Counting the Omer and Lent: New Eco-Spiritual Customs
There has been a resurgence of interest in Sefirat HaOmer of late, as people are striving to reconnect with agricultural, natural cycles. While the Omer focuses on the maturation of the barley crop in Israel (as Liore taught a few posts ago), many of us have added a local focus as well. I live in Philadelphia and the Omer brackets a period of phenomenal greening and flowering as every dogwood and azalea struts its stuff. I love the progression of each flower and plant in a beautifully synchronized symphony of color, shape, fragrance and inflorescence.The Omer prohibitions are explained by the season's element of anxiety: will the rain from the last season coordinate with the winds to support the new growing season? Not listening to music, not performing weddings, and not shaving or cutting hair are the most commonly observed; these restrictions end at Lag B'omer, Day 33 or the 49. (Also it is a period of semi-mourning for past losses during the Bar Kochba rebellion, but since I have to look this up every year, I'm guessing I'm not the only one that doesn't resonate with that explanation.)
Lent, the 40-Day period prior to Easter, is also a season of prohibitions for observant Christians. Eating a vegetarian diet, which included eschewing dairy products, was customary. There are theological explanations for this, but from an anthropological perspective it is likely that this was a ritualized way of making a virtue out of necessity, since in European life before the 20th century, by late winter food supplies were thinning and it was still quite a stretch before any fresh food became available. Herds had less to eat, and produced less milk as a result. This is also an explanation for celebrating dairy products on Shavuot. The milk begins to flow abundantly when the animals have more grass on which to graze!
Adding an eco-spiritual dimension to Lent is a logical step. Some observe Lent by choosing to give up something special - a food, an activity, or a habit. Forty days is a good stretch, but not forever! I was quite taken with a blog post at FeministFinance, where the author took on a Lenten Compact. The Compact is a shared commitment by a group to avoid retail purchases, in the interest of minimizing their consumption and ecological footprint. Compact Groups do this for an entire year. Their Yahoo Group is almost 9000 people, so they've got a lot of folks following this experiment. The idea is to obtain what you need by bartering, borrowing, or buying used. And of course the simplest strategy is to just be creative and do without. So much of our consumption is optional and impulsive. In addition to lowering their environmental impacts, those involved build a tight community.
It's late for this year, but I'd love to create an Omer Compact group, where for the 49 days (or at least 33!) of the Omer we would likewise commit to no purchasing or shopping for non-food items. Of course a lot of Jews do this 52 shabbatot a year, but we do more than our share of buying on the weekdays. Such commitments are self-instructive; it's an opportunity to analyze our behvaviors. Would we Omer Compacters be allowed to look at catalogs? Would we be allowed to accept packages that had been ordered BEFORE the Omer Count? The Talmudic interpretation possibilities could get really interesting!
If you're interested in organizing and participating in a 5769 Omer Pact, tell us your ideas and thoughts!
Plants seem like a very Omer-ish purchase - I would consider that a food purchase.
A purist wouldn't buy books as a gift, but sounds like they were used, so you're not violating the new thing rule. The whole point is to pay attention, and it sounds like that's worked. Keep reporting in. (Comment this)