It gives me great pleasure to be able to announce the publication of Omer/Teshuvah, a collection of daily Omer poems written by my friend and rabbinic school colleague Shifrah Tobacman, published under the auspices of Omeremo Nanopress.

These are meditative reflections intended to enrich one's experience of counting the Omer, marking the 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot, between liberation and revelation. And -- here's the really cool part -- they're also intended to be used during the 49 days between Tisha b'Av and Rosh Hashanah, a seven-week journey Shifrah calls the Omer Teshuvah. If you read the book like an English book, it's an Omer book; if you read it like a Hebrew book, the poems lead you through the Omer Teshuvah.

At the book's website you can learn more about our collaboration, read Shifrah's introduction and the introduction I wrote as the collection's editor, see what others have to say about the collection, read an excerpt -- and then, hopefully, buy yourself a copy which will be printed and bound and shipped to you in time for the Counting of the Omer, which this year begins on the 7th of April. Click on through: Omer/Teshuvah. (And/or go directly to CreateSpace to purchase a copy.)

This project has taken up a fair amount of my creative time and energy this winter, and I'm delighted to be midwifing it into the world as Passover approaches! It's a blessing for me to be able to help facilitate the emergence of a new Jewish Renewal devotional poetry voice. (And yes, editing this collection and preparing it for print gives me all the more admiration for my friends and colleagues for whom small-press publishing is an avocation.)

My deep thanks are due to Shifrah for letting me play a role in this process; I hope y'all enjoy her poems, as I do.