With Passover behind us, we find ourselves in the wilderness—the season in which we count from liberation to revelation, from Pesach to Shavuot. We count up, not down.
Counting up suggests something different than a countdown. It reflects anticipation without certainty, a way of marking time when the end is not fully known. And yet—spoiler alert—we do know where we’re going. Shavuot will arrive, right on schedule.
So why do we count up, and not down?
Perhaps because, spiritually, we are not quite there yet. If Passover carries us from the first stirrings of liberation to the splitting of the sea, then this moment is something else entirely: wandering. We are free—but unsure. Unrooted. Asking, What now?
This week’s Torah portion meets us in that vulnerability. The Mishkan has been completed. The priests have been ordained. Everything is ready. And then, at the very first moment of sacred service, two of Aaron’s sons step forward and go off script. They offer what the Torah calls esh zarah—“strange fire”—and the result is immediate and devastating.
It’s a difficult story. But it is also a story about beginnings.
What happens when we try something for the first time? When we step into a new identity—as free people, as people trying to live differently than before? Passover invites us to break patterns, to leave behind our narrow places. But leaving is only the beginning. The real challenge is what comes next.
And in that space, the path is not always clear. There may be instructions—but they don’t always feel sufficient for the moment we’re in.
Nadav and Avihu’s “strange fire” can be read as a warning about the risks of acting without guidance. But it may also reflect something else: the impulse to bring something new, something unscripted, into sacred life. The desire to respond to freedom with creativity, not just compliance.
So as we take our first steps in this post-Passover season, perhaps the call is to hold both truths at once: to be thoughtful, but not frozen; reflective, but still moving; careful, but not afraid to be changed.
Because if we emerge from Passover unchanged, then what was our liberation for?
The work of the Omer is not just to mark time, but to notice transformation. To let freedom permeate our choices, our habits, our relationships. To become, day by day, people who live differently than we did before.
We count up because we are still becoming.
And now, the work begins.
Shabbat shalom,
R’ David
Counting up suggests something different than a countdown. It reflects anticipation without certainty, a way of marking time when the end is not fully known. And yet—spoiler alert—we do know where we’re going. Shavuot will arrive, right on schedule.
So why do we count up, and not down?
Perhaps because, spiritually, we are not quite there yet. If Passover carries us from the first stirrings of liberation to the splitting of the sea, then this moment is something else entirely: wandering. We are free—but unsure. Unrooted. Asking, What now?
This week’s Torah portion meets us in that vulnerability. The Mishkan has been completed. The priests have been ordained. Everything is ready. And then, at the very first moment of sacred service, two of Aaron’s sons step forward and go off script. They offer what the Torah calls esh zarah—“strange fire”—and the result is immediate and devastating.
It’s a difficult story. But it is also a story about beginnings.
What happens when we try something for the first time? When we step into a new identity—as free people, as people trying to live differently than before? Passover invites us to break patterns, to leave behind our narrow places. But leaving is only the beginning. The real challenge is what comes next.
And in that space, the path is not always clear. There may be instructions—but they don’t always feel sufficient for the moment we’re in.
Nadav and Avihu’s “strange fire” can be read as a warning about the risks of acting without guidance. But it may also reflect something else: the impulse to bring something new, something unscripted, into sacred life. The desire to respond to freedom with creativity, not just compliance.
So as we take our first steps in this post-Passover season, perhaps the call is to hold both truths at once: to be thoughtful, but not frozen; reflective, but still moving; careful, but not afraid to be changed.
Because if we emerge from Passover unchanged, then what was our liberation for?
The work of the Omer is not just to mark time, but to notice transformation. To let freedom permeate our choices, our habits, our relationships. To become, day by day, people who live differently than we did before.
We count up because we are still becoming.
And now, the work begins.
Shabbat shalom,
R’ David
RSS Feed