent supporter of Simeon bar Koseva, known as Bar Kochba, who in 132 C.E. led a ferocious but unsuccessful revolt against Roman rule in Judea. Akiva not only pinned his hopes on a political victory over Rome but believed Bar Kochba to be the long-awaited Messiah. Many of his students joined him in backing the revolt and were killed along with thousands of Judeans when it failed. The Talmudic rabbis, still suffering under Roman rule and cautious about referring openly to past rebellions, may have been hinting at those deaths when they spoke of a plague among Akiva’s students. Possibly, also, Lag Ba’omer marked a respite from battle, or a momentary victory.

A completely different reason for the holiday concerns one of Rabbi Akiva’s few disciples who survived the Bar Kochba revolt, Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai. He is said to have died on Lag Ba’omer.

Rabbi Simeon continued to defy the Roman rulers even after Bar Kochba’s defeat, and was forced to flee for his life and spend years in solitary hiding. Legend places him and his son Eleazar in a cave for 12 years, where a miraculous well and carob tree sustained them while they spent their days studying and praying. (Shabbat 33b) When they finally emerged, Simeon denigrated all practical occupations, insisting that people engage only in the study of Torah. For this God confined the two to their cave for another year, accusing Simeon of destroying the world with his rigid asceticism.

But Rabbi Simeon’s otherworldliness resonated with mystics in his own time and later, so much so that tradition ascribes to him the Zohar, the key work of the Kabbalah (although critical scholars attribute it to the 13th-century Spanish kabbalist Moses de Leon). And in Israel, on Lag Ba’omer, people flock to the site of his tomb in the village of Meron in the Galilee, near Safed, where they light bonfires and sing kabbalistic hymns. Hasidic Jews follow the custom of bringing their 3-year-old sons to Meron to have their hair cut for the first time. (The custom of not cut­ting the child’s hair until his third birthday, when it is done in a ceremony called an upsheren, is probably an extension of the law that forbids picking the fruits of a newly planted tree during its first three years.)

Lag Ba’omer Customs

Unrelated to Rabbi Simeon, the kabbalists also give a mystical interpretation to the Omer period as a time of spiritual cleansing and preparation for receiving the Torah on Shavuot. The days and weeks of counting, they say, represent various combinations of the sefirot, the divine emanations, whose contemplation ultimately leads to purity of mind and soul. The somberness of this period reflects the seriousness of its spiritual pursuits.

Finally, on yet another tack, some authorities attribute the joy of Lag Ba’omer to the belief that the manna that fed the Israelites in the desert first appeared on the 18th of Iyar.

Though its origins are uncertain, Lag Ba’omer has become a minor holiday. (For Sephardic Jews, the holiday is the day after Lag Ba’omer.) School children picnic and play outdoors with bows and arrows — a possible reminder of the war battles of Akiva’s students — and in Israel plant trees. It is customary to light bonfires, to symbolize the light Simeon bar Yohai brought into the world. And every year numerous couples wed at this happy time.

Reprinted with permission from Jewish Days: A Book of Jewish Life and Culture (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

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Scroll down for the blessing for counting the omer.

The Torah itself dictates the counting of the seven weeks following Passover:

“You shall count from the eve of the second day of Pesach, when an omer of grain is to be brought as an offering, seven complete weeks. The day after the seventh week of your counting will make fifty days, and you shall present a new meal offering to God (Leviticus 23:15-16).”

In its biblical context, this counting appears only to connect the first grain offering to the offering made at the peak of the harvest. As the holiday of Shavuot became associated with the giving of the Torah, and not only with a celebration of agricultural bounty, the omer period began to symbolize the thematic link between Passover and Shavuot.

While Passover celebrates the initial liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, Shavuot marks the culmination of the process of liberation, when the Jews became an autonomous community with their own laws and standards. Counting up to Shavuot reminds us of this process of moving from a slave mentality to a more liberated one.

When to Count the Omer

The counting of the omer begins on the second night of Passover. Jews in the Diaspora generally integrate this counting into the second seder.

The omer is counted each evening after sundown. The counting of the omer is generally appended to the end of Ma’ariv (the evening service), as well.

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.”

Many people precede the counting of the omer with a meditation that states one’s intention to fulfill the commandment. This meditation serves to focus the individual on the task at hand and to remind him/her of the biblical basis of the commandment:

Hineni muchan um’zuman l’kayem mitzvat aseh shel s’firat ha’omer k’mo shekatuv baTorah:  Us’fartem lakhem mimaharat hashabbat miyom havi’echem et omer hat’nufa, sheva shabbatot t’mimot tihiyenah. Ad mimaharat hashabbat hash’vi’it tisp’ru chamishim yom.

Behold, I am ready and prepared to fulfill the mitzvah of counting the omer, as it says in the Torah: You shall count from the eve of the second day of Pesach, when an omer of grain is to be brought as an offering, seven complete weeks. The day after the seventh week of your counting will make fifty days.

