ChaBaD Jewish Calendar Tuesday, 3 Sivan, 5783 May 23, 2023
ChaBaD Jewish Calendar Tuesday, 3 Sivan, 5783 May 23, 2023
On Sivan 3, G-d instructed Moses to "set boundaries for the people around, saying, 'Beware of ascending the mountain or touching its edge...'" (Exodus 19:10-12) in preparation for the Giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai three days later. To this day, we mark the "Three Days of Hagbalah ('Boundaries')" leading to the Giving of the Torah on Sivan 6.
In his advance towards the destruction of Jerusalem, Rome Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus ("Vespasian") captures Jericho and massacres all its inhabitants.
On 4 Iyar, 4925 (1165), Maimonides sets sail from Fez, Morocco, to escape Islamic persecution. The journey is fraught with danger, including a storm on 10 Iyar that threatens to capsize his ship. Finally, on 3 Sivan, Maimonides arrives safely in Acco, Israel. He establishes this date as a day of rejoicing, festivities, and gifts to the poor, to be kept by him and his descendants until the end of time (Charedim ch. 65 [5744 ed.).
Link: Rambam (Maimonides)
Today begin the three days of preparation for the festival of Shavuot known as the "Three Days of Hagbalah" (see today's "Today in Jewish History"); in the custom of certain communities, the mourning practices of the Omer period, such as not to hold weddings or get a haircut, are now suspended.
Tomorrow is the forty-eighth day of the Omer Count. Since, on the Jewish calendar, the day begins at nightfall of the previous evening, we count the omer for tomorrow's date tonight, after nightfall: "Today is forty-eight days, which are six weeks and six days, to the Omer." (If you miss the count tonight, you can count the omer all day tomorrow, but without the preceding blessing).
The 49-day "Counting of the Omer" retraces our ancestors' seven-week spiritual journey from the Exodus to Sinai. Each evening we recite a special blessing and count the days and weeks that have passed since the Omer; the 50th day is Shavuot, the festival celebrating the Giving of the Torah at Sinai.
Tonight's Sefirah: Yesod sheb'Malchut -- "Connection in Receptiveness"
The teachings of Kabbalah explain that there are seven "Divine Attributes" -- Sefirot -- that G-d assumes through which to relate to our existence: Chessed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malchut ("Love", "Strength", "Beauty", "Victory", "Splendor", "Foundation" and "Sovereignty"). In the human being, created in the "image of G-d," the seven sefirot are mirrored in the seven "emotional attributes" of the human soul: Kindness, Restraint, Harmony, Ambition, Humility, Connection and Receptiveness. Each of the seven attributes contain elements of all seven--i.e., "Kindness in Kindness", "Restraint in Kindness", "Harmony in Kindness", etc.--making for a total of forty-nine traits. The 49-day Omer Count is thus a 49-step process of self-refinement, with each day devoted to the "rectification" and perfection of one the forty-nine "sefirot."
Links:
How to count the Omer
The deeper significance of the Omer Count
Tachnun (confession of sins) and similar prayers are omitted from the prayer service.
The sages describe the Torah as the wisdom by which the world was made. But that does not capture its essence. It is far beyond that. Torah is the wisdom by which the world is healed.
To heal a world, you must stand entirely beyond it. You must enter into the very essence of its Creator and sense what He wanted from this world to begin with. In the story of creation, you will find whispers of an unfathomable Author. In its healing, you will discover the Author Himself.
That is why Torah was initially given to survivors, to people who had suffered lives marked by trauma, yanked out of the darkest pits of human existence at the last possible moment. To people who had to be told not to steal, not to murder, not to covet that which belongs to someone else.
Because it is when Torah reaches you at your lowest point and pulls you out of there that you see its very essence and deepest power.
And it is when you have been to the rock bottom of human experience and back that you have the power to grasp the Torah at its essential core. To sense the Author within the command.
Representee of Ephraim and adviser (not a rabbi but friendly adviser) for Bet Yisrael international on the Har HaBayit and to all the Israeli people.
I am born in Holland and became on a later age a Ba’al Teshuva: Originally, the term referred to a Jew who transgressed the halacha (Jewish law) knowingly or unknowingly and completed a process of introspection to "return" to the full observance of Elohim's mitzvot. Read my story.
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