49 days, seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot
27 Nisan 5773 | April 7, 2013
Yom Hashoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day
12th Day of the Omer
Although unspeakable wickedness has been perpetuated against the Jewish people since then, the attack by Amalek, from behind, against the old, the sick and the weary has always represented the epitome of evil. In commanding us never to forget it, Judaism sets itself against the pretense that evil doesn't really exist or doesn't really matter.
Evil is real enough. To be its victim is not only a terrifying but also profoundly bewildering experience. I recently heard a woman talk about her childhood in an East European capital in the late 1930s. Once when she was a little girl, her father left her on her own for a few minutes in the central courtyard of a housing block while he went to greet a friend. She recalled how children emerged shyly from various doorways, taunted her for being Jewish, and started to throw stones. She hadn't been afraid, and it hadn't hurt her physically. What she had experienced was sheer incomprehension that someone like her could possibly be the object of another person's hate.
But we must be very careful not to imagine that evil is always "out there". It is also within us. From the beginning of our life until its end, we are subject to conflicting impulses and temptations and none of us is entitled to make assumptions about our future conduct. "Do not trust yourself until your dying day," taught Hillel. Remembering the-potential-evil within is, therefore, part of preventing the recurrence of evil in the world out there. None of us is immune to hatred, envy, and fear.
Jonathon Wittenberg, The Eternal Journey: Meditations on the Jewish Year
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 twelfth day - a week and five days of the Omer.