What Happens When You Forget. . .

One rabbinic debate considers whether there is one cohesive mitzvah to count seven weeks and 50 days or whether each night of counting constitutes a separate mitzvah. This debate would seem immaterial, if not for the proscription against reciting a blessing “in vain” — that is, not for the purpose of doing a mitzvah.

If there is a separate mitzvah to count each night, then forgetting one night would have no effect on one’s ability to count subsequent nights. If, however, there is one collective mitzvah to count the entire period, then missing one night disrupts the entire count.

The rabbis effectively split the difference, and conclude that a person who forgets to count the omer on a particular night may count the next morning without reciting a blessing, and then may continue counting as usual —with a blessing — that night.

If, however, one forgets to count the omer at night and also forgets to count in the morning, one should still count the omer on every subsequent night, but should no longer recite a blessing before counting.

READ: Seven Reasons to Try This Ancient Jewish Counting Ritual

READ: This Rabbi Is Counting the Omer With Dogs

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A Virtual Festival

In the abundant body of medieval literature that was devoted to the meticulous description of personal and local customs, whether in Germany, France, Spain or other centers of Jewish habitation, we hear not a single mention of any obligatory time or method for a child’s first haircut.

As was true with respect to many areas in Jewish religious customs, a fundamental turning point occurred in the 16th century among the residents of the mystic northern Israeli town of Safed. The disciples of the renowned Kabbalistic teacher Rabbi Isaac Luria (the “Ari”) reported that their revered teacher used to go to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai in Meron to cut the hair of his young son “in accordance with the well-known custom.” The day was celebrated as a virtual festival.

Evidently, Rabbi Luria’s custom was not associated with a particular date on the calendar. A later tradition cited in his name associated the first haircut with the child’s third birthday. Among the Safed mystics, the custom arose of cutting the haircut on Lag Ba’Omer, which was celebrated as the yahrzeit (Hebrew anniversary of the death) of Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai who was venerated as alleged author of the Zohar, the central document of Kabbalistic teaching. Lag Ba’Omer became the occasion of a festive pilgrimage to Rabbi Shimon’s tomb in Meron. It is impossible to trace the origins of this “well-known custom,” inasmuch as Safed itself had virtually no Jewish history prior to its rise to eminence in the days of Rabbi Luria and his school following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal.

An important clue to the practice’s source is suggested by the fact that it was usually referred to as halaqah, from an Arabic word designating the cutting of hair. Indeed, examination of Middle Eastern folk practices reveals that offerings of hair were used for diverse religious purposes, including vicarious sacrifice, fulfillment of vows (in a manner reminiscent of the biblical nazir), or as a rite of passage. A ceremony called ‘Aqiqah is performed by many Muslims on the third, seventh or eighth day after a birth, and it is often associated with the baby naming. The ceremony normally included a ritual cutting of the infant’s first hair, alongside the offering of an animal sacrifice. Of especial relevance to our topic is the custom among Arab mothers of consecrating their children to God or to a saint in return for a safe childbirth. At some subsequent point in the lad’s life, his hair is ritually cut at a religious sanctuary or shrine as payment of the vow. Until the completion of the vow, it was forbidden to cut the child’s hair. This practice is attested among the Muslims of Safed.

Among Greek Catholics in Northern Syria, a collective shearing of 12-year-old boys was held on April 23, a date that is intriguingly close to that of Lag Ba’Omer.

Early descriptions of the Jewish hair-cutting ritual also stipulate that the hair should be weighed, and its equivalent in silver or gold donated to religious or charitable purposes. This element is also common to most of the non-Jewish versions of the practice.

Although the ritual came to be identified with the Lag Ba’Omer festivities at Meron, the timing was subject to several variations. Many Sephardic Jews preferred to hold it in the synagogue during the intermediate days of Passover. In Yemen, a festive cutting of the bridegroom’s curls was incorporated into wedding ceremonies. On that occasion, the couple’s 3-year-old relatives were also given their first haircuts.

In reality, the practice of offering one’s hair for a religious purpose is a very ancient one, and was very widespread among the ancient Greeks. It was customary for youths in those days to shave their heads, or a particular lock that was grown for that purpose, as part of a coming-of-age rite, offering it to Apollo, Heracles or a river god. These rituals were frequently associated with boisterous carousing, and were singled out by the rabbis of the Talmud as idolatrous acts that should not be emulated or assisted by self-respecting Jews (even if they happened to be barbers).

The Kabbalistic and Hasidic circles that rediscovered these dubious customs many centuries later possessed a marvelous flare for providing ingenious proof-texts to justify them. A favorite precedent was the biblical law of orlah that forbids the eating of fruit until after the tree has passed its third year. An old midrashic text had drawn a general symbolic comparison between the fruit and a human child, inspiring later rabbis to extend the analogy to the child’s first haircut, which marks a significant milestone in the development process.

