Bracha
Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al s’firat haomer.
Blessed are You, LORD God, ruler of the Universe, who hallows us with the mitzvot, commanding us to count the Omer.
Today is the forty-fifth day — six weeks and three days of the Omer.
Today’s Reflection
The concept of the omnipresence of the Divine was something that was not taught in the faith tradition of my youth; indeed, it was almost blasphemous to suggest that the presence of God would deign to be in nature or anywhere outside of His (God in Mormonism had to be an old white man with a long white beard) throne in Heaven. Yet as I grew older and more disillusioned with the embedded tenets of my former faith tradition, I realized the God is truly closer than what I was taught.
Rabbi Kedar writes about the omnipresence of God:
God is in the elements, in the encounter, in the community, in the silence, in the creativity, in the gut, in the meadow, in the eyes of the beholder, in the heart of the beholden, in the question, in the anguish, in the joy. Go and meet your God (Kedar, pg. 151).
And so it is. Amen.