Lag B'Omer, the Thirty-Third Day of the Counting of the Omer

This week's Torah portion, Emor, contains this law about counting days: "You shall count for yourselves from the day after the holiday [Passover], from the day you bring the omer of grain offering, and they shall be seven complete weeks. You shall count until the day after the seventh week, 50 days, and then you shall bring an offering of new grain to Adonai." (Leviticus 23:15-16)

The counting of the 49 days (a week of weeks) from Passover until the day before the festival of Shavuot has been imbued with different meanings over the course of Jewish history. In the days of the First Temple, it was primarily agricultural – a way to set the date of harvest festivals. The later rabbis of the Talmud made it a period of semi-mourning in memory of Torah students killed by the Romans. In medieval Jewish mysticism, the Counting of the Omer became a journey through 49 gates of divine emanations to reach the transcendent moment in which the Torah is received from Mount Sinai on Shavuot.

Those 49 gates are identified with unique pairings of divine emanations, called sefirot in Jewish mysticism. The first week is the week of Chesed, or "lovingkindness." The second week is focused on G'vurah, understood as "strength" and "discipline." The third week is Tiferet, the emanation of "harmony," "balance" and "splendor." The fourth week takes us to Netzach, meaning "eternity" and "endurance." The fifth week is about Hod for "humility." The sixth week is based in Yesod, the emanation of "foundation," "groundedness" and "connection." Finally, the seventh week we reach up into Malchut, "sovereignty," "nobility" and "leadership." 

Each day of the week is also associated with one of these seven attributes, so that, for example, the 29th day of the Counting of the Omer, which this year begins on the evening of April 30, is the first day of the fifth week. That makes it the day that focuses on the quality of Chesed within Hod, or the lovingkindness that is revealed within humility. It's a good day for contemplating how true humility lowers the ego but lifts the soul. It is a good day to ask yourself, "How does my love for the people in my life lift me out of selfishness and up toward selflessness?"

The 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer, which this year will begin on the evening of May 4, has special significance. Many Jews celebrate Lag B’Omer with bonfires and outdoor games. It also is regarded as the yahrzeit, the anniversary of the death, of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. That association gives Lag B'Omer great mystical importance.

Rabbi Shimon is the central character of the Zohar, the greatest book of Jewish mysticism. A famous passage in the Zohar (III, 287b -296b) tells how Rabbi Shimon made his final revelation of the Torah’s secrets to his disciples on the night he died, which was Lag B’Omer. The passage is known as the Idra Zuta, and it describes how Rabbi Shimon did not just die a normal death that night. He left this world in a torrent of supernatural fire that surrounded him as the words of his revelation came pouring out of him in ecstasy. His disciples heard his words, but they were unable to reach him through the fire.

"The light that is revealed is called the Garment of the King," declared Rabbi Shimon from the midst of the divine fire. In language that is obscured by mystical terms that each resonate with multiple meanings, Rabbi Shimon says that all that we know and experience about God is nothing more than an outer garment that hides an unrevealed truth beyond our understanding. "The light within, within is a concealed light. In that light dwells the Ineffable One, the Unrevealed."

Finally, Rabbi Shimon's revelation was crowned with the greatest truth of all about the "High Spark," the most hidden truth that lies at the foundation of all reality. Rabbi Shimon cried out, "There is nothing but the High Spark, hidden, unrevealed!” If we were able to truly know and understand God, we also would know that there is nothing but God. Everything that appears to exist is merely a ripple upon the surface of God. That is the great truth, the only truth, that lies at the center of all.

On this Lag B’Omer, I wish you light and celebration, but also a bit of time for reflection and deepening understanding of yourself and your place in a miraculous universe beyond our ability to conceive and understand. Happy Lag B’Omer.

Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser is the spiritual leader of Temple Sinai in Cranston.