Days of the Omerסְפִירַת הָעוֹמֶר

Counting of the Omer (or Sefirat Ha’omer, Hebrew: ספירת העומר) is a verbal counting of each of the forty-nine days between the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot. This mitzvah derives from the Torah commandment to count forty-nine days beginning from the day on which the Omer, a sacrifice containing an omer-measure of barley, was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem, up until the day before an offering of wheat was brought to the Temple on Shavuot. The Counting of the Omer begins on the second day of Passover (the 16th of Nisan) for Rabbinic Jews, and after the weekly Shabbat during Passover for Karaite Jews, and ends the day before the holiday of Shavuot, the ‘fiftieth day.’ Sefirat Ha'omer carries two intertwined layers of meaning. On the agricultural level it ties the spring barley harvest (marked by the omer-measure of barley brought to the Temple on the second day of Passover) to the wheat harvest and first fruits offered seven weeks later on Shavuot. On the spiritual level the 49-day count traces the journey of the Israelites from the physical liberation of the Exodus at Passover to the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, so that each day expresses mounting anticipation and readiness to "receive the Torah" anew. Because Shavuot has no fixed calendar date of its own and is defined simply as the fiftieth day reached by the count, the Omer is what gives Shavuot its place in the year. The period is widely treated as a time of introspection and self-refinement, and the kabbalistic tradition assigns each of the 49 days a pairing of two of the seven lower sefirot (divine attributes such as lovingkindness and strength) as a daily focus for spiritual growth.

The count begins on the second night of Passover (the eve of 16 Nisan) and is recited each evening after nightfall for 49 consecutive days, ending the night before Shavuot (5 Sivan); Shavuot itself is the fiftieth day. Unlike most festivals, the Omer count has no distinction between Israel and the Diaspora: it is a fixed 49-day count anchored to Nisan 16 rather than to a separate festival date, so there is no extra Diaspora day. There is, however, a rite-dependent difference in when the count starts: Rabbinic Jews (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform) begin on 16 Nisan, while Karaite Jews and Samaritans read "the morrow after the Sabbath" literally and begin counting the day after the first weekly Shabbat that falls during Passover, which means their Shavuot always lands on a Sunday.

The Counting of the Omer is a daily mitzvah recited within the evening (Maariv) service rather than a holiday with its own dedicated Torah, Haftarah, or Megillah reading. Accordingly, there is no special Omer cantillation melody, nothing analogous to the mournful Eicha trope of Tisha B'Av or the Esther trope of Purim. Instead, each night the counter recites the blessing "...asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu al sefirat ha'omer" and then states the day's count in days and weeks (for example, "Today is the eighteenth day, which is two weeks and four days, of the Omer"). The scriptural source for the commandment is chanted with ordinary Torah cantillation as part of the regular Torah cycle: Leviticus 23:15-16 in Parashat Emor and Deuteronomy 16:9-10 in Parashat Re'eh, with the omer and Shavuot passages of Leviticus 23 read on the Pesach and Shavuot festival days that bracket the count.

Most of the Omer period is observed as a time of semi-mourning, traditionally connected to the Talmudic account of the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva who died because they did not treat one another with respect. Common mourning customs include refraining from weddings, festive live music, haircuts, and shaving, though communities differ considerably (notably Ashkenazi and Sephardic, each with several sub-customs) over exactly which portion of the 49 days these restrictions cover. The mourning is broken on Lag BaOmer, the thirty-third day (18 Iyar), celebrated with bonfires, weddings, and a pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai at Meron. Each night the count is recited standing, after nightfall, with a blessing; if someone forgets to count for an entire day (both the night and the following day), they continue counting on subsequent nights but without reciting the blessing. Kabbalistically inclined counters meditate on the sefirot pairing assigned to each day, and it is widely customary to study one chapter of Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) on each Shabbat afternoon between Passover and Shavuot.