Tonight begins the first day of the Omer. In the Kabbalistic system where permutations of the seven lower sephirot (one sephira for each day of the week times seven weeks) brings a different meaning for each day, tonight begins the Chesed of Chesed: LovingKindness in Lovingkindness. Rabbi Simon Jacobson's meditation for this day of the Omer:
Love is the single most powerful and necessary component in life. It is both giving and receiving. Love allows us to reach above and beyond ourselves, to experience another person and to allow that person to experience us. It is the tool by which we learn to experience the highest reality – God. Examine the love aspect of your love. Ask yourself: What is my capacity to love another person? Do I have problems with giving? Am I stingy or selfish? Is it difficult for me to let someone else into my life? Am I afraid of my vulnerability, of opening up and getting hurt?The creative synthesis of American pop culture and ancient Jewish tradition has produced a recent innovation called Counting the Homer. The Homer website has a whole section on the Jews of Springfield, and links to the Simpsons Talmud and learned investigations of the Simpsons Sephardic crypto-Jewish ancestry. D'oh.
<< Home