The Omer: From Bondage to Bonding

[for the Ner Shalom Malakh, May 2009)

Welcome to the in-between days, the days of the Omer, which run from Pesach to Shavuot. These are our days of historic (and spiritual) wandering, with miraculous escape from bondage in Egypt behind us, and the receiving of Torah at Sinai still ahead. These are our days of anticipation.

The vocabulary of Pesach is basic for many of us. Our tongues speak words of liberation in many of our politics and theologies and life stories. But these forty-nine days remind us that it is not enough to achieve freedom “from.” Freedom is also “for.” But for what?

In our tribal imagination, we were freed from Pharaoh in order to enter into relationship with God. In our modern imagination, you might say we free ourselves from our biases, our weaknesses, our “narrow places” so that we can make better commitments to the world around us – to our families, our community, our planet; to justice, to peace, to right action.

It’s kind of like this: you get out of a bad relationship, and at first freedom from it is enough, and your freedom is all you can think about. But eventually, if you truly honor your wandering, that freedom prepares you for your next relationship or your next life commitment. And looking back, it seems like that was its purpose all along.

Are you free to commit? Do you feel bound in a way that is of your own choosing? I urge you to use these days of the Omer, the days between the planting and the first fruits, between Redemption and Revelation, between the Parting of the Sea and the Opening of the Heavens, to consider your freedom and what it is for. When is the next time that you, like Ruth, whose story we read on Shavuot, will say, “Whither thou goest, I will go,” and to what person, community or cause will you be saying it?