Scroll to the bottom for special treats. (You deserve them.)
Welcome to Shabbat. And welcome to Shvi’i L’Pesach, the seventh day of Pesach.
Seeing each other so often over this past year, seeing each other in ritual space every week, has allowed us to explore intersections and new dimensions in our Jewish ritual and mythic life.
Tonight, Shvi’i L’Pesach, is the seventh night of Passover. It is the night that our ancestors stood at the shores of the sea with the Egyptian army behind them separated from them by a cloud of blackness. It is the night that our mythic ancestors witnessed the Sea part with great clamor until a path appeared, dry as dust.
And so tonight is a night for considering obstacles. Noticing what seems impossibly impassable. For our ancestors a miracle was required. A miracle so big that it is said that the most humble person there that day experienced something greater than any later prophet of the Bible ever did. A miracle so big that the 3 verses that tell of it, each 72 letters long, braid together to form a powerful and magical name of God, that somehow embodies that tremendous saving power.
Or maybe the miracle is ours to make. Maybe we just need to be brave enough to stick a toe in in the waters, and they will give way. Or maybe it is a day to consider how we transform obstacles into not-obstacles.
But tonight is multi dimensional. This seventh night is a night that the Baal Shem Tov would hold a special extra seder, a mashiach seder, one into which we invite a a radically healed future.
This time is also a pivot in the seasons as we move from winter into spring. We have experienced spring most glorously here in Sonoma County over this past week, sitting in our shirtsleeves outside, smelling the honeysuckle and wisteria. Our climate is not exactly the same as the land of Israel but it is close. The land of Israel where the rainy season runs from Sukkot to Pesach. And then it is dry. We hope and pray that there is more rain coming for us this year. But in our liturgy, this is the week where we shift from daily prayers for rain to daily prayers for dew. And dew is, when you think of it, rather a magical thing. Our ancestors didn’t have the science behind condensation of moisture. But we knew that even in dry times, there was something to sustain us, something that seemed to fall from heaven when no one was looking. It came during the night as if emerging from our dreams. Our prayers for dew are not just prayers for condensation. They are prayers that what we need, and what this planet needs, may manifest. Even if we cannot clearly see how. May what we need and what this planet needs emerge as if from our dreams so that in the morning in the cool air, as we step out of our tents we can see that the green will keep growing and life will be sustained.
Passover continues until tomorrow night according to Torah, or until Sunday night for many communities of the Diaspora. So we are still here in Pesach, still thinking about liberation. This freedom of ours and what it means to us.
And we are, a handful of days on our 49-day journey of the Omer. Counting the days, as we have so often done in this past year until we lost count. Counting the days from first buds to first fruits. Counting the days from liberation to revelation. Our ancestors didn’t know, when they crossed the Sea, where they were going and how long it would take. But we know that the first journey were the 49 days between leaving Egypt and arriving at Mount Sinai. Forty-nine days from slavery to covenant. From the parting of the Sea to the opening of the heavens to receive Torah.
Tonight we begin the sixth day of the Counting of the Omer. And for lack of having pried open a reasonable spot to place the Counting in tonight‘s service I will offer the counting right now. B’rukhah Yah Sh’khinah Eyn Hachayim, asher kidshatnu b’mitzvoteyha v’tzivatnu al s’firat ha’omer. Blessed is the Shekhinah, Source of Life, who has asked us, impelled us, inspired us, to count these days. Hayom shishah yamim la’omer.
Today is the sixth day of the Omer. That is, in kabbalistic terms, yesod sheb’chesed. The day all of our creative juice comes together and and propagates new life, new ideas, new visions in the realm of love.
So let us not forget love. Because even though the story of the exodus from Egypt sounds like a story of struggle and hardship and terrifying miracles, it is also a story of love. The love of the Hebrew couples is what arouses the Divine to rescue Israel from the land of Egypt. We went forth from Egypt with God as partners and lovers.
And so throughout this holiday we read the book of Song of Songs, our book of erotic poetry that was almost too racy to include in Torah at all. We read the words of the lovers, who are often dreaming of each other, often walking streets looking for each other. And we recognize in this book our love of the Divine, and the Divine’s love for us, and our desire for a glimpse of each other. But the lovers in the book never see each other clearly; they only catch glimpses throuh the lattice. And so the Divine hides itself behind the lattice of this earth and everything in it, and we hide ourselves in deep places too.
And so tonight is a night in which we will open up to that love, in which we will make ourselves visible in love. We will hear some of the words and some of the melodies of Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs. And we will hear a snippet of medieval piyyut that cleverly stitches lines from Song of Songs into every stanza so that the poem’s prayers should be carried heavenward fueled by love.
And so we meet tonight at an intersection of many dimensions. This holy day of the week. This day of Pesach. This day of our Counting. The journey. The obstacle. The miracle. The emergence into freedom. The fruiting of the fields and the wafting scent of love.
Tonight is Shabbat, shvi’i l’pesach. Draw a breath, and take it all into you. It is all yours.
Special Pesach 7 Treats:
Lorenzo Valensi’s gorgeous Mi Chamocha, at last recorded this week. Click here.
Alison Luterman’s brilliant poem, “Sometimes Even the Word Obstacle is an Obstacle.” Click here.
Ahuveykha Ahevukha – a piyyut for Shabbat morning during Pesach, incorporating rhyme, acrostics, and lines from Song of Songs. Click here.
“The Name of 72” – a powerful 216-letter Divine Name and how it is derived. Click here.