All about the Omer

The following section is the religious view of the Omer. The Kabbalists always look for the Cause and do not connect to the effect. See if you can begin to think like a Kabbalist as i read the religious explanations which came from the Chabad Web Site.

In the 2nd century CE, a plague killed 24,000 students of one of the greatest sages and Jewish leaders of all time, Rabbi Akiba. They all died in the short span between Passover and Shavuot. During those seven weeks between the holidays of Passover and Shavuot, we commemorate that tragedy with a period of semi-mourning.

Historically, many tragedies befell our people during this period. The notorious blood libels incited anti-Semitic pogroms in the weeks following Passover.

Historically, many tragedies befell our people during this period During these days of mourning we don't:

Hold weddings

Listen to instrumental music

Buy a significantly valuable garment.

Cut our hair or shave. (Speak to your rabbi if your job requires this.)

Altogether, out of the 49 days in this period we observe only 33 days of mourning. There are, however, differing opinions when these 33 days start and end. Speak to your rabbi to determine your community/family tradition in this matter.

chanoch's Comments

Ashkenazi end the mourning period on the 33rd day which is Lag B'Omer. Sephardim wait till the morning of the 34th day in order to have a full 33 days since the words of the Torah say "complete weeks". The Kabbalists are dealing with Cause which is "energy" and so hold these actions until after Shavuot.

According to all opinions, however, the 33rd day of the Omer, known as Lag B''Omer, is festively celebrated, and all expressions of mourning are suspended. This is the anniversary of the passing of the mystic Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai – a surviving student of Rabbi Akiba – and he specifically requested that we rejoice on the day when his soul was reunited with its Creator.

Chanoch's Commentary

In other Kabbalist teachings Lag B'Omer is not his Hilula but the day that Rabbi Akiva taught the Kabbalah to Rabbi Shimon since Lag B'Omer is Hod She Be Hod in the Counting of the Omer and this represents the spiritual or potential called Malchut of Malchut. More about this in another class.

Certain communities, including Chabad, observe the Omer mourning period from Passover until three days before Shavuot (aside for Lag B'Omer), in order to be in accordance with all opinions. This custom is also in concurrence with the teachings of Kabbalah, according to which this entire period is a time of harsh judgment.

This ends the writings of Chabad.

To understand the Omer one has to truly understand the Sefirot. To relate fully to the Sefirot one has to learn to meditate in a way where you learn to talk to the Sefirot and hear them answer your questions. Have you ever asked the Sefirot of Netzach "What is your nature?" Try it please as you will find it mind opening and spiritually beneficial.

This period of the Omer has lead to a very divisive issue within the Jewish World over the centuries. This history of the Omer just as the History of the world is related to the Sefirot. Of course our historians do not relate to this aspect of History.

To begin to understand this History let's see what the Torah says about the Omer.

Leviticus Chapter 23 Verse 15 and 16

Verse 15

וספרתם לכם ממחרת השבת מיום הביאכם את-עמר התנופה שבע שבתות תמימת תהיינה

Verse 16

עד ממחרת השבת השביעת תספרו חמשים יום והקרבתם מנחה חדשה ליהוה

Usual Translation

Verse 15

You shall count from the next day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Shabbaths shall be complete.

Verse 16

To the next day after the seventh Shabbat shall you count fifty days; and you shall offer a new meal offering to HaShem.

Do you see what created the problem and the conflict in these interpretations?

The next day after the Sabbath is Sunday. Yet this year as every year we start counting the Shabbat the day after the First Night of Pesach. How is it possible that we are not following a statement in the Torah?

The above is the conflict based on the reading of the Torah. Let me explain. In the Talmud the Sages suggest and the Halacha follows the idea that the word Sabbath means the 15th day of Nissan and not the Sabbath after Pesach which a literal reading of the verses would imply. This led to a disagreement a Malocket (an argument for the sake of Heaven) between a group of knowledgeable Jews called the Karraites and the Rabbis of the Talmud and the Rabbis who follow the Talmud. The Karraites said the Torah must be read literally. If the Torah said Shabbat then we start counting on Shabbat. The Talmud says the word Shabbat means the Holiday of Pesach and the Night of the First Seder.

