49 days, seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot
23 Nisan 5773 | April 3, 2013
8th Day of the Omer
Freedom. To decide, to affirm, to choose. Freedom can be maddening. And frightening. Where to go? How do we discern the correct path? So many possibilities, the wilderness is so vast... Slavery's master was known, predicable, authoritative; what invisible force is the master of freedom?
Freedom cannot be willy-nilly, it cannot be wild abandonment, self-centered, untethered. To be free is to live the religious paradoxes of choice and destiny, of independence and obligation, of memory and vision, of self-fulfillment and communal responsibility. When tethered, freedom lifts us toward holiness, wonder, aspiration, and meaning.
Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar
Baruch Ata Adonai Elo-hei-nu me-lech ha-olam a-sher ke-d-sha-nu b- mitz-vo-tav, v-tzi-va-nu al s-fi-rat ha-omer.
Praised be you Adonai our God who rules the Universe instilling within us the holiness of mitzvot by commanding us to count the Omer.
Today is the eighth day - a week and one day of the Omer.