Even cleverer was a tradition ascribed to Rabbi Isaac Luria himself, based on the Torah’s procedures for purifying one afflicted with a skin disease. At a certain stage in the process, the Torah (Leviticus 13:33) requires that the patient’s hair be shaved. The Hebrew word for “shave,” vehitgaleah, is standardly written with an oversized gimel, a letter that has the numerical value of three. This calligraphic peculiarity was seized upon as a biblical mandate for the practice of cutting the hair of three-year-old boys.

Whether under the Arabic name halaqah or its Yiddish equivalent upsherin, the religious ceremonies for the first haircut were generally confined to specific communities of Sephardic Kabbalists or East European Hasidim. In recent years they have enjoyed a more general popularity.

As with many folk customs, it is difficult to draw precise lines between the diverse elements of pagan superstition, inter-religious borrowing, mystical secrets, and normative Jewish observance. The distinctions between these realms can be as thin as a hair.

Reprinted with permission of the author from the Jewish Free Press (May 3, 2001).

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To learn how to count the Omer, click here!

The period that connects the two levels of freedom, Sefirat Haomer (counting of the Omer), began with the cutting of the first sheaf of barley that ripened. Barley is animal fodder. An animal is a being whose consciousness consists of the immediate situation. Having no vision of what is beyond the self is the least Jewish of attitudes. As we count the days representing the duration of the barley harvest, we rise toward the start of what was the wheat harvest. Wheat is human food, a symbol of hokhmah, intelligence (based on the rabbis’ dictum that a child does not utter its first word until it has tasted bread).

The offering brought to the Temple at the start of the Omer was meal ground from the barley grain, a raw material representing the first step in the production of leavened bread, which was the offering at the end of the Omer, on Shavuot. The message is that without Torah, which gives us the insights to recognize what we want, and the moral standards and social ethics to guide us to accomplish it, we are like animals who respond to instinct. Raw barley needs to give way to the refined wheat, the grain to meal and bread. Raw natural intelligence needs to be refined to become the wisdom through which potential can be reached. Once our animal selves, which are always present, are under control, we are ready to learn how to get the most out of life.

That is why counting the Omer continued even after the development of a standard calendar eliminated its initial necessity: to let the majority of people — farmers occupied with field work — know exactly when to make pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It remained an opportunity to help us move out of enslaving patterns of thought and behavior. For the ancient Israelites, each day was a step away from the defilement of Egypt and a step toward spiritual purity. Like the Israelites who began to get ready for their encounter at Mount Sinai as soon as they crossed the Reed [or Red] Sea , we use the seven weeks beginning on Passover to similarly prepare ourselves for the arrival of Shavuot. During this time, we are supposed to evaluate our behavior and work to improve ourselves, particularly by being more faithful to God and dedicated to His ways, more humble, and unified with all other Jews (Exodus 19:2).

The sages devised a construct to help us follow in the Israelites’ footsteps. It is based on seven Divine qualities in the kabbalistic design of the universe, which were represented by the illustrious leaders of Israel (in one variation): love (Abraham), respect (Isaac), compassion (Jacob), efficiency (Moses), beauty (Aaron), loyalty (Joseph), and leadership (David).

These virtues, in their extreme, become vices (lust, fear, indulgence, obsessiveness, vanity, submissiveness, and stubbornness) that we have to strive to avoid. So the sages dedicated each week of the Omer to one of the characteristics and each day of the week to one of them. The unique combination on each of the 49 days (love-love, love-respect, love-compassion… respect-love, respect-leadership, and so on) helps us gain insight into our own behavior in relation to them, and focus our efforts on self-improvement, to make each day of the Omer important.

Torah study in general is customary and appropriate. Some people read portions from every book of the Bible, and review of the Ten Commandments is common. Many read Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), a particularly accessible section of Talmud. Study culminates in the Tikkun Leil Shavuot [all-night studying on the first evening of Shavuot], meant to make up for omissions or deficiencies in our devotion to Torah during the preceding year. It helps us to be particularly receptive to the body of law we will be given the next morning.

Excerpted from Celebrate! The Complete Jewish Holiday Handbook. Reprinted with permission from Jason Aronson Inc.

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The counting of the omer begins on the second night of Passover. Jews in the Diaspora generally integrate this counting into the second seder.

The omer is counted each evening after sundown. The counting of the omer is generally appended to the end of Ma’ariv (the evening service), as well.

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 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.”

Many people precede the counting of the omer with a meditation that states one’s intention to fulfill the commandment. This meditation serves to focus the individual on the task at hand and to remind him/her of the biblical basis of the commandment:

Hineni muchan um’zuman l’kayem mitzvat aseh shel s’firat ha’omer k’mo shekatuv baTorah:  Us’fartem lakhem mimaharat hashabbat miyom havi’echem et omer hat’nufa, sheva shabbatot t’mimot tihiyenah. Ad mimaharat hashabbat hash’vi’it tisp’ru chamishim yom.

