Strength within Strength, Day 9 of the Omer, Gevurah ShebeGevurah

Apr 5

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Today is nine days, which is one week and two days of the Omer in the year 5781. גבורה שבגבורה, Gevurah ShebeGevurah, Strength within Strength, Judgement within Judgement, Discipline within Discipline.

Not quite as lost as last year

I still do not live up to the discipline in my head. My perfectionist brain castigates me for failing to stay focused on re-reading Tomer Devorah and writing my thesis. Mostly, I don't listen to her anymore.

Today was a victory because I did not take it personally that my kid didn't do his homework. I wrote his daily checklist and accepted that this would be another week of slowly catching up to the daily assignments. The younger one went denied he could do his work, thrashing about. Then, as happens most days, he settled down and completed his work. We all took the dog on her afternoon walk. I spent a few hours cooking dinner.

Yom HaShoah is coming...

Tonight I watched the magnificent Jewish Federation of the San Gabriel and Pomona Valley's Yom HaShoah presentation. It reminded me how important contextualizing the Shoah, the Catastrophe, is. You may know the Shoah as the Holocaust. I choose not to use that name because I do not believe my Jewish brothers and sisters were burnt completely as a sacrifice to HaShem. Rather, I believe this Jewish genocide proves that evil lurks in every society. Humans are not infallible. Only by turning towards the Source of Goodness and Holiness can we have the prospect of bending the moral arc of the universe towards justice.

The Jewish day of remembrance for the Shoah and Heroes, גבורה, Gevurah, is situated on the lunar Jewish calendar on 27 Nisan, a week after Passover and eight days before Israeli Independence Day. It is during the time of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which began the day before Passover.