49 days, seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot
26 Iyar 5773 | May 6, 2013
41st Day of the Omer
Beauty takes us beyond the visible to the height of consciousness, past the ordinary to the mystical, away from the expedient to the endlessly true. Beauty sustains the human heart in the midst of pain and despair. Whatever the dullness of a world stupefied by the mediocre, in the end beauty is able, by penetrating our own souls, to penetrate the ugliness of a world awash in the cheap, the tawdry, the imitative, the excessive, and the cruel. To have seen a bit of the Beauty out of which beauty comes is a deeply spiritual experience. It shouts to us always, "More. There is yet more."
Joan Chittister, Illuminated Life
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 thirty-ninth day - five weeks and four days of the Omer.