As part of our #TorahForTheResistance series by young scholars and students of Judaism and rabbinics, we offer this Counting the Omer for activists. Read more about using the Omer for activists, see previous weeks’ questions, and find below this week’s reflections designed specifically activists. 

About the Omer

Between Passover and Shavuot, our tradition offers us a practice called the Counting the Omer, or Sefirat Ha’Omer. The Jewish mystical tradition has imbued this time with deeper spiritual meaning by creating a system of ‘counting’ that can help us experience different aspects of the Divine. These aspects are represented by the Kabbalistic system of sefirot, a structure representing the ten emanations through which God is revealed to us.
As activists, Sefirat Ha’Omer is a spiritual opportunity to engage with this fundamental political tension: What is the world that we want to see? Where do we encounter that world and what work is to be done?

Week Three: Tiferet/Glory and Beauty (April 25th-May 1st)

This leads us to the aspect of Tiferet. This is the week of visioning the world at its most glorious:
What does the world as it should be look like? What does true freedom, liberation, and justice look like?
Tiferet also means harmony, compassion, and beauty:
How can we root our vision in a togetherness that does not erase difference, a compassion that leaves space for growth, and which enables everyone and everything’s beauty to flourish?