Right now, you are in the desert.
You are moving in the midst of a great throng, and yet you feel trapped and alone. You are supported and yet you feel vulnerable, exposed; although assured of sustenance, you are unsure of this assurance, and this makes you feel resentful and afraid. Although the destination is uncertain, you know that each step brings you closer to some transcendent experience you cannot define or imagine – and you aren’t sure you can survive it.
This is the journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai described in the Book of Exodus. It is also the journey compressed into and commemorated each year during the counting of the Omer; and it is, in fact, a description of life itself.
Each of our journeys is fraught with contingency and uncertainty. Ordinarily, life asks us to shove this ever-present fact out of our consciousness (otherwise, we’d go mad), but during the Omer we live it in conscious, concentrated form.
You have lived, we all have lived, together yet alone, through two years of radical uncertainty. Today, let yourself marvel at the miracle of your existence. This feeling of awe is reflected in the morning blessings, the first of which is quoted above. The ability to distinguish day from night is not defined merely by sight. It is, rather, born of the ability to discern, and that can come only from being alive, grateful, with senses awakened and sustenance celebrated.
Let this be a day on which you are grateful to be in the desert – grateful, in fact, to simply be.
