Love Themes - Counting the Omer

I love counting the Omer, although this year I'm doing more broad strokes with the spiritual reflection part. Last year I had videos for each day with my friend Hayley, which you can still watch on YouTube. First, what is the Omer? It's the 49 days between the second night of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot, basically re-living the journey from the night of leaving Egypt to arriving at Mt. Sinai to receive the original two 10 Commandments tablets. No, I don't believe any of this was true, but that doesn't mean I can't learn from a story; I learned about life and values from books like The Lord of the Rings and David Copperfield after all.

In ancient times, people would be bringing their offerings of wheat and other tithes or something like that to the temple during these 49 days. So for some, if they lived far from Jerusalem, it was a literal physical journey. Today there's a bunch of spiritual journey questions you can find, courtesy of the kabbalists, as you prepare yourself to "receive the Torah" again, basically to receive some incredible reward. The kabbalists broke down the 49 days into seven weeks, with each week focusing on one sefira (Greek for sphere, but with the connotation of "aspect/attribute") of God. So like love/kindness, strength/discipline, beauty/compassion, endurance, humility, foundation/bonds, and majesty/sovereignty - these are apparently seven sefirot that humans can attain, with there being others at the top of the tree that only God can manifest.

So for example, in the week of chesed (loving-kindness), each of the seven days in the week focuses on different aspects of love. So like day one is "love of love," second day is "strength of love," third is "compassion/beauty of love," and so on. Then in the second week you focus on aspects of strength, until finally you reach the end and have not only done the seven sefirot but also examined each one with all seven inside of it. It's like emotions having emotions in Pixar's Inside Out.

So for me, I use it as a good time for journaling. I've done it before on this blog. Like a lot of things in Judaism, there's the idea that the holidays and traditions stay the same, but we change as we age and experience things. So our approach and appreciation (or de-appreciation) of traditions is what makes them different each year. I don't think my views have changed much in terms of the sefirot, but I'll write about them anyway.

Chesed is 99% of the time translated as "loving-kindness." To me, this means acting towards another person with respect of their time, not making fun of them like for how they look, speak, or act, listening when they speak without interrupting too much, abiding by their boundaries (like if they don't want to hug, don't hug them), and just generally being nice.

Gevurah of Chesed - We need to have our own boundaries and limits to our kindness though too, like can't be a pushover, shouldn't do things that go against our own values to make someone else like you. Being a teacher, I can't give kids all the freedom to do what they want just to be cool; there needs to be structure, which means sometimes doing things that will make you the mean teacher. I am still learning this though, setting boundaries, being "mean" even with friends, like if joking has gone on long enough and it's becoming hurtful. This goes back to my people pleasing and fear of making others angry, though I've come a long way since teenage years.

Tiferet of Chesed - It often seems like love and compassion are the same thing. I define it as "compassion is the action" where "love is the state of being." So like we could love a person and yet not do anything for them. Some friend could come to me needing to share a sad story, and even if I like having them as a friend, I could do annoying things while they talk, or simply let them talk but fully ignore them. To be compassionate, I need to listen with undivided attention, showing that I am listening with body posture and responses. Or like, one can "love their neighbor" in theory, but if you don't vote that way, or even don't let people merge on the highway, you're not practicing compassion.

Netzach of Chesed - I think there's a quote that's something about love being a long-suffering thing. Yes, love is a commitment. Raising babies or house-training animals is a good example of doing something unpleasant for a good, later reward. Getting through bad times in a relationship for the sake of love, re-establishing trust after a blunder... if it's not worth it anymore, of course give it up. Again, boundaries are important. But for love to continue, it really needs this aspect of purposeful endurance. I used to, as a teenager and young 20s adult, hold on to friendships when they were clearly over, because I was afraid of having no one. I was forcing endurance on them when the other person had given up. I'm in a better place now to see.

Hod of Chesed - Hod is usually the hardest one for me, since they translate it to humility, with the connotation that "nothing is mine; it all belongs to God." I can understand being humble in a relationship, maintaining your space and not overshadowing or overpowering the other person. If something good happens for them, and you haven't had any wins in a long time, it's still important to celebrate them (though don't force yourself to plan a huge party if you're not up for it). With the idea that my ability to love comes from God... like I guess if you want to say the series of experiences I've had and the genetics and everything are due to God, then sure, if we define God as like the randomness of the universe.

Yesod of Chesed - Yesod is the other hard one for me, just because it seems so obvious. Like of course you can't have love without bonding. I guess you could feel love for something yet remain disconnected from it...? That seems almost impossible. For example, I read a story of two women in India that climbed a mountain originally off limits to women because of its sacredness. I'll probably never meet these women, and yet I felt so happy for them upon reading that story, and I still think of it years later. In my mind, I'm connected to them, therefore bonded. So how do you have love without bonds? It just doesn't make sense.

Malchut of Chesed - Majesty/sovereignty of love... this is the idea that we are masters of ourselves, knowing when to be lenient and when to be strict, that we maintain a balance of all of the sefirot from above in regards to chesed. I'm still learning my boundaries even today, since I wasn't really allowed "negative" emotions as a kid/teenager. I'm learning how to be angry and let it show, and I'm lucky to have friends and coworkers I can practice this with when needed.

My plan is to do this kind of overview for each sefira for the next six weeks! We'll see if anything has changed from last year.