Behold, I am ready and prepared to fulfill the mitzvah of counting the omer, as it says in the Torah: You shall count from the eve of the second day of Pesach, when an omer of grain is to be brought as an offering, seven complete weeks. The day after the seventh week of your counting will make fifty days.

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Leviticus 23:9-11

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, and say to them, When you come to the land which I give to you, and shall reap its harvest, then you shall bring an omer [measurement] of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest; And he shall wave the omer before the Lord, to be accepted for you; on the next day after the Sabbath [the day after Passover] the priest shall wave it.

Your Torah Navigator

1. What is the purpose of this offering?

2. What does the waving motion signify?

Midrash Leviticus Rabba (Vayikra Rabba)

How would he wave the omer?

Rabbi Chama Bar Rabbi Ukva in the name of Rabbi Yossi Bar Hanina said: He would wave it to and fro and up and down. The motions to and fro symbolize that the entire world belongs to God. The motions up and down symbolize that the heavens and the lower worlds belong to God.

Rabbi Simon Bar Yehoshua said: He waves it to and fro to stop the harsh winds, and he waves it up and down to halt the harsh dew.

Your Midrash Navigator

1. Both of the Rabbis explain how the waving is done and what it signifies. In what ways are the answers similar?

2. How do they differ?

A Word

It is interesting to note that the Arabic name for the hot desert winds that afflict Israel in the spring and throughout the summer is “chamsin” which means 50, the same number of days between Passover and Shavuot. These winds when they occur on consecutive days can utterly destroy a harvest. When part of the harvest has begun and it has been successful, it was reflexive to offer thanks and acknowledge the continued support essential for a successful year.

The Talmud teaches that between Passover and Shavuot — during these 50 days — a plague killed thousands of Rabbi Akiva‘s students, the same days that they were waiting to relive the revelation at Sinai.

This is a period of great opportunity and profound vulnerability. The land can either be bountiful or parched.  May the dew come with favor.

This has been a period where the winds of history have made us feel vulnerable and where the ephemeral nature of all existence is poignantly felt in a country less than 60 years old.

It is also the period when we once again literally recount our epiphany at Sinai, and trust that through our good works and devotion all of Israel will endure and thrive in spite of and because of these dark times.

Provided by Hillel’s Joseph Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Learning, which creates educational resources for Jewish organizations on college campuses.

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The bringing of the grain offerings and the counting of the 50 days between Passover and Shavuot clearly seem to be some sort of agricultural festival; a way of thanking God, during the period of the spring grain harvest, for the food he has given us.

Anticipation for the Harvest

The counting seems to correspond to a sense of anticipation, to our looking forward, from the beginning of this period, to a good harvest. The Torah seems to want us to not only relate to the grain, and the food we will produce from it, but to the time-frame in which this all happens — to count the days, thereby including the dimension of time itself in the experience of the harvest and the thanksgiving.

The Rabbis, however, overlaid this period with another meaning. If you count the 50 days from Passover — the Exodus from Egypt — you come to the day when the nation of Israel received the Torah at Mount Sinai. So, the Rabbis declared that that day, Shavuot, is not only a grain festival, and the 49-day Omer period is not only a period of agricultural anticipation and thanksgiving, but, in addition, this is the period in which the Jewish people, after leaving Egypt, looked forward with anticipation to arriving at Mount Sinai and receiving the Torah.

We, too, in the days between Passover and Shavuot, are meant to look forward to, and ready ourselves for, a receiving of the Torah, which we celebrate on Shavuot. Thus, the experience of these 50 days was altered, from one that was totally agricultural in nature to one that also focused on issues of the spirit — the divine revelation and the receiving of the law on Mount Sinai.

For centuries, this was the double nature of the Omer period — the agricultural aspect, as well as the connection to the receiving of the Torah. Then, in the year 135 C.E., some 65 years after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, the Romans crushed the rebellion led by Shimon bar Kochba.

During this period, the Talmud tells us, the students of Rabbi Akiva, one of Bar Kochba’s supporters, suffered from a plague, in which thousands died. The traditional reason given for the plague is that it was a divine punishment for the fact that the students did not show proper respect to one another. Some have speculated that the deaths were in fact connected to the Bar Kochba revolt. At any rate, this occurred during the Sefirat Ha’Omer period. As a result, the Jewish people again changed the nature of this period, and it became a time of mourning — no weddings, no parties, no haircuts — in memory of Rabbi Akiba’s students. The 33rd day of the Omer, known as Lag Ba’Omer — was celebrated as a minor holiday, as on that day the plague abated.

