Welcome to the week of yesod, week six in the Jewish ritual known as Sefirat Ha-Omer (Counting the Omer), a psycho-spiritual journey to number off the seven weeks (49 days) that separate the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot. During the week of yesod, we’re invited to meet the Divine through the lens of sexuality. We reclaim the sex positivity inherent within Judaism and remember that this positivity goes all the way up the chain.
Let’s take a moment to remember how we got here:
The word “omer” means a sheaf of grain, originally referring to the ancient wheat and barley harvest whose first fruits were offered at the Temple on Shavuot. But the Kabbalists added new layers of meaning to these seven weeks of counting by framing them as a tour through the “Tree of Life” — the sefirot or aspects of the Divine that infuse our world with qualities like strength and loving kindness. The Kabbalists imagined the seven weeks of the Omer as a mystical grid wherein each week corresponded to one sefirah (divine aspect) and each day offered a chance to dive deep into one dimension of that theme.
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In just two short weeks, we’ll celebrate Shavuot — often seen as a wedding ceremony between the Jewish people and G-d. It’s a day where the Torah teaches us that every Jewish soul to ever exist came together and united as one, as we heard G-d’s voice directly.
By counting the Omer, we are readying ourselves for that event. We’ve spent the last five weeks taking up full residence within our bodies and our lives, removing obstacles in order to come into direct contact with creation.
Next week, the week of Shekhinah (the Feminine Divine Presence), we’ll allow the illusion of separateness to fall away entirely, seeing the presence of G-d in all things.
But how do we get there? This week, in the week of yesod, the Kabbalists take up that very question:
“How do we overcome the illusion of separateness, when it is so pervasive in the human experience? We feel so separate so much of the time.”
Their answer, believe it or not, is sex.
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life imagines the Divine, like us, to be a being who longs for union, who holds and expresses that longing through the Divine phallus.
(While the gendered nature of this image may be troubling for some, remember that G-d contains not just the strong arm that reaches out and penetrates the world, but also the holy posture of receptivity best embodied by the vagina, which we will explore next week through Shekhinah. In this system, we are all microcosms of the Divine — all made b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of G-d. And so in this way, we are all radically both masculine and feminine, all possessing both the receiving and the penetrating organs.)
In a Kabbalistic siddur (prayer book), the common practice before performing any mitzvah (holy instruction), is to frame the action with the words:
“L’shem yichud kudsha brikh-Hu u-Shekhinteh.”
“I perform this action for the sake of uniting the Holy One with His Divine Lover, Shekhinah.”
The union of Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine: cosmic sex, in every holy Jewish action!
In the journey of Sefirat Ha-Omer, we begin with unconditional and boundless divine love (chesed) then move gradually toward the most real, most raw physical world embodied by Shekhinah, the Feminine Divine, the indwelling presence of G-d.
There are few things in the human experience that give us more access to the most vast and intimate parts of ourselves — the parts that love, touch, and yearn — than sex.
Sexuality is one of the most commodified, politicized aspects of our 21st-century culture, but we can’t let that steal our bodies from us; it is our bodies that let us touch the world. We feel, we give hugs and tender caresses. Often, it’s loving touch that gives us relief from the feeling that we are alone.
Yesod is the vehicle that holds this yearning, that reaches out for connection. On the mystical level, the Kabbalists describe this yearning as extending straight from the Divine Heart downward, creating the lower sefirot, eventually joining with creation.
In investigating our bodies this week, if we can take back our female forms from the magazine covers and our associations of the phallus with violence, we come into contact with the most tender part of being a human being.
We, as souls in bodies, come from Source, from the One. But, as souls in bodies, we walk through our lives with the sense that we are separate, that differences are to be feared, and people to be competed with.
It is our organic sexuality that breaks that cycle, a moment of locking eyes with another being and wanting to draw near, to get as close as possible.
Our yearning is not dirty, it is divine. Sex has the potential to let us see G-d.
So this week, during the week of Yesod, feel your way into your body. Try out saying “L’shem yichud kudsha brikh-Hu u-Shekhinteh” before taking a bite of food, wrapping yourself in the embrace of a tallit, or having sex.
Know your longing, and know that it is good, beautiful, and divine.
At The Well uplifts many approaches to Jewish practice. Our community draws on ancient Jewish wisdom, sometimes adapting longstanding practices to more deeply support the well-being of women and nonbinary people. See this article’s sources below. We believe Torah (sacred teachings) are always unfolding to help answer the needs of the present moment.
Why Do We Count the Omer?, At The Well
How to Count the Omer, My Jewish Learning
Daily Omer Meditation, Aish
Rabbi Sara Brandes is a member of the Shekhina Council of At The Well, and Executive Director at the Or HaLev: Center for Jewish Spirituality and Meditation. She makes her home with her family on Kibbutz Hannaton, in the Lower Galilee and is author of Magical World: Stories, Reflections, Poems.
