Counting Omer

Mid-spring.  About halfway through.  Pesach mostly completed with the last few boxes of dishes still to be transported downstairs and a few appliances returned upstairs.  Mother's Day.  A languishing legal matter awaits resolution.  A talk for the synagogue to be prepared.  The outdoor gardens.  My monthly expense reviews.  Semi-annual plans for the second half of the calendar year.  Other things already completed.  Taxes.  Flourishing aerogarden, less flourishing chia pots.  Been on a small vacation.  Osher Institute courses nearing completion.  Made it to the putting green but not to the driving range. Casted my fishing line in a very unenthused way.

Amid the spring projects comes the nightly Omer Count.  The Festival of Shavuot, unlike the other Jewish Festivals, does not have a specified calendar date.  Instead, it occurs on the fiftieth day after the Second Seder.  During that interval a nightly count through 49 days, that is 7 weeks, takes place with a blessing before each count and a short benediction following it.  The daily count has few rules, but must be done after dark, so I set my timer to 9:10PM, though I may need to reset it a little later the final week.  There are rules for missed counts, some compensatory, some really better termed also-rans.  The count is both by days through 49 and after the first week, by week plus days.  No synagogue or communal effort is required.  This is entirely my project, though it has a dedicated number of people who make the nightly count part of their spring duties, as I do.  Organizational Reminders appear online.  I subscribe to Chabad, but the Orthodox Union has a reminder service as does an independent but less reliable Homer Omer which posts a Simpson's themed cartoon on Facebook most days through the count.

I find the need to do this, while taking not more than a minute or two each night, offers an anchor for the many spring projects that also take multiple small steps but have a destination.  The Omer's destination is the Festival of Shavuot, anticipated one night at a time.  I might have expected it to function as a count-down to goal, much like the clock running down to the end of a football game.  But like Hanukkah, it is designated count upwards.  It makes the destination grander, perhaps.  The count is purposeful.  Our seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot is not empty time.  It is acknowledged time.  The many spring projects, from preparing my upcoming talk to nurturing my outdoor plantings, do not really have specified milestones, and sometimes not even firm end points.  Those weeks that define when Shavuot gets celebrated have their progress chart.  Unlike my garden harvest, the Festival always arrives.