D’Var Hadassah

D’Var Hadassah

4/30/23

by Ronnie Katz Gerber

We enter this time of Lag B’Omer (May 9, 2023) to count the days — from the days of affliction to the days of blessing-to Shavuot. Shavuot marks the time when we Jews were given the sacred Torah. These days are days of mindful time, of mindful mitzvot, of mindfulness to ready us for the white food holiday. I found significance in the fact that white is symbolic of purity-not a lighthearted observation about food.

I found seven categories of mindfulness that flow and connect between and through each to the next and are heightened during these days of Lag B’ Omer.

The Seven Sefrot (numerals) of the Lag B’Omer Period are:

Chesed: Overflowing loving kindness

G’vurah: Judgement, justice, rigor

Tiferet: Balance, beauty, compassion

Netzakh: Victory, efficiency, prevailing

Hod: Glory, splendor

Y’sod: Foundation, intimacy, generativity (A concern for establishing and guiding the next generation)

Malkhut: Majesty, G-d’s earthly realm

These seven are holy and link between each other and then on to the next-a way, a path for life and goodness. A life of kindness and appreciation. A life, a timeliness. A mindfulness of marking time while we are here. A time of blessings and moving forward.

We Jews have traditionally and historically always marked time. We seem to fixate on it and so we parcel it into smaller pieces-new moons, new year’s, new beginnings, repeat cycles.

When the lunar year didn’t work out so well, we began to create or modify time by making it flexible. The holidays can come late one year and early the next. But shabbat comes every week to welcome the new and settle the old. It, time, allows for renewal. Renewal and beginnings and forward movement are part of our heritage and custom. As such we can accommodate and assimilate into any calendar and maintain our own.

Lag B’Omer marks these particular days carefully and reminds us to not only count our blessings but to create blessings for a better world and a better people. This compels us to clear our hearts and minds so that the Torah can be accepted into our lives and hearts.

Jews are aspirational people, valuing momentum as we move forward through time, and performing momentous deeds or actions. We use time to evolve and to consecrate. It even lays out time for grief and mourning. It assists us as we remember, regard and renew. Oddly enough this allows us to recognize our addiction to the time-bound world of achievement, consumption, buying and selling, quantifying and comparing. It’s our tool to the universe and culture of “Any Time.”

We make time, mark time and live within time. We move away from Passover, through Lag B’Omer, and on to Shavuot. Let’s enjoy our bounty and good Time.

As a local leader in the global movement that is Hadassah, I am proud of the role my organization plays in facilitating medical care for more than one million people of all races, religions and nationalities each year. Building bridges to peace through medicine-something for which the Hadassah Medical Organization, Hadassah’s medical center in Israel, earned a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2005 — and providing safe spaces for healing are more crucial than ever in today’s divided world.

Ronnie Katz Gerber, Communications and Membership Chair for L’Dor V’Dor South Bay, Communications and Publicity Chair for Hadassah LA Metro, Marketing and Publicity Chair for Hadassah Southern California, is a member of Hadassah’s Educational Council.