Sefirat haomer is the period of 49 days of counting between the holidays of Passover and Shavu’ot. The end point of this counting period is described in our parsha this way: vehikravtem minchah hadashah lashem (Lev. 23:16). You will bring close a minchah hadashah, a new grain offering or a new gift, lashem, to God.
We Are The Something New
Now the word hadash meaning “new” is not a common word in the Torah; this is only the second time it is used. So it kind of leaps off the page, this “something new” that is to be brought at the end of the days of counting. I want to suggest that we ourselves are that something new that is arrived at by the end of this process, that sefirat haomer can be understood as a kind of incubation or gestation period of inner growth in which we gradually come into a new form, becoming ourselves the minchah hadashah lashem, the “new gift to God.”
Perhaps you can sense the inkling of something hadash, something new, that wants to grow inside you, like a seed planted long ago, but not yet developed, some possibility of greater aliveness and awakening that lies dormant in your cells, a potential not yet realized, like the potential to be a butterfly that lies inside the caterpillar from the start, the wings not yet born, but only felt as a faroff eventual unfolding. What inkling of wings of song or soaring do you sense latent in your being?
Like A Sapphire
Some draw a connection between the similar sounding words “sapphire” and “sefirah,” suggesting that this inner seed in us is like a sapphire stone and that our task over the period of the sefirah is to cleanse this inner sapphire, to clarify and purify it by removing all the outer casings that have accumulated over time, and to return to our original light (Or HaChayim on Lev. 23:15).
Shedding Layers
Indeed, as we grow and evolve, there is often something we need to let go of, a shedding of old layers, like the caterpillar’s shedding of its outer coating in the process of metamorphosis. Perhaps this is why the Torah begins its description of this process with cutting – uketzartem et ketzirah (Lev, 23:9)– karzar means to reap or to cut. There is something that will need to be cut or shed or dissolved or washed away as we move into becoming a minchah hadashah, a new gift. And as part of this cutting process, we also do tenufah – we take the item and wave it. Omer hatenufah, we call it, the omer of waving. The back and forth motion of the tenufah, this waving of the grain offering, is reminiscent of the shaking motion one would use to get rid of chaff from grain, to let what is no longer needed fly off in the wind.
What needs releasing in you in order for that new seed to have room to grow and sprout wings, in order for your inner sapphire to shine? Maybe it is something inherited from the past that weighs heavy on you or maybe it is a burden you have accumulated in your own life experience, some difficult, unhealthy habits, fears, or limiting beliefs.
Maybe you can imagine that you are indeed able to do some ketzirah, some cutting or removal, almost like a kind of surgery, or maybe you can imagine, in a gentler way, the waving motion in front of your chest, like the wings of an angel fluttering away the heaviness on the breeze, the waving motion moving that hardness and fear slowly out of all of the cells of your body and into the air to be carried away. Where there was stuckness and solidness before, maybe now there can be some shaking up, some possibility of movement, something dissolving, shifting, releasing, and floating out on the wind.
Unknowing the Past
The only earlier time in the Torah that the word hadash is used is for the new king in Egypt at the beginning of the Exodus story: vayakam melekh hadash, “a new king arose” (Exodus 1:8). The next phrase is almost definitional: asher lo yada et yosef, “who did not know Yosef.’ What it means to be hadash, new, is to not know the past, to somehow unlearn it. This king unlearned something in a harmful way, but unknowing is also a process of renewal that can be healthy, to unlearn the false beliefs that we picked up through our past life experiences, through personal and collective trauma, to somehow unknow the heaviness and the fear that keep us mired in re-enacting the past, unable to even see a different future. What might it be like to wake up hadash, new, each morning, as if you are lo yada, as if you no longer know the past trauma that stops you from moving forward, as if you are born afresh with infinite possibilities before you, not forgetting the past, but letting it move through you, releasing its visceral hold on you, so that you are not forced to relive history, but instead can turn towards the future with a fresh perspective?
