Counting On The Long Haul

Blessed Mystery,

In it for the long haul, 

We begin the count. 

We count centuries from Joseph to Moses,

Count years from the burning bush to the Song of the Sea. 

Count weeks from manna to Sinai ,

Count days from the blare of the horn to the Golden calf. 

Count the five books of Moses,

Count the 24 books of the Tanakh. 

Count the 49 days of the Omer 

Count the seven sefirot,

Count and take us to Shavuot and

Count the cheese blintzes. 

Maybe it’s a myth,

Maybe it’s current events. 

But Torah is only the beginning,

We’re in it for the long haul. 

And everyone has a Sea of Reeds to cross,

Everyone has a story 

Blessed Holy Wholeness,

Everyone counts. 

Amen 

Counting (the Omer)

It’s time for the Omer count 

That we may begin to wonder, 

What is the point

Of counting?

Why are we doing this?

We make note of the number

In relation to the numbers preceding, 

Aware of the numbers to come

And to what end?

There is no end!

Counting, once begun

Goes on forever, infinity,

Like God,

So why stop at 49?

Some ancient harvest festival,

But what’s that to us?

Maybe it’s more of a mindfulness thing 

Like Shabbat,

When we stop time

And declare it holy.

But this Omer business

Lasts for seven weeks and

Perhaps,

When we're in the middle of it,

We’re feeling very Samuel Beckett:

“I can’t go on, 

I’ll go on.”

And then there’s the counting of the days 

And days and days,

The numbers themselves have no meaning: 

It’s the counting.

And like chanting,

Counting doesn’t work as meditation 

Until after you’ve achieved boredom.

Anyway,

It’s not what you’re counting that matters, 

It’s the counting itself.

It is its own justification,

And every number becomes a prayer,

A chat with God.

First, second, third, fourth, fifth day,

We give thanks that we can fulfill this obligation,

Fourteenth, fifteenth day,

A holy sequence,

Eighteenth, Nineteenth day,

Yeah, yeah, whatever,

Twenty-third, twenty-fourth day...

Have we achieved boredom yet?

And on the twenty-eighth day of the Omer 

With three more weeks to go,

We sigh,

We can’t go on!

We go on. 

Amen.

Malkhut: A Kavannah for the Last Week of the Omer Count

Written for the 2016 Kolot Chayeinu Anti-Racism Weekly Omer Counter

1.

We count the Omer for seven weeks, 49 days:

The loving kindness and benevolence of Chesed;

The strength and holy limitations of Gevurah;

The spiritual balance and beauty of Tiferet;

The eternal endurance of Netzach;

The prayer and intellecutalism of Hod;

The gateway of Yesod, collecting all of these sephirot and transmitting them to

Malkhut, the end of the chain, our human world.

Malkhut –  It is the culmination.

This is where we live, this is the here and now,

God's name in Malkhut is Adonai ha Eretz, Lord of the Earth. 

But in Malkhut we are ALL the lords of this realm,

We are one in the One-ness.

These are our laws, our nations, our communities, our religions,

These are our choices.

We are the rulers, here.

2.

When I was little I knew I was an American Jew

And I knew what that meant -- 

Ashkenazi,

European,

White,

UJA and Holocaust memorials,

Hebrew School and Fiddler on the Roof,

Chicken on Friday nights and Brisket on Passover,

Charoses made of apples, cinnamon, walnuts and

Manischevitz Concord Grape wine.

I was it, the Real Jew, a Pintele Yid, there was no other

And no other way to be.

There were, however, Others:  The Goyim.

Everybody who wasn't us.

My father sat in front of his TV, labelling every famous white person who appeared:  

Jew.  Not Jew. 

Jew.  Not Jew.

Jew was Good, Not Jew Bad.

Everyone was Jew or Not Jew, except for the, you know, them:

The S-words,

Literally the yiddish word for blacks,

Which could have been meant just as a description but wasn't, it was demeaning, no more than a step or two less disgusting than the N-Word.

And those people, the S-Words, were the Other times two,

The Permanently Not and Never Jews.

Even when i was really little I knew that this was a bad word to say and I was embarrassed for my father whenever he used it, which was a lot.

Because he was my father, I will make excuses for him:

Maybe to a people used to being The Other, it feels good to make someone else The Other? 

Or maybe it was a way to make himself more American, to be superior like all the other Americans, the white Americans? 

Or maybe, because he grew up on the streets of the Lower East Side and Brownsville, and he fought with the Black, Italian and Irish kids on the streets for survival, he thought he'd earned the right to be a tough guy? 

Or maybe he was just a racist?

I hope not.

But...

Well, I'm all grown up now

And is is upon me to face the truth

Of racism and Euro-centrism and privilege.

And that there are Real Jews

Of many colors and genders and nationalities and practices.

And I am only one amongst us all.

And because I know this truth,

I am obligated by Malkhut to be conscious of my choices.

Can I try tunes and prayer rituals that feel "weird"?

Can I be aware of my privileges without someone reminding me?

Can I shut up and learn from others?

Can I refrain from telling people I understand when I don't?

Can I be led by people I have never been led by?

Can I give up power I didn't even acknowledge I had?

I don't know, I guess I'll find out.

I hope so.

And really,

Brisket isn't very good for my health or the environment

And Manischevitz Concord Grape is cheap crappy wine

(I don't care, I love it).

3.

So here's a prayer for this world of Malkhut and all of us real Jews

In the last week of the Omer,

Making our choices,

As we gather at Sinai to receive Torah:

Baruch HaMavdil

Blessed Is The One That Divides,

Giving us the illusions

Of time and space

Of days and weeks

So that we may grow and learn

And take joy in the moment,

So that we may rest on Shabbat

And not go crazy,

So that we may count 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot.

We give thanks for this seventh week of the Omer

And the metaphor and earthiness of Malkhut,

Which gathers us in community

And takes us to the 50th day of the Omer,

Shavuot,

To study the choices of Ruth and Naomi

And join with all these real Jews waiting 

At the foot of Mount Sinai.

Blessed HaMavdil,

The One-ness giving us the joys of holy separation,

We are many and we are gloriously different

But we are also one in the One.

Please may we not divide ourselves against ourselves

So together, different and the same,

We may behold the Godhead.

So together, different and the same,

We may pray, forgive and be forgiven, study, create acts of loving kindness, heal the world

And receive Torah.

And let us say, 

Amen.