This argument along with many other literal interpretations that made different ideas than what the Rabbis of the Talmud said went on for centuries. This difference in interpretation became a major stream of Judaism similar to the different streams of Judaism today like Modern Orthodox, Hasidic, Chabad, Conservative, Renewal and Reform.

The Karraites grew until they became approximately 1/3 of the Jewish World. This was about the year 1000 after the destruction of the second Temple. At that time a treatise was written by one of the most famous Sages that followed the Rabbis of the Talmud. In the Treatise he explained how absurd it is to read the Torah literally. For example: The Torah says to wear Tzittzit and Tefilin but does not give clear instructions regarding how they are to be made and or worn. This treatise also made it easier for all of us to practice Judaism as well. In the Treatise the Gaon Saadia who lived in Babylon explained that according to the Karraites the statement in the Torah to not build a fire on Shabbat meant to not be able to warm food on Shabbat so there was no Lights/Candles left burning in the house. There was no fire to warm the food and all food must be served cold even on Friday night since the fire of the stove must be extinguished at the time of Lighting Candles which also must be stopped at sundown.

After this treatise circulated among the Jewish world and people who had started to follow the literal interpretations of the Karraites realized that they could have warm food on Shabbat providing they followed certain recommendations of the Halacha, the Karraites became less popular. Until today the Karraites have become a very small minority of the Jewish World and are rarely even known by most Jewish people today.

Personally i follow some of the reasoning of the Karraites when it comes to declaring the New Moon, but the majority of their literal interpretations are really limiting the pleasures of Shabbat which i do not consider appropriate for the meaning of Shabbat.

Here are some links for you to study the history of the Karraites.

WARNING

If you do research for yourself be aware there are many websites that claim to be Karaite that actually are what is being called "Messianic Judaism." This is a group that practices the literal interpretation of the Torah along with an evangelical connection to the New Testament. It is easy to become confused by these two groups calling themselves Karaite. This may even apply to the links i have put here.

  • Link to Karaite.Org

  • Link to Karaites in Israel

    • Practical Aspects of Counting the Omer

    During the Omer period we are not to have Kavenah when we pray except for the process of the counting of the Omer. This means we do not create unifications with the Hebrew Letters in our prayers. Let me emphasize this point. The only place we create unifications (see below) is when we count the Omer. NO OTHER PRAYER TIME - not morning afternoon or evening prayers only the Counting of the Omer

    The reason for this Halacha is that the Omer is a period of judgment and when we create unifications the universe evaluates our merits before it allows itself to unify. During a time of judgment we need to be especially full of merits and that may not be the case. The Sages are building a fence around the Torah with this Halacha and it is better for us to be safe rather than sorry.

    There is a Minhag of the Kabbalists to hold in their right hand a “little salt”. This action sweetens the period of the Omer since it acts as a protection shield in a number of ways. The Hebrew word for salt is Melach, the same letters as the shoresh for war. So salt acts as a vaccine against war during this time. Also the gematria of Melach is 78 which is 3 times the gematria of the Tetragrammaton. The 3 creates a protection shield for all three columns.

    Hint: There is no need to use new salt every day during the counting. Just put a little salt in a plastic bag. Then use this salt on your Shavuot Milk Meal Shavuot Morning. The energy of your vessel building is being inserted into the salt and will fulfill your vessel upon receiving the Torah Shavuot Morning.

    The Omer is counted in three diverse ways:

    1) the number of the day like Day 1; Day 2; Day 10; Day 42 etc. or HaYom Echad; HaYom Sheini; HaYom ASaRah; HaYom Shenaim Arbaim in Hebrew.

    2) The number of Weeks + the number of days within a week; An Example would be this is Week 3 + 4 days of the Omer. You can get the Hebrew from the daily Omer count page on the Yeshshem website located at

  • Omer Link

    • 3. Count down the Omer from Chesed Shebe Chesed to Malchut Shebe Malchut.

    I want you to answer the question "Why do we need to count in these three different ways? A Hint: Look at the translation of the Torah Verses above.

    Always say HaYom היום since that means "today is" in Hebrew. The gematria of the word Yom is 56. When we add the Colel it becomes 57 which is the sequence from the third verse of the 42 Letter Name of God (Ana Bekoach) נגד as well as the Hebrew word Zan זן . Zan means Parnassah or Sustenance. So by saying HaYom we connect to the flow of sustenance that comes from the Shefa of the Creator.

