The Omer and the Ascents |
In Jerusalem, ascents never entirely end. They overlap, interrupt one another, descend in order to rise again, or remain suspended somewhere between stone and breath. One counts them not only in prayers or calendars, but in stairways, terraces, elevators, roads climbing dry hills, apartment towers hanging over valleys, and in the weary rhythm of feet moving upward toward another uncertain day.
This year, the convergence feels particularly dense. The Jewish world has just completed the counting of the Omer and now moves between Parshat Beha‘alotekha in Israel and Parshat Nasso in the diaspora, with their lingering echoes of the Priestly Blessing, lamps, elevation, and sacred service. At the same time, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Churches of Jerusalem have just celebrated Ascension according to their calendars and entered the special liturgical interval before Pentecost – those ten days when one of the most beloved prayers disappears from the services:
“Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth…”
During these ten days, Eastern Christians stop reciting the ancient prayer “Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth…” – a profoundly Semitic invocation of divine presence and breath, suspended liturgically until Pentecost.
For a brief period, the prayer falls silent in the Byzantine tradition. Jesus Christ has ascended, but the Spirit has not yet descended. The Church stands waiting in suspended breath.
Jerusalem understands such restrained moments perhaps better than most cities. Here, revelation rarely arrives without delay, fracture, confusion, or heat. Sacred time does not flow cleanly. Calendars overlap. Feasts collide. Processions cross one another in narrow streets while helicopters pass overhead and warning sirens occasionally interrupt evening prayer.
The Omer itself already contains this tension. It is not triumph but counting. Not possession but preparation. The grain has not yet become bread. The harvest remains vulnerable to drought, war, fire, politics, exhaustion, and human cruelty. One counts upward while remaining close to the ground.
That movement fascinated me again this year while writing the following Yiddish poem that I wrote these days.
דער עומר און די עליייה
מען הײבט דעם עומר אױף װי געהעריקאײדער די זוּן פֿאַרברענט די לאַנד־שטחיםאַ מאַס גערשטן, אַ ביסל ערד און שװײס ־אַ רוּאיקע באַװעגוּנג ־ די אומװעלט ציטערט פֿון אױפֿגײענדיקס.
מען צײלט טעג, טרעפּ און מדריגותפֿון אָװנט צו אָװנט מיט אונטערבאַהאַלטענער נשימה ־די זאַנגען װאַקסן ־ ניט אין הימלנאָר פֿון דער רױטער אדמה צװישן ים, װעלדער........