From Matzah to Risen Bread
To be liberated in this way from the chains of the past allows that hadash seed inside us the room to grow and rise and blossom. We can move from matzah (back) to lehem, to risen bread. On Pesach we eat matzah, and on Shavuot the offering that is brought to the Temple is bread, shtei halehem, leavened, risen bread. We, too, are on such a journey. We were the matzah, stopped in our rising, in our growth, by the circumstances of history and experience, and now, over time, we are allowed to grow again into lehem, to rise once more, to awaken and sprout wings and blossom. Maybe you can sense inside you that growth potential, the yearning to get up from your crouched, constrained matzah place and to rise like bread, to stand up into your full height like a phoenix rising from the ashes of your difficulties, like the Israelites rising out of enslavement..
Unhurried Time
In order for bread to rise, it takes time, unhurried, patient, waiting time. On Pesach we were hurried, and that initial leap was necessary, but now we pause for seven weeks to rest and grow in an unhurried way; we take the time to let the bread rise; we don’t keep running away like refugees, always afraid and running, never able to spread our wings. We pause now to grow into this new self that wants to emerge.
Maybe this is what it means to count each day in the sefirah..To count is to be intentional about taking time, to be waiting expectantly but also patiently, knowing that you need this time to grow, not rushing it, but patiently, steadily, faithfully, counting each day, letting it take its time. And during this time, we rest – sheva shabbatot temimot – seven weeks of perfect shabbat, seven weeks permeated by the peaceful rest of shabbat. Like a caterpillar in a cocoon, this is a restful, quiescent stage. We need this quiet unhurried time for change to occur. It is like a seed that we plant in the ground. We don’t keep digging up the ground to see how it’s doing. We let it rest in the warmth of the soil until it is ready to emerge and blossom.
We need to allow ourselves this turn inward, this self care, this quiet time to grow and be born anew. Usefartem lakhem, the pasuk says, count for yourselves. Lakhem. This time is for you. We swathe ourselves in gentleness like a caterpillar in a cocoon, wrapped in softness, turning inward, resting and waiting patiently for the natural process to unfold. We are like Esther, bathing and immersing ourselves in sweet smelling oils for months on end (Esther 2:8), beautifying ourselves in preparation for meeting the king of kings on Shavuot.
Growth Pains
We should note that this growth process is not without pain, like a caterpillar whose insides are being rearranged to make room for wings or like a teenager’s growing pangs or like a woman giving birth. Transformation of all sorts has its ups and downs, its moments of hurt and grief and tearing. And so it makes sense that the sefirah period is considered one of mourning as well as growth, and that we experience this churning ache of growth and rebirth in our personal growth process as well. It helps to remember – when we are in the throes of such turmoil and pain – that this suffering is a natural part of the process, and that, like the caterpillar, we are always still held in a cocoon of care, swathed in layers of softness as we grow through our challenges. It’s not always easy, this growth, but we are held.
Envisioning the Rebirth
And maybe, as we come to the end of the process and the end of this essay, you can take a moment to imagine what the emergence of the minchah hadashah, this gift of a newly born self, might feel like, imagining your own emergence from the cocoon, not yet, but after a slow patient wait, envisioning that end result, that birth, that spreading of your new wings to fly and soar, the rising up of your spirit in new closeness to God – vehikravtem – karov, this new self is close to God, lashem, turned towards God, aligned with God; you were turned inward – usefartem lakhem, for yourself – and now you emerge, lashem, for God; your new self, your new purpose, is for God, for the highest good, a rising sense of purpose and meaning in your whole body as you rise up like dough into bread; you are a minchah hadashah lashem, a new gift to God; this was always your destiny, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, like a dirt covered sapphire cleansed and shining, like a newborn baby coming out of its mother’s womb, you emerge, you are reborn, like Rut on Shavu’ot, each of us a new convert, born anew into deeper divine connection.
As Ezekiel says, on that day we will be given a ruah hadashah, “a new spirit,” our heart of stone replaced by a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19) that can feel and love without the constraint of our past trauma, our love and light flowing out of us and spreading through the world. Allow yourself to imagine and taste this possibility, to inhabit it for just a moment so that you can continue to grow into it, so that you know where you are heading, what minchah hadashah, what new self, is waiting to be born.
Photo by Akil Mazumder at Pexels
