![]() ![]() But do you realise that this is the length of time between the resurrection and the day that God poured out his Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks? So God has given the Jewish people an internal clock and a good sense of this time frame. So the instruction is to wave an omer, or a sheaf of barley before the Lord, and then count seven weeks until the wheat harvest has ripened, and the feast of Weeks arrives. Sometimes an omer is translated as sheaf, since it is about the amount of barley or grains that you would need to bundle into a sheaf. An omer is a unit of measurement and is about three and a half litres, or just over fifteen cups of dry commodities. Quite a long time really.Īnd what is an omer? You might well ask. It’s a bit like having an advent calendar, but with no chocolate… and double the time. I have an Orthodox Jewish friend and her father calls her every day at this time of year to remind her where they are up to in “the counting”. Just as any woman who has given birth knows exactly how long nine months feels, the Jewish people know exactly how long it feels from Passover until the feast of Weeks (called the feast of Shavuot in Hebrew, which means weeks, also known as Pentecost because of the 50 days) because they have to count the days off every year. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord.” (verses 15-16) You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. “You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. In Leviticus 23, the chapter in which God lays down the law on how to celebrate all the feasts, he says this: 40 days! Do you know how long that is? The Jewish people would have a good sense of how long that is, because it falls in their time of Counting the Omer for the 50 days between Passover and Pentecost. Yeshua walked the earth for 40 days after coming back to life. I am talking about the Biblical tradition of “Counting the Omer”. God, unsurprisingly, is aware of this phenomenon, and has capitalised on it to drive a powerful truth home. ![]() They say “a watched pot never boils” meaning that the more we pay attention to the time, the more conscious we are of it going slowly. In the remainder of his time, he studies Yiddish and watches too much baseball.Have you ever counted the days till an event you’re excited about? Time can go so slowly when you’re watching it. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he studied Classics and fiction writing at Northwestern University and holds a Ph.D. He has also published academic articles on William Faulkner and Jewish poetry and writes about the Chicago Cubs for Baseball Prospectus Wrigleyville. Wall’s writing has appeared on Ordinary Times, First Thoughts, and is forthcoming in Jewish Fiction. Pristine as on the day they were not born. ![]() Which lie sainted, unblemished and odorless, Which scavengers do not tear at in the night, Of God’s face, the gaping void of its absence. Shut, blind to the revealed world, to everything Translucent, purpling, their eyes still plasticed Of students slaughtered on altars built for doves,īy my front door, its lintels never bathed Mourning each evening’s dawn with memories Like sheaves of grain that God cannot collect, Wall crystallizes here a dark passion on the bud of existential doubt-his poem, “Counting the Omer,” is a deeply familiar why God in the face of inexplicable tragedy, turning softly on Wall’s fresh imagery and sincere ambivalence. ![]()
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