I can’t keep most plants alive, but somehow my orchids thrive. Fragile yet resilient, they bloom when I least expect it. On one of the darkest days of the last year, I returned home shaken by the loss of eight Israeli soldiers in Gaza to find that an orchid I thought was long dead had flowered. During the shiva for my daughter’s closest friend, also killed in Gaza, another bloomed despite having shed its flowers only a month earlier. And on the day following the attacks of October 7th, I sat dazed and disoriented in my garden watching a bee gather pollen from a flower.
How could the world still be turning, I wondered. But it was. And it does. And somehow, so do we. Nature reminds us that the force of life is stronger than death.
We are now in the period between Passover and Shavuot, a period that marks the journey from liberation to responsibility, from raw potential to cultivated purpose. Unlike other festivals, the Bible does not specify a date for Shavuot. Rather, we are commanded to count 49 days from the second night of Passover. In ancient times, this period known as the Omer began with the offering of barley in the Temple on Passover and culminated with the offering on Shavuot of two leavened loaves made from the first fruits of the summer harvest. This shift, from unprocessed grain to shared bread, captures the covenantal ideal: God provides the raw materials and our task is to refine, elevate and transform. Whether baking bread, pursuing justice, or healing a fractured world, covenantal life is a slow, deliberate journey measured by the cumulative effect of each day, much like the Omer count. There are no shortcuts — only faith, perseverance and deep awareness of the sacredness of time.
Time is both our nemesis and our superpower. We often say “time flies” or lament that we don’t have more of it. Fittingly, the first commandment given after the Exodus is to sanctify time. The Torah calls festivals moadim (appointed times) and the sanctuary the ohel moed (literally, “tent of occasion”). Even the talmudic tractate on the laws of mourning is known as Moed Katan (literally “small occasion”), as if to say that mortality means to be time-bound. Yet within time, we carve out sacred space to encounter the Divine and glimpse transcendence.
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As Matt Haig writes in How to Stop Time, a novel about a man cursed with immortality: “The moments that are the most precious are the ones that don’t last.” Immortality is not a superpower, but kryptonite that strips life of urgency and purpose. Likewise, after Adam and Eve are exiled from Eden, solace is found not in eternity but in the earth — in planting, weeding and nurturing. This is intended as a curse, but it becomes a source of resilience and partnership with the Divine. The farmer, deeply attuned to nature’s rhythms and the passage of time, reminds us: It is not only how we harvest our crops that matters, but how we harvest the fleeting gift of time itself.
On the last days of Passover, as we transition from the spring to the summer harvest, we change a line in the daily prayers from asking for rain to asking for dew. Unlike rain, which stirs emotion, alters plans and demands notice, dew falls with tranquil humility. It doesn’t make us dance or grumble; in fact, we barely notice it. And yet, it is a quiet life force, an essential part of the natural world. At this time of year, we are called to recognize and give thanks for this nearly invisible presence in our ecosystem that nurtures and sustains without drama or fanfare, arriving faithfully day after day, season after season, giving life to the earth. Like the covenant between God and Israel, it reminds us that faithfulness is not found in spectacle, but in steady, enduring presence and commitment.
In biblical times, the Omer was a period of hope and anticipation, marking the journey from the barley harvest of Pesach to the wheat harvest of Shavuot. Later, it became a time of mourning, commemorating the deaths of 24,000 students of the great sage Rabbi Akiva. In many ways, Rabbi Akiva himself embodies the Omer spirit of journey through loss to renewal. After the devastation of losing so many students to plague, he begins again with just five students, choosing to rebuild Torah from the ashes and ensure its enduring transmission.
Rabbi Akiva’s origin story reflects the depth he finds in the mundane. It was by watching water drip slowly on a stone that he realized that if water can carve rock, Torah can surely penetrate the heart. And so it was that at age 40, he began to study and became one of the greatest sages in Jewish history. When others weep at the ruins of the Temple, Akiva laughs — not out of denial, but because he understands that if the prophecy of destruction has come true, so too will the promise of redemption. Rabbi Akiva is both visionary and pragmatist. He sees beyond the moment, yet lives fully within it. He faithfully takes one step at a time towards redemption. His story is emblematic of the Omer: transformation through process; revival after tragedy; meaning in the ordinary.
There is no superpower or secret formula to counter the scarcity of time, only the awareness of its brevity. In her best-selling book Bittersweet, Susan Cain cites research to demonstrate what Judaism had figured out centuries earlier: The knowledge that time is limited makes us happier and more fulfilled. The path to immortality lies in recognizing the ephemerality of our existence and in cultivating gratitude for small miracles like morning dew and the blooming of an orchid. Rebirth is part of nature and healing comes through steady, daily steps nourished by effort, gratitude and awe. This is the enduring truth of the Omer — one our generation needs now more than ever.
This article initially appeared in My Jewish Learning’s Shabbat newsletter Recharge on May 10, 2025. To sign up to receive Recharge each week in your inbox, click here.
