Counting the Omer

Sefirat HaOmer, the Counting of the Omer, is the Jewish practice of counting the forty-nine days between the festivals of Passover and Shavuot, one day added aloud each night with a blessing. The commandment is given in the Torah, which directs that from the day of the barley offering, the omer, a measure of grain brought in the spring, seven full weeks are to be counted, and the fiftieth day kept as a festival. The counting thus binds the two festivals together across the seven weeks between them, and the practice consists simply of stating each evening which day and week of the Omer it is, prefaced by a blessing.

Traditionally the count marks the passage from the barley harvest to the wheat harvest in the land of Israel, and Jewish tradition overlays this agricultural journey with a spiritual one: the days link the liberation from Egypt commemorated at Passover to the giving of the Torah at Sinai commemorated at Shavuot, so that the counting becomes a preparation, a daily reckoning toward the reception of the law.