Subsequently, Lag Ba’Omer has evolved into a day when, in different Jewish communities around the world, the deaths of a number of tzaddikim (righteous men) are commemorated, in a festive fashion. The most well-known of these is Shimon bar Yochai, who, in modern Israel, is honored on Lag Ba’Omer in Meron, outside of Safed, with a Woodstock-like gathering of a few hundred thousand people every year. All over Israel, on Lag Ba’Omer eve, bonfires are lit — the kids in my neighborhood are already scouring the streets for unwanted (or sometimes “we assume this is probably not-too-wanted”) pieces of wood to be used on the night.

The Omer & Zionism

For almost two millennia, from the mid-second century on, this is the way the Omer period was experienced, as a sad season, during which joyful activities were curtailed, punctuated by the minor festival of Lag Ba’Omer. Then, on May 5, 1948, David Ben-Gurion announced that the Jewish nation in Israel accepted the United Nations’ partition plan, and declared a state. May 5th falls out during the Sefirat Ha’Omer period, which created a conundrum for religious Jews. Was Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day), the day of Israel’s birth as a modern state, important enough, religious enough, to counteract the mourning customs of the Omer? In other words — could we celebrate Israeli Independence Day as a holiday, even though it falls during the mournful Omer period?

The answer to this question depends on what kind of Jew you are. Religious Zionists celebrate the day as a holiday, interrupting, for the day, the mourning customs of the Sefira (counting) period. Many ultra-Orthodox Jews ignore it, as they see the modern secular state of Israel as not worthy of religious recognition, or, even worse, a negative development. For them, the day is just one more mournful day of Sefirat Ha’Omer.

Nineteen years later, during the Six Day War, when Israeli troops attacked the Old City, in order to silence Jordanian guns which were shelling Jewish West Jerusalem, and liberated the Old City after nineteen years of oppressive Jordanian rule, another holiday — Yom Yerushalayim — Jerusalem Day, was created. Again this fell during the Omer period, creating for traditional Jews the same issues, and generating much the same response that Yom Ha’atzmaut did.

I would like to make an analogy, in order to get at something important that I think is going on here. Jewish texts, like all texts, are subject to corruption. Scribes and copyists make errors, typos and misprints occur, the physical quality of the manuscript or book deteriorates.

Often, when one is studying a text, especially an old one, one comes across what seems to be one of these mistakes. Now, the reader can choose to be conservative, and submit to the force and authority of the received word. He can ignore his own assessment of the text’s meaning, bow to the earlier tradition, and accept it as true, even if, to him, it looks like a mistake. Alternatively, one could be radical, innovative, and simply erase, or cross out, the offending word or phrase, and substitute for it what he or she feels to be the correct one.

The Jewish custom is to embrace neither of these extremes. We do not privilege the canonized text above our own sense and understanding, and allow what seem to be mistakes to remain intact, nor do we erase, obliterate, or expunge the traditional version, privileging our understanding of what does or does not make sense.

What we do is this: we leave the text as it is, and, on the side of the page, or as a footnote on the bottom, make the suggested correction. This way, nothing is lost. Who knows? What looks like a mistake, a misprint, a scribe’s error, to us, may be, in fact, correct, or at least interesting, and should be preserved.

This is one of the reasons why so many Jewish books look so complicated, with addenda and notes all around the central text; we never erase anything. We never censor, and on those few historical occasions when we have tried to, we have either been vetoed by the larger Jewish community, or have ourselves lived to regret it. We respect all of the versions that have come down to us. However, we do not leave them unexamined, untouched by our experience and sensibility. We comment on them, argue with them, make fun of them, but we do not erase them.

The Sefirat Ha’Omer period seems to me to possess a similar dynamic. On the one hand, one could easily imagine a people deciding that, once their tradition had defined this period of time as having a certain character, that would be that. That would remain the immutable nature of the way we experience those 50 days. After all, the Torah is clear about the content of the Omer period — it is agricultural.

And yet, the Jewish people realized that other events, and our responses to them, cannot be legislated out of our lives by this fact. So, when it was realized that this same time period also contains within it another dimension, another reality, that of the receiving of the Torah, the Rabbis did not hesitate to incorporate that into the way this period of time is experienced. Centuries later, when tragedy befell the students of Rabbi Akiba, the Rabbis again did not hesitate to respond to that reality, and change the nature of the way we experience the Sefira period.

Crucially, however, the Jewish people also never erased anything. The more recent events which occurred during the Omer period, and our responses to them, were never allowed to supercede the older ones; they live, like commentaries and addendum on a page of Talmud, side by side, together, vying perhaps for our attention, but all given equal time.

This openness to the realities of our history, this willingness to notice and respond communally to events as they occur in the real world, and not only to see the world through the prism of pre-ordained understandings is, I believe, a particularly Jewish genius. The way we relate to time is multi-layered. Our past, our present, our future, are all here, with us. Nothing old is forgotten; nothing new is ignored. New events, sometimes contradictory ones, are assimilated into our personal and communal consciousness, as we try to balance our mourning of old tragedies with our celebration of new triumphs.

