In this week’s Torah portion, Emor, we read about the counting of seven weeks between the holiday of Pesach and the “feast of weeks,” Shavuot. In Leviticus chapter 23, the Israelites are instructed to “count from the day after the holiday, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering, you shall count seven weeks…You shall count until one day after the seventh week, 50 days, and then you shall bring an offering of new grain to YHVH.” The sheaf referred to here, a bundle of barley, is called an “omer,” and this practice came to be called “counting the omer.” In the Torah, Shavuot is purely an agricultural festival, an offering of the first fruits of the grain harvest. But in rabbinic tradition, it also became the the day on which Torah was given at Mount Sinai. And so the period of counting the omer took on the meaning of preparation for the receiving of Torah, the annual re-experiencing of receiving teaching and wisdom.
In the Jewish mystical tradition, each of the seven weeks represents a quality of the divine also found in ourselves, a quality that we are invited to pay attention to and strengthen as part of this journey of preparation. This week, we are in the quality of Netzach, which can be understood as endurance or steadfastness. I recently heard my friend and colleague Rabbi Dorothy Richman refer to it as “sustainability.”
These weeks of counting the omer this year have been challenging in many ways. For so many of us who are anguished by events in Israel/Palestine, the escalating destruction and famine in Gaza (and the horrifying sight of extremist Israeli settlers destroying food aid at the Gaza border), the ongoing anguish of the families of Israeli hostages demonstrating weekly to get their government to stop the war and bring their loved ones home, and the tumult surrounding the campus protests, have all been difficult to bear. I am well aware that the protests, in particular, have hit different members of our community in different ways. There has been pain felt and harm experienced both by those targeted by antisemitic/anti-Israeli rhetoric, and by those who have loved ones or colleagues or students who have been targeted for arrest and other kinds of retribution for their participation in the protests. The profound suffering being experienced overseas has reached into our own community in myriad ways.
It in this context that I am thinking about the quality of netzach, and the hard work of fostering endurance and steadfastness in difficult times. I like Rabbi Richman’s interpretation of this quality as “sustainability,” as it suggests a need to find ways to nourish ourselves, emotionally and spiritually, for the long haul. At times, “steadfastness” can be interpreted as digging into a stance, a position, and not budging. And there are certainly times that call for that. But in this moment when so many are dug in, when an ever-widening binary of “them” and “us” is infecting the American Jewish community and our society at large, I am wondering if we can foster a different kind of endurance. I wonder if we can ground ourselves in a deep compassion for ourselves as well as for others even as we confront injustice and intolerance. I wonder if we can engage in new, creative thinking about the transformation of conflict and oppression that does not involve the erasure of anyone’s identity or history. I wonder if we can foster an enduring awareness that both in Israel/Palestine and here in the U.S., our wellbeing and liberation really are all bound up with one another.
As we continue in our journey towards Sinai and our preparation to receive the Torah that awaits us this, I hope this Shabbat brings a taste of the kind of nourishment each of us needs to hang in there. Whether it is music, or silence, a walk in the woods, a delicious meal, a conversation with a loved one—may we each find a moment or two that sustains us this Shabbat. And may we all find the strength to endure in our collective efforts for peace, love and justice in the world.
