One of our tradition’s great love songs, the Song of Songs, invites a departure paralleling that of the patriarch Abraham, as God calls him to leave the comforts of his home in pursuit of divine purpose. The loving commands in Hebrew for the lover and the prophet to depart mirror each other, suggesting that it takes every bit the leap of faith to create a new life with one’s romantic partner as it does to create a new life in a profound spiritual search.
Awaken my dear one; my fair one, and go.
The rains have passed and have gone.
The blossoms are again seen in our land. The time of pruning has come. We hear the voice of the turtledove in our land.
Green figs are forming on the tree, the vines are in blossom and giving off their scent. Awaken, my dear one; my fair one, and go.
(Song of Songs 2:10-13)
The emotional complexity of departure is what many of us sense within ourselves, during the counting of the Omer. Amid the pain of change, we perceive an awakening from the slumber of our status quo, to encounter new paths of being. We free ourselves of an overwhelming nostalgia that traps us in a vision from the past and look forward to what might yet be – for ourselves, our communities, our societies.
The transformations begin with us and begin within us. They unsettle, they inspire, and they give us the energy to continue forward.