    When we say HaYom we are also saying the permutations of those letters. Here are some of the Permutations:

    The final Mem is formed from 4 Vavs. These Vavs can be used as vowels for each of the other three letters like this. יו הו וו ו . The gematria of this sequence is 45 which is the same gematria as Adam the original Man and Women in unity, in Zvug.

    The gematria of HaYom using the final letter value is 621. This is 620 + the colel. 620 is the number of Mitzvot when we add the 7 Mitzvot from the Sages in the Talmud. It is also the number of letters in the Esser Debrot. So when we say HaYom we also are including the Esser Debrot in the Counting.

    It is also recommended to say the Names of the Kings who died in Edom prior to there being a King in Israel. If you are unfamiliar with this concept it is truly recommended to become familiar. It is a metaphor from the Torah in Genesis. The ARI teaches that these 7 Kings who died (out of the 8 Kings listed in Genesis by Name) are the sparks that fell into the Klipot during the world of “the breaking of the vessels”. These sparks of Light are elevated when we say their Names after or at the end of the Counting each night. Here's how

    Week One is King Bilah: We say the Name similar to the Sefirot as follows:

    Day One is Bilah DaBilah בלע דבלע . Bilah is a word that means “glutton”, swallowed, “to engorge”, to engulf, “to absorb”, “to eat up”.

    Day Two is Yobab DaBilah יובב דבלע . Yobab is a word that comes from the shoresh that means “to wail”, “to sob”, “to blubber”, “to whimper”, “to whine”.

    Day Three is ChaShem DaBilah חשם דבלע . ChaShem is a word that means “to worry”, “to fear”, to be afraid, to feel pain.

    Day Four is HaDad DaBilah הדד דבלע . HaDad is a word that means “the breast”, “the nipple”. It also means “to remove” or “to elude sleep”.

    Day Five is ShaMilah DaBilah שמלה דבלע . ShaMiLah means dress or garment. This is a code word for a Klipah which is a covering.

    Day Six is Shaowl DaBilah שאול דבלע . Shaol is a word that translates as borrowed, loaned, Hell, Hades, underworld, abyss, or grave.

    Day Seven is Beall Chanun DaBilah בעל חנן דבלע . Beall Chanun translates as “Master of Pity” or “Owner of Pity”.

    Week Two substitute DaYobab for DaBilah.

    Week Three substitute DaChaShem for DaBilah

    Week Four substitute DaHadad for DaBilah

    Week Five substitute DaShaMilah for DaBilah

    Week Six substitute DaShaowl for DaBilah

    Week Seven substitute DaBeAll Chanun for DaBilah

    Please note that one can clearly see the sparks that can be elevated through the Names of these Kings of Edom. There is also much that can be learned by contemplating the idea that just as these Kings came first and fell; and Terach came before Abraham; and Yishmael came before Issac; and Esau came before Jacob it is necessary for our negativity to come before we reach the level of a Tzadik. These contemplations will help in raising the sparks that only you can raise.

    When do sparks actually get raised and how is this accomplished?

    One of my teachers used the example of “When someone stops to let another person turn left prior to entering the intersection that is a Mitzvah; that is the elevation of a spark from the Klipah; that is a Tikune between those two people."

    Psalm 67

    It is best to use the Menorah Segulah for Psalm 67.

    Here is a link to a Sheviti of the Menorah. Another less accurate word for Shiviti is glyff.

  • Link to Menorah Sheviti

  • Link to Menorah Kavenah

    • Psalm 67 is read each weekday in the Morning Prayer by the orthodox communities. Psalm 67 has a direct connection to the Name of 42 (Ana Bekoach) as can be seen on the Sheviti. Psalm 67 has a direct connection to the Birthpangs of Mashiach and is considered a Protection Shield for that time which is our generation. We will shortly have a prayer class on one of the Sunday Morning classes to delve into the kavenah above plus much more in depth Kavenah.

    Psalm 67 has 7 verses with 49 words along with the middle verse has 49 letters when we add some missing Vavs. The ARI teaches that do to these connections we should utilize the Psalm during the Omer as a cleansing tool and the Menorah Shiviti as a Protection Shield.

    Please now go to one of the Omer Days as I will read and explain all of the different concepts expressed in the pages that are available for the Counting of the Omer on the Yeshshem website.