The Chabad.org Blog

Ten Passovers ago, Chabad.org released Omer Counter, an app that revolutionized the way people fulfilled the mitzvah of counting the 49 days (nights) of the Omer from the second night of Passover up to the holiday of Shavuot.

In addition to daily reminders, a live counter told the user how much time remained for counting that day and kept track of whether they’d counted all days until then (since a person who misses one night may no longer include the blessing before counting on subsequent nights) and synced to their location.

Beyond the mechanics of the daily count, the app also provided a specially created daily meditation from Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, corresponding to the Kabbalistic mystical confluence of sefirot (“emanations”) associated with each Omer day, as well as a wealth of insights and other information culled from Chabad.org’s vast library of Jewish content.

For the novice just foraying into the intricacies of Hebrew reading, the app included a trainer to highlight each word as it is chanted, allowing them to familiarize themselves with the Hebrew at their own pace.

And now, a decade later, just in time for Passover, based on feedback from thousands of users, the app has been fully revamped, upgraded and redesigned—an effort that took months of programming, testing, and refining.

Chabad.org extends its heartfelt appreciation to Shmuel and Yael Solovyev, whose leadership, inspiration, and support helped make this app remake possible. We also thank the many donors who responded to the matching campaign (still in progress!) to help bring the completion of this app to the finish line.

In addition to an entirely new interface and faster performance, the app includes many enhancements. Chief among them:

Users can customize their reminders, choosing when and how often they wish to be reminded each day, ranging from the first possible moment (nightfall) to thirty minutes before the sun sets at the end of the day.
While the previous iteration of the app was tethered to the location of the device for determining sunset times, the new version allows the user to manually specify any location.
In addition to selecting the version of text to display (Ari, Sefarad (Eidot Hamizrach), Ashkenaz, or Sefarad (Chassidic)), users can now customize the text size, select dark or light mode and other personalizations to improve their experience.

Download Omer Counter

Download the new Omer Counter app
Help support this app

Chabad.org is excited to announce a groundbreaking