I sometimes think that those elements of the Jewish community who remain, for whatever reasons, locked into old, narrow, unchanging views of Jewish history and Jewish life fail, in some profound way, to understand this message. For those of us who celebrate them, the holidays of Yom Ha’atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim spice our memory of the failure of Rabbi Akiba and Bar Kochba to free themselves of Roman rule with the joy of the modern Jewish victory over a would-be oppressor, and the liberation of Jerusalem.

All of these events which occurred during the Sefirat Ha’omer period, along with everything else that we have gone through as a people, are remembered, commemorated, felt. They are, in fact, through our yearly experience of them, happening, again and again, in our memory and our imagination, as we continue to try to make sense of the unfolding text of Jewish history.

Provided by the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel, a summer seminar in Israel that aims to create a multi-denominational cadre of young Jewish leaders.

The post The Omer Period — Time As Text appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Internally, the Jewish calendar is also interesting in its composition, with its cycle of festivals and special days. While the Jewish calendar, like other calendars from other traditions, has a sequence of holidays to mark natural seasons and historical events; it also gives us the opportunity to focus our thoughts and spiritual energy on important ideas and values. Additionally, the Jewish calendar has a series of important “intervals” that link the various holidays, not just highlighting important days, but important times.

These times can be the holidays themselves—Passover, for example, is not one day but a week, giving us a period of time to remember the Exodus and reflect on the themes of oppression and liberation. In the fall when we celebrate the High Holy Days of Rosh HaShanah, the New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, we do not just mark those individual days, but the period of time between them takes on heightened importance as the Yamim Nora’im, “The 10 Days of Repentance”—a week and a half to reflect, repent and take stock of our lives and behaviors.

On the contemporary calendar, we just recently marked both Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. The former marking the greatest tragedy of modern Jewry, and the latter marking one of modern Jewry’s greatest projects. And the six days between these two days give us the opportunity to reflect on the interplay between them: not just how the historical fact of one contributed to the historical fact of the other, but how tragedy and renewal, despair and hope, mourning and celebration are a continual cycle in our lives.

And now we are continuing through the period of the Omer, the seven-week period that links Passover and Shavuot, the festival marking the events of Sinai—the creation of the covenant and the revelation of the Torah. A biblically-ordained practice to literally count the 49 days, the Counting of the Omer has its roots in ancient agricultural cycles. Today, it serves as a means to link the themes of the two holidays: how simply breaking the chains of oppression does not lead to true freedom, but rather developing a system to guarantee those freedoms does. The Omer allow us to continue the process of leaving behind that which binds us that we began on Passover and to prepare ourselves for the new wisdom and insight that we will receive on Shavuot.

When I was reflecting on some of these ideas at my congregation over Shabbat, I was approached after the service by a congregant who is a runner. He explained to me that to be a successful runner, one needs to pay attention to the intervals—the time between runs. It is his belief that the intervals are as important if not more important than the runs themselves. We need to be able to rest and recover from one run in order to perform at our best at the next one.

The Jewish calendar and yearly holiday cycle contains similar wisdom. We celebrate and mark the important occasions. But we also need to pay attention to the intervals, the time between those occasions. They are as important as the days themselves, for they allow us to fully integrate the spiritual teachings of one holiday and prepare us to fully prepare for the next.

The post Don’t Just Mark the Jewish Holidays, Mark the Jewish Intervals appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Answer: I’m glad you asked this, Davida, because I have secretly been wondering about this exact issue for years, and your question gave me an excuse to do some real research.

Let’s begin with the laws pertaining to the Omer period, specifically those having to do with tisporet, or hair cutting. The weeks between Passover and Shavuot are considered a mourning period because it was during these weeks that 24,000 of Rabbi Akiba‘s students died. The Talmud records that they were struck with a serious affliction because they did not respect one another (Yevamot 62b).

In the geonic period, some Ashkenazic communities decided to commemorate the death of Rabbi Akiba’s students by not allowing couples to get married during the Omer period, and by prohibiting live music during this time as well. This mimics two of the prohibitions that apply during the year of mourning after a person’s parent dies. Later, after the Crusades, other Ashkenazic communities took on the custom of not getting haircuts during the Omer. This is also drawn from the prohibitions for the year of mourning, or avelut (Arukh haShulhan, Orah Haim 493:1-3).

Maimonides, in his digest of the laws of mourning, ruled that a man was prohibited from cutting the hair on top of his head during the year of mourning, and wrote that shaving any hair on the body was a valid extension of that prohibition (Hilkhot Avel 5:2).

