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וּסְפַרְתֶּ֤ם לָכֶם֙ מִמָּחֳרַ֣ת הַשַּׁבָּ֔ת מִיּוֹם֙ הֲבִ֣יאֲכֶ֔ם אֶת־עֹ֖מֶר הַתְּנוּפָ֑ה שֶׁ֥בַע שַׁבָּת֖וֹת תְּמִימֹ֥ת תִּהְיֶֽינָה׃עַ֣ד מִֽמָּחֳרַ֤ת הַשַּׁבָּת֙ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔ת תִּסְפְּר֖וּ חֲמִשִּׁ֣ים י֑וֹם וְהִקְרַבְתֶּ֛ם מִנְחָ֥ה חֲדָשָׁ֖ה לַיהוָֽה׃

And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to God. (Vayikra 23:15-16)

Hevre/Friends,

I have a confession: there are nights when I forget to count the Omer. It seems a simple enough commitment to fulfill, and yet, it eludes me now and then during these seven weeks. I’m evolved enough to forgive myself these omissions. (I’m still working on forgiving myself for late night snacking.) What’s really troubling is the apparent unforgiving nature of our tradition.

A question arises in halakhic literature about one who forgets a night of counting the Omer: may they pick it up the next day or have they ruined, and forfeited, the whole 49-day ritual? You guessed it: there’s a debate among scholars. One side argued they should just continue the next night and move forward. The other argued that the whole undertaking has been undermined and there’s no redeeming it. How did the tradition rule? Right again: we compromised. One who forgets a night can pick it up the next day, BUT, you no longer get to say the blessing over the counting.

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l, points out, this specific halakhic debate hinges on a larger one: is the counting of 49 days of the Omer one single mitzvah, or is each day’s counting an individual mitzvah? If it’s the former and you forget a day, it’s game over. But if it’s the latter, why shouldn’t you be able to pick it up again even as you reckon with having missed an opportunity to fulfill a mitzvah on the night you forgot? If we forget to daven one day, or we simply don’t daven, does that mean we can never pray again? To be one who prays isn’t itself a mitzvah; it’s our daily devotions and reflections that fulfill our religious mandate to be in conversation with the holy One.

While the compromise of counting but not blessing honors the scholars who debated the legal issue, it feels undignified to me as a practitioner. It feels punitive. So here’s another confession: when I resume my counting after forgetting a night, I say the blessing. If only all my rebellions were so sanctimonious! 

But there is something deep lurking within the custom of withholding the blessing in the wake of missing a night of counting the Omer, something we shouldn’t so quickly dismiss.

My friend and master educator Rachel Brodie challenged us this week in a teaching of hers at the Jewish Studio Project which Andi and I sponsored in honor of Andi’s mother Mavis’ 92nd birthday. Rachel asked: what if the mitzvah isn’t actually the counting itself, but rather remembering to count?

What if the blessing bestows holiness upon the arduous task of recalling every night for 49 nights in a row events that unfolded thousands of years ago? What if the blessing hallows memory itself, the core feature of Judaism’s prescription for a promising future?

There are things we are not permitted to forget. We are reminded of some of them during this week of what Rabbi Donniel Hartman refers to as the modern Jewish High Holy Days - Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron, and Yom Ha’Atzmaut - days and nights filled with memories of those who perished in the Shoah, of those who lost their lives to war and violence in Israel, and memories of the miraculous - and ongoing - renewal of the Jewish State. Along with the dead, we must not forget the living and our obligations to them, be they loved ones or strangers. We must not forget those who are struggling to stay alive.

When we consider that the Omer blessing might actually be sanctifying memory itself, it becomes a clarion call to do whatever it takes to remember our obligation to remember. 

I will likely continue to side with those who permitted saying the blessing even after missing a night of the Omer. And I will look for a nice Omer counter! But I know that I will still miss a night now and then. And while that particular day of the 49-day wilderness journey from Egypt to Sinai, from Pesah to Shavuot, from slavery to freedom, will be my loss, I will feel the ritual sting of having forgotten, and the next blessing I make will strengthen my resolve to remember. 

Shabbat Shalom
Dini