The mystics of our tradition saw great meaning in the counting of the Omer, which is marked each night between Passover and Shavuot. In its cycle of seven days, counted seven times, they saw a parallel to the sefirot, the system by which the Kabbalists understood the Divine attributes. Each week is dedicated to a particular attribute, and each day of that week focuses on the intersection of two Divine attributes. This week, the first of the Omer, we focus on chesed: lovingkindness or compassion.
Today is the third day of the Omer
Tiferet she-b’chesed: Beauty in lovingkindness
Long a Carrie Newcomer fan, the first time I ever heard “I Heard an Owl” was in a liturgical setting, when Cantor Shayna De Lowe offered it as the community emerged from silent prayer.
so don’t tell me hate is ever
right or god’s will
these are the wheels we put
in motion ourselves
and the whole world weeps
and is weeping still
though shaken i still believe
the best of what we all can be
and the only peace this world will know
can only come from love.
I’ve listened to it countless times since, moved by the beauty of the lyrics and the melody, to be sure, but also by the message. To me, it is a message of this week—this day—of the Omer: a reminder of how, in the words of Rabbi Dara Lithwick and Rabbi Rachel Barenblat “to love and keep loving, to love without measure (ahavat hinam), to love without caprice or expectation, to love unencumbered, to love pure.”
It is a reminder that our acts of love—the kindnesses we show in the world—are meant to be a manifestation of Divine love. And that this love—this overflowing love—is a source of beauty, and—we pray—of peace.
—Rabbi Sari Laufer