Holy Mundanity

You know, after all the fanfare of Pesach, what comes next?

Nothing.

No Yom Tov, no fancy period of missing university, nada!

But you’ve gotta love em. The Torah explains that there is more than meets the eye to these

seemingly empty days.

You see, we call the 49-day period between Pesach and Shavuot, the Sefirat HaOmer.

Which literally means the counting of the Omer (the offering of the new season of barley

grain).

Every night we say a blessing and count the coming day and its accompanying trait.

Now I want to discuss these traits in more detail.

To be more accurate they are not traits.

Rather they are the 7 divine emotional attributes(Sfirot), namely

1. Chesed – Kindness

2. Gevurah – Discipline/strength

3. Tiferet – Beauty/ harmony

4. Netzach – Victory/overcoming

5. Hod – Splendor

6. Yesod – Foundation

7. Malchut – Royalty/Kingship/Rulership/Governance

The translation is a little tough to get, roughly it is through these channels that G-d creates,

forms and interacts with the universe. And I’ll leave it to the kabbalists to explain in more

detail what mystical properties the sfirot hold. But I want to explain an insight into the the

psychological realm.

Human beings are complex!

We all no to well how tricky relationships can get given enough time.

So why am I talking about emotions and stuff with reference to these mystical “things”???

Well there is a lot they can tell us about our feelings, how and why we can gain control over

them.

The seven weeks, which represent these emotional attributes, further divide into seven

days making up the 49 days of the counting.

Since a fully functional emotion is multidimensional, it includes within itself a blend of all

seven attributes.

When we reach the conclusion of the 49 days we arrive at the 50th day — Mattan Torah.

After we have achieved all we can accomplish through our own initiative, traversing and

refining every emotional corner of our psyche, we then receive a gift ('mattan' in Hebrew)

from above. We receive that which we could not achieve with our own limited faculties. We

receive the gift of true freedom — the ability to transcend our human limitations and touch

the divine.

To find out more about this personal refinement process get in touch!

There is so much more and exciting stuff to learn. Especially to be the best version of you!