This past Thursday evening marked LaG b’Omer – the 33rd of the Omer – a minor celebration in the middle of our counting between Passover and our next pilgrimage festival, Shavuot, which means, literally, “weeks” – this year commencing on the evening of Sunday, May 16 evening and ending Tuesday night, May 18.
The counting of days, with a blessing and a numbering up towards forty-nine – seven weeks of seven days – helps us build up from freedom to revelation. We celebrate our freedom on Passover and the giving of Torah on Mount Sinai on Shavuot.
Why count up instead of counting down?
Counting down marks time off, eliminates it.
Building up to something is a different emotional experience. We are asked to gather time in, and this is a harvest season in our calendar, even as most of us mainly harvest days and not sheaves of barley like our ancestors used to do.
On this day of punctuation in a season of counting and gathering, I hope that we can all take note of the miracles of the minutes, hours, and days, that we have collected.