Menachot 66 - A Soul-Stretching Countdown

0:00Hey there and welcome back to take one the podcast that brings you just one precise page of Tom and each day and I say precise because in today's Daft Minachot 66 the rabbis discuss how precisely should we count the Omer the 50 days from Pesach until Shavuot listen guys this is not a drill this count is upon us it is going to begin very very soon so it's a great opportunity to take a cue from today's page of Tom and start getting ready how should we do this well we have a good idea couple years ago we asked our friend and colleague Kylie you know who recorded a really really great podcast by the way on how to fix her soul during the Jewish month of Elul the 30 days that sort of lead up to the

1:04high holidays to Wosh Hashan Aynium Kippur we asked her to take another stab at soul searching soul stretching soul preparation and really really give us a podcast of counting the Omer kind of hoping that you bring new reflections and new insights to this very ancient tradition and boy did she not disappoint we hope you would listen to the whole thing but today it is our pleasure to share with you that first episode all the way back from the time machine in 2022 of Kylie Onell's 49 days to stretch my soul here goes hi I'm Kylie Onell and eight months ago I set out on a journey to find and fix my soul at least that's what I thought I was doing it was Elul the month before the new Jewish year and in following the Jewish tradition of soul searching during that month I tried a bunch of different things to connect to my soul I wanted to try and be

2:08a better version of myself in the new year hi mom can I ask you a question yeah are you busy man it's busy is the person doing my nails weird because I do this all the time I walk around and talk to myself this is so normal for me now it's like a practice oh there's a animal what are you can I ask you like what it is that the actual fear that you're bumping up against do you know what that is yeah I want to boil it down to pride and if at any point I ever did something I do like genuinely from the bottom of my heart I apologize for that and I like genuinely genuinely didn't mean that but at the same time like why would that make us feel better so I'm not gonna lie I have no idea what to do through the process of coming to know myself more deeply the thing that really came out of all the work I did during Elul is that one I am 100% human and two that means I am far from perfect

3:14but I still haven't accepted that fast forward to today and the Jewish tradition is offering up another opportunity to bring the soul back into the picture with the period on the Jewish calendar known as Sephirat Ha-Omer this phrase literally translates to the counting of the Omer the counting of the days between Passover and Shavuot this all happens because of two lines in Leviticus in chapter 23 where God gives Moses all these instructions around creating sacred time he literally calls it God's fixed times in verses 15 through 16 God tells Moses and from the day on which you bring the Omer offering the day after the Sabbath you shall count off seven weeks they must be complete you must count until the day after the seventh week 50 days then you shall bring an offering of new great to God so on a technical level Sephirat Ha-Omer is all about counting the days

4:17between bringing one sacrificial offering to the ancient holy temple on Passover to the next holiday that requires a sacrifice which is the holiday of Shavuot 49 days later but I'm not really here because of the counting God told Moses the times to designate as holy but he left it up to us to figure out how to make that time meaningful how to use the time to stretch our souls so like last time I'm going to use the opportunity to do some more soul work the first people to connect the Omer with our souls were the students of the great 16th century mystic rabbi Isaac Luria known as the Arizal the man considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah the book of Jewish mysticism these guys created a system that breaks down self-growth and soul work into a seven week process

5:18each week there's a new trait or attribute of God and thus ourselves to focus on this trait is also called a Sephirat don't worry there are a few terms that get confused here but it's all going to make sense I promise back to the Omer we begin with a week focused on the attribute of chesed which translates to love then move on to qivora strength tiferate harmony or balance netzach which is victory pod humility usod foundation and malhut which is a kind of queenly or kingly trait that I really associate with the ansay these categories are a way to understand God by breaking down the insanely huge concept of God into noble manageable aspects through that we also understand ourselves better given that we're said to be created in God's image if you're lost don't worry you're not alone so the spirits are something that I have to be honest I feel that of all the topics in this that I believe to grasp it's one of the ones I grasp

6:24less because I believe there's so much going on with them I feel like I don't grasp enough of it to be frank meet rabbi corn the leader of kebab house bowery and the rabbi who essentially made it rain in the last season of this podcast when he guided me through a prayer practice for my yellow work we're like in the middle of a hurricane and the king is speaking without question the king paints and we have to ask him let us let you rain not our i g n but you can also rain in practice these concepts aren't the easiest to understand the work doesn't come naturally to everyone i mean this is a big deal a god selection of the sphere talking about how God selected like his talent for creation essentially but like the code of creation behind the actual creation the underprinting of creation and so like to say that I understand God the essence of the it's insane it's it's it's something that's like so real and experiential and um like

7:31absolute that it's hard to dissect it on the flip side some people really get it like tobi con a Jewish artist living in new york who created a sculpture that can be used to count the omair i'm obsessed with counting the omur to me is something special because it's 49 days like I can't think of another holiday that has so many days and even though there are many traditions for each week each day has its own uniqueness and that's what i love my bar mitzvah was in the middle of me it was between paisach and shavuot and my parsha was emor and i really didn't want to talk about all the things in the parsha but i realized that there's a very interesting law of of somebody who's born between paisach and shavuot of counting the omur with a brachha or not because whether you're responsible for counting the omur before your bar mitzvah with a brachha or not and then over 40 years later it took me all that time to think about how to make a

8:35sphere out of omur counter and I made my first one 20 years ago and what i love about counting the omur is that each day is its own universe and even though they're 49 days each day has its own beauty my goal with this season is to land somewhere in the middle and bring you along helping me is somebody else who's in the middle daci's are a badass community leader of kebab housebower is young professional branch called keelos a teed every week daci is going to talk to me about the trait of the week so i guess why i love sphira is because it's the foundation of who we are we're animals essentially and we're made out of emotions and we don't have so many emotions i know i have no idea what i'm in store for for the next seven weeks but if it's anything like last time i'm sure to be surprised by where i end up

9:43to get the most out of this period every week i'm going to be exploring the omur along with you trying to find different ways to connect to these attributes trying to get something meaningful out of counting for 49 days every week i'm going to read something talk to someone and try something connected to the sphira in hopes of reaching a deeper understanding of that attribute of god and ultimately a deeper understanding of myself stay tuned for next week when i kick off this journey with the first sphira of chesed and start to explore what it means to work on love and compassion in myself and towards others until then i'm kyle younell and this is 49 days to stretch my soul 49 days to stretch my soul as a production of tablet studios the show is hosted by me kyle younell

10:48and is produced and edited by de ron rescay josh cross quinn waller robert scare muccia and sarah fred minator our team includes steppany butnik lila liba vitts mark openheimer and tanya singer please go rate us on apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts it really helps other people discover the show for more of me you can follow at kyle younell on instagram for more information about this or any other of tablet's podcasts visit tabletmag.com slash podcast