DAY 17: TASTE AND SEE


Remember the first slice of bread
after seven days of matzah --
how the sawtoothed knife cut through
the airy crumb against the drag
of crust, steam rising
from the newly-baked loaf:
manna after a week of hardtack.
What will Torah taste like
after seven weeks of counting?

Today is the seventeenth day of the Omer, making two weeks and three days of the Omer. This is the 17th day of our 49-day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, liberation and revelation.

In the kabbalistic framework, today is the day of tiferet she'b'tiferet, balance and harmony within balance and harmony (it's the day of tiferet within the week of tiferet.) Today's poem didn't arise out of that fact, but I think there's something special about today being the day of balance and harmony squared, so I figured I'd mention it.

(Of course, I mean "today" in the Jewish sense -- the day which began on Monday evening at sundown and ends Tuesday evening at sundown -- so those of you who receive these blog posts by email as East Coast evening approaches will be reading this poem as the day of tiferet squared approaches its end.)