As we begin the 4th week of the Omer, we focus this week on the idea of Netzach, often translated as victory.  Netzach communicates the idea of long-suffering, strength, endurance unto completion or patience.  A powerful poem, that many of us have heard at funerals and memorial services exemplifies the idea of netzach in our lives:

Life is a Journey

By Alvin Fine

Birth is a beginning and death a destination;
But life is a journey.
A going, a growing from stage to stage:
From childhood to maturity and youth to old age.

From innocence to awareness and ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to discretion and then perhaps, to wisdom.
From weakness to strength or strength to weakness and often back again.
From health to sickness and back we pray, to health again.

From offense to forgiveness, from loneliness to love,
From joy to gratitude, from pain to compassion.
From grief to understanding, from fear to faith;
From defeat to defeat to defeat, until, looking backward or ahead:

We see that victory lies not at some high place along the way,
But in having made the journey, stage by stage, a sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning and death a destination;
But life is a journey, a sacred pilgrimage,
Made stage by stage…To life everlasting.

Baruch Ata Adonai, Elohenu Melech ha-olam asher kidishanu b’mitzvotav vitzivanu al s’firat ha’omer.  

Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Ruler of the universe, who makes us holy with sacred actions and enjoins us to count the omer.

Hayom shnayim v’esrim yom, sh’hem shloshah shavuot v’yom echad la’omer.

Today is the twenty-second day, making three weeks and one day of the Omer.

Wishing you a meaningful omer– Your RS Clergy