These are preliminary thoughts on what has become a very popular custom during the days between Pesach and Shavuot. I am only offering here observations and, perhaps, proposed directions, but not any concrete or comprehensive practice. These need to be considered and debated by our greatest minds and greatest hearts.

It has become very popular in many circles to associate the seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot, of counting the Omer, known as S’fira, with a seven-by-seven matrix of the seven Sefirot, celestial spheres, an analysis of the Divine holy energy with which God created, sustains and develops the universe. Obviously, the very structure of seven weeks of seven days lends itself to these meditations, as do the phonetic similarity of laSaper (remember that in Hebrew P and F are usually interchangeable) (counting) and Sefira (each one of these seven discreet types of energy). Countless books have been written as guides and explanatins and explorations over the fifty years, both by traditional/religious Jews and less observant “progressive” Jews.

Simply, using this system, we assign in order Chesed (Love), Gevurah (Strength), Tiferet (Beauty/Balance), Netzach (Victory/Eternity) , Hod, (), Yesod and  Malchut to each week and further subdivide each week into seven days with the same sefirotic influence. For example, the first week contains chesed within chesed, gevura within chesed, tiferet within chesed,  (love within love, power (strength) within love, beauty/balance within love, etc.) The second week love within Power/Strength, Power/Strength within Power/Strength, Beauty/Balance within Power/Strength) and similarly for all seven weeks (7 x 7 = 49 days, with Day 50 Shavuot, receiving the Torah). This is all very well and satisfying, but only as far as it goes!

The shortcoming with these meditations is that they focus exclusively on the emotions rather than the intellect. As far as they go, they’re fine and beautiful, but especially in these days, with so many existential challenges bombarding us, I fear that many of us, and certainly all of us collectively, lack the intellectual power to solve them. Perhaps this is paralleled by the idea that “facts don’t care about our feelings”. Although we do need to develop and practice “emotional intelligence”, that’s not enough. (Just as intellect isn’t enough….)

In the expanded/complete Sefirot system there are ten (related to the Eser Dibrot, ten sayings “commandments”). From Sefer Yetzira, and other books, we learn that our total reality is “constructed” as the set of all these influences and their inter-connections. (Relate to most String Theory physics interpretations which, “coincidentally” is also made of of ten vibrating strings/chords/coils. This also dovetails with Einstein’s theories demonstrating the continuum of energy/matter (since matter is, in this view, constructed of vibrating energy). The upper three, Keter (Crown, top of the head, the place we receive and initiate inspired creative thought), Chochma (Intelligence, the right hemisphere of the brain, these inspirations themselves) and Bina (analysis, parsing *from the word בין, beyn, between (taking a concept into components)., associated with the left hemisphere). These two, Chochma and Bina then resolves into Da’at (but in most sefirotic systems Keter  and  Da’at alternate–if one is present the other “disappears” in potential, leaving three (so the total with the lower seven remains ten). Anyhow, Da’at is actual knowledge (often represented by the mouth or larynx–we can (should) only say what we actually know!)

Anyhow, my point isn’t to unify Torah with high-energy physics (although ultimately they must be harmonic with each other),  but to point out that or practice over the last couple centuries (these Omer/Sefira meditations are actually very new, even if they are based on ancient texts, most dating back only two hundred years of so.) Rather, I want to propose, although I don’t at this point have a specific scheme how-to, we incorporate either into this period or perhaps another one (the three weeks before Tisha b’Av suggests itself as a possibility) a meditation to be devised, strengthening, coordinating and reinforcing these three “upper” sefirot which are associated with the intellectual.

Perhaps we can introduce a slightly more complicated meditation incorporating these three (four) additional “layers”, or, as I suggested, perhaps introduce them at their own separate time in the yearly calendar.

In any event, one this is apparent to me now and that’s we’re completely unprepared to face new challenges, both in terms of existential challenges and also, more importantly, the challenges of transitioning our tradition and halacha and prayers from merely surviving as exiles in an extremely hostile environment to developing, strengthening and refining our relationship with the Creator, our unifying the physical with the spiritual, since it appears that restoring that relationship in an ultimate way (also described as re-elevating the feminine with the masculine, but also realigning them from Achor l’Achor back-to-back, to Panim l’Panim, Face-to-Face, so true communication and collaboration can occur.

As for now, let us all prepare to cross the Reed Sea, Yam Suf into that intermediate stage, the desert, Midbar (realm of words/speech dibbur) between the slavery of constriction (Mitzrayim, Egypt) and the ultimate freedom of Yisrael.

Chag Sameach