However, Maimonides recognized that in some cases beards and long hair could be construed as inappropriate or disrespectful. Therefore, he included a provision, noting that if a man’s friends begin to scold him and tell him his hair is too long, then he is permitted to get it cut, because he is not doing it as a vanity or a luxury, but in order to appear respectable to his friends (Hilkhot Avel 6:3). Some mourners and people not shaving or getting haircuts during the Omer do still wait to be admonished by their friends before they get haircuts or shave, but many will just tend to the issue when they think they are beginning to look unruly.

After I reached this point in my research I consulted with Rabbi Adam Cutler, a Conservative rabbi at Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto, to see what he thinks about the laws of mourning, the Omer and women shaving. Rabbi Cutler pointed out that the expressions of mourning that we observe during the Omer are public, not private. He said, “A man not shaving his face and Jews not cutting their head hair were always public signs of mourning. Leg shaving for women was historically private (as their legs were not visible) and eyebrow plucking, though public, was not associated with mourning. The prohibition of shaving/hair cutting is tied to the notion of public mourning. It is a sign to be unshaven.” Rabbi Cutler therefore believes that there isn’t a problem with cutting or shaving any hair that is not generally associated with mourning.

I also consulted Rabba Sara Hurwitz, of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. Rabba Hurwitz found that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein allowed women to shave their body hair, arguing that it is bothersome to some women, and that it sometimes makes a woman unattractive to her husband. Additionally, Rabba Hurwitz wrote to me that all rabbinic authorities agree that during the Omer it is acceptable to shave hair that is usually shaved before immersing in the mikveh. So, if you usually shave your legs before going to the mikveh, shave away!

So it looks like there’s no halakhic (Jewish legal) problem with a woman shaving her legs, or armpits, or bikini line during the counting of the Omer. You know, if you’re into that kind of thing.

The post Ask the Expert: Shaving During the Omer appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Ostensibly, there was no reason to travel there. Meron is a tiny town situated on a mountain in the woods of northern Israel. It barely has a main street, let alone a strip mall or hotel. Perhaps its only claim to fame is that it serves as the final resting place for famous rabbinic figures: Hillel, Shammai, and, Shimon bar Yohai (also known as Simeon ben Yohai).

It’s also the site of one of the biggest parties in Israel.

Bar Yohai’s Request

Bar Yohai was a second century rabbi whose teachings are found in the Mishnah. Traditionally, he was thought to be the author of the Zohar, the seminal kabbalistic work, though modern scholars have questioned this theory. Before he died, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai requested that on his yahrzeit–which falls on Lag Ba’Omer–his students mark the day by rejoicing, instead of weeping.

So every year on Lag Ba’Omer, this small town is overrun by nearly a million people, joining together in celebration.

It is a diverse crowd: male and female, old and young, ultra religious and completely secular. In the area near the top of the mountain, tents pop up everywhere. The hundreds of thousands of visitors build bonfires, sheht animals for feasts, and pray. Benevolent people give away thousands of homemade sandwiches and salads. Anybody is welcome to partake.

Young religious zealots dance to trance music or to the sound of their own drums. Chabad Hasidim are out in force luring tourists into donning tefillin. The entire mountainside is transformed into a promenade where superstars of the Israeli religious music scene participate in impromptu jams with the tourists. The festive meals–often picnics or barbecues–are yet another opportunity to break into song, storytelling, prayer, telling jokes, and simply spending time with family or friends.

At first glance, the tiny hilltop town looks like complete mayhem. But Meron also becomes a place where strangers become friends. Perhaps when Shimon bar Yohai envisioned his followers celebrating rather than mourning, he knew that a party this good would come out of it.

A Reflection

I wrote this poem, “Bar Yohai (Ai Yai Yai),” after I attended Lag Ba’Omer in Meron. I’d spent all day climbing up and down the hill, praying, people-watching, passing goats being slaughtered, and children playing every manner of ball game. I’d seen a rabbi, a descendent of Bar Yohai, throwing himself onto the top of the famed scholar’s tomb, weeping. I’d seen totally secular Israelis, standing in their too-tight shorts and muscle shirts, whispering psalms in the most fervent, humbled voices.

It was one of the most spiritual events I’d ever experienced. Yet everything about it was also intensely, singularly physical. I barely spoke the language. I didn’t understand many of the customs. It was a clash of dozens of cultures, some totally alien to me, and some I couldn’t even name. But all of them distinctly and unmistakably Jewish.

Bar Yohai (Ai Yai Yai)

That night we ran
from bar Yohai’s grave to
deep in the valley of Meron

It felt like the prophet was pushing us,
not gravity
as we soared past dancing Hasidim and
old ladies giving out cookies and
fortunes and
boxes of yeshiva boys
seeing the sun
for the first time in
weeks

Inside the tomb I
snuck in early
not wanting to wait for nightfall

Yes, I know
for those who gathered there at sunset there
were promises of a sin-free life at stake
I didn’t want that
I just wanted to say hi

apparently everyone had the same idea
the sweat of eight
hundred thousand sweaty Israeli men
crowded up against me
cramming into my personal space
shirts splayed open like an autopsy
broadcasting more sweat and
Stay away from me, I’m a smell machine
fighting to get closer to the kever
I wanted to tell them
I’m only here for the rabbi

Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai hid out in a cave for 13 years
learning Torah and being antisocial
I don’t blame him,
that’s how I learned to love G-d
today eight hundred thousand people came there
all trying to speak the same language
everyone tried to talk to each other but
no one was listening
the chaos was its own language

I met strangers all day, hugged them like brothers
we weren’t sure to go from there so
we laughed and left

At the moment of sunset
all eight hundred thousand prayed at once, toward Jerusalem
and I ran
all eight hundred thousand people
scattered over that hill
and I wanted to get away from all of them
everything rushed by me,
people
music
food
felt like I wasn’t moving at all
like a Buddhist paradox

Halfway down I crashed
into an old Sephardic lady who looked like she’d
just cooked dinner for eight hundred thousand

She handed me a baguette full of
vegetables rescued from a king’s table
hundreds of years ago
No thanks, I said, I don’t know you

Don’t be stupid, son, start eating, she said
Thirteen years in a cave is a long time

She fed me like the apocalypse
was coming
I ate just enough
to keep running

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Origin

In ancient times, the Omer marked the beginning of the barley harvest, and its conclusion coincided with the ripening of wheat. On both occasions, special grain offerings were brought in the ancient Temple — on Passover a barley offering, and on Shavuot loaves of bread from choice flour. The word omer literally refers to an ancient dry measure of grain. 

The Mishnah (Menachot chapter 10) describes the Omer sacrifice  made at the beginning of the 49-day count. After the sun set, three sheaves of barley were identified and harvested with great fanfare as crowds watched. These were placed in a basket and carried to the Temple where the barley was processed: The kernels were removed from the stalks and singed with a flame, then milled into a coarse flour and sifted 13 times before being mixed with oil and frankincense to make a dough. This dough was held aloft and waved, then a portion of it burned up on the altar and the rest was eaten by the priests. According to the Talmud, this waving  ritual was meant to prevent harmful winds from damaging the season’s grain crops (Menachot 62b).

Spiritual Significance

Beyond its agricultural significance, the Omer ritual serves as a daily reminder of the journey from liberation to revelation, mirroring the Israelites’ passage from slavery in Egypt to the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, which is celebrated on Shavuot. Some frame this as a journey from physical redemption to spiritual redemption.

Today, the Omer is a time of semi-mourning during which it is customary to avoid getting a haircut, celebrating a marriage, or listening to music. Various explanations have been offered for this practice, which seems to have emerged in medieval times. Perhaps the best-known is that, according to the Talmud (Yevamot 62b), the span between Passover and Shavuot was the period in which 24,000 students of the great sage Rabbi Akiva died because they did not treat each other with respect. In the medieval and modern periods, when violence against Jews increased around Easter and Passover, this practice of mourning was reinforced and the period became associated with remembering Jews who died in the Crusades, at the hands of the Cossacks and in ghetto uprisings against the Nazis.

Within Jewish mysticism, each week of the Omer corresponds to one of the seven lower sefirot, or divine emanations. Similarly, each day of the Omer also corresponds to one of the seven lower sefirot. This means each day represents a unique pair of divine emanations and its own spiritual significance and possibilities for character development.

Lag Ba’omer

The 33rd day of the Omer is called Lag Ba’omer. Mourning is paused on this day, according to traditional sources, because it was on this day that Rabbi Akiva’s students stopped dying. Many Jews take the opportunity of Lag Ba’omer to wed and cut their hair. In fact, this is a day on which some Jewish children traditionally receive their first haircut. Other traditions include bonfires and playing with bows and arrows.

In modern times, Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, falls on the 5th of Iyyar within the Omer. For Jews who consider Yom Ha’atzmaut a religious holiday, the mourning restrictions are lifted on this day.

How to Count the Omer

The Omer is traditionally counted at night, shortly after sundown (when the Jewish day begins). It is traditional to count the Omer right after reciting ma’ariv, the evening prayer service (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 489:1). The first day is counted at the second Passover seder. 

To count the Omer, first recite this blessing:

Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu Melekh ha’Olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tizivanu al sefirat ha’omer.

Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has sanctified us with your commandments and commanded us to count the omer.

After the blessing is recited, the number of the day is announced in terms of weeks and additional days. For example:

Hayom sh’losha asar yom, she’hem shavuah echad v’shisha yamim la’omer (some say: ba’omer).

Today is 13 days, which is one week and six days of the omer.

Many Jews have Omer calendars that provide a visual representation of the count. This can look like anything from a traditional wall calendar to a string of colored beads. Over the centuries, communities have developed many creative and artistic variations.

For more guidance on counting the Omer, click here. 

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