By Rabbi Lulav Lieberman, Founder and CEO of Shovel & Fork Farms, LLC
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At this time, spring planting season is in high gear for peas and many other vegetables. By the time this reaches you, chances are good that at least some of us have planted peas and are already counting down to tomato season. As gardeners, it helps to count the days from planting to germination and from germination to harvest. That way, we can time crops to grow in the right conditions. It’s one of the ways we try to ensure a better harvest.
Although our ancestors didn’t have handy apps or precise directions written on the back of seed packets, they, too, counted days to harvest. I know this because the Torah says so. In Leviticus, we are commanded to count the days between Passover and Shavuot.
This counting is called the “Omer,” and is named after a unit of measurement. Our ancestors counted the Omer between the barley and wheat harvests in the land of Israel. Most of us, even if we garden, don’t have much if any experience growing grain. Conversely, nearly all of us consume grain as a significant part of our diets, therefore making it integral for our food security. The success or failure of a grain crop can either significantly increase food security, or it can be catastrophic—and we often won’t know which way it’s going until the very end. Counting the Omer helps us take a moment each day during this season to pause and acknowledge the importance of our growing crops, for ourselves and for each other. Given how important food is for our very existence, counting the Omer is a timeless piece of wisdom from Torah.
This is probably why we don’t just count the days, per se, between sowing wheat and its harvest. Instead, we count the “Omer.” Omer does not mean “days,” and it isn’t just a standard measurement for grain. It’s a fraction of that. Like other offerings brought to the Temple, an Omer is a tenth of something. The tenth is that of an Ephah, another ancient measure for agriculture. Most of us don’t have a lot of context for these measurements. One helpful way to think of this is that an Ephah is akin to a daily measure of grain for an individual, and an Omer is one tenth of that. We are commanded to bring an Omer of all new grain to the Temple. But between Passover and Shavuot, we are commanded to count the daily tithe. And we continue this count now, even when most of us aren’t farmers and there is no Temple for us to bring
our offerings in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, we continue counting this daily tithe at the exact moment when one of our most important crops is in the field. Leave it to our ancestors to find a way to ritualize and release the anxiety we must have keenly felt as we waited to find out if we would have our daily bread! We demonstrate our faith that we will have enough by counting out an amount to be donated or given away.
I volunteered to write this column in large part because of my practice of growing food to give away. Some readers may recall that I served Temple Beth El in Newark for six years and left in 2023 to work full-time on an urban microfarm growing food for the hungry.
I started growing food as a passion project during the pandemic, when supply chain and other disruptions made it difficult or impossible for farmers to harvest and when the lines of hungry people lining up to receive food grew to previously unseen numbers. I felt strongly that I could not stand idly by while my neighbors starved. Despite my total lack of experience, I began growing and donating food.
Soon after, I began to donate my produce to be distributed by Joseph’s Pantry of Congregation Beth Emeth in Wilmington. Joseph’s Pantry does amazing work providing food and other important supplies for the residents of the 9th Ward, and I feel blessed to be able to partner with them to help meet needs.
I feel a quiet pride in our unique partnership, between a rabbi who started a farm to feed the hungry and a congregation who saw a need and created a food pantry for its neighbors.
As I count these days from planting to harvest, from Passover to Shavuot, this will be my sixth year growing food for the hungry. I often think about how aptly Congregation Beth Emeth named its food pantry, after Joseph, who stored food during the good years and distributed it during the bad. This year, in preparing to write this column, I took some time to think about Joseph’s dreams as I also reflect on mine.
Joseph’s very first dream was one of harvest. He and his brothers were in the field binding sheaves of wheat when he saw himself chosen for leadership and his brothers bowing to him in acknowledgment of that. Later, when famine hit the land of Canaan, it would be Joseph’s ability to reserve, store, and distribute food that literally saved our Israelite family and many others from death. I reimagine Joseph raising his sheave of wheat as a volunteer, not a ruler. I think of the Joseph who understood the precious resource of food and found incredible ways to preserve it and share. I think about Joseph’s bound sheave among his brothers as an Omer, one tenth (or twelfth) of the harvest that day. An offering.
Counting the days between Passover and Shavuot helps us connect our liberation as a people to Torah, the text of our Jewish way of life. Counting the Omer helps us reconnect to an awareness that food can be abundant or food can be scarce, but each of us can grow something. We can count on making a contribution.
Happy Planting!
About the Author
RABBI LULAV LIEBERMAN (she/her/hers) owns and operates Shovel & Fork Farms, LLC, an urban microfarm growing food for the hungry in Newark and offering all natural products for sale at the Newark Natural Foods Farmers Market.
As a congregational rabbi, Rabbi Lieberman led Reconstructionist synagogues Temple Beth El in Newark, Delaware and Reconstructionist Congregation Beth Israel in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Rav Lulav is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Barnard College.
