Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,
Today is the first day of the Omer — the 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot, between liberation and revelation. Jewish tradition offers us these seven weeks as a time for the spiritual work of discernment, refinement, and inner growth.
Our Omer discussion group will meet every Friday at 3pm during this holy corridor of time. (Read all about it.) All are welcome.
I’ll be posting daily Omer poems on my blog Velveteen Rabbi over the next seven weeks. The first one is included here. If you’d like to receive those daily Omer meditations, you can go to Velveteen Rabbi and sign up to receive my posts via email. (If you scroll down on that page a bit, there’s a box in the right-hand sidebar which says “enter your email address” and a button which says “subscribe.”)
May these weeks of the Omer yield an abundant harvest of wisdom and insight for all of us.
Blessings,
Rabbi Rachel
DAY 1: ONE STEP
The Egyptian sky
was a goddess
doing a backbend.
Once we crossed
the watery barrier
she gave way
and the heavens
became sapphire floor
beneath the throne.
And we stood
by the sea
and sang praises
because what else
could we do,
we who survived?
Here we are
again, shaking off
salt water tears
on a shore
we’ve never seen.
There’s no map.
Above us, miles
of air stretching
to kiss vacuum:
all that freedom
impossible to bear
sometimes. Too much
depends on us.
Last night’s maror
stings our eyes.
Ahead: uncharted space,
the holy wilderness
of the heart.
Take one step
into the labyrinth.
Leave Egypt behind.
Today is the first day of the Omer.
“The Egyptian sky / was a goddess / doing a backbend” — one of the deities in the Egyptian pantheon was Nut, sometimes depicted as a star-covered woman arching over the earth.
“[T]he heavens / became sapphire floor / beneath the throne” — see parashat Mishpatim and its description of the floor beneath the divine throne as being like sapphire. The idea of the sky changing as the prevailing beliefs change also owes a debt to Elizabeth Bear’s Eternal Sky books.
Today we take our first step on the journey between Pesach and Shavuot. What are we headed toward? What are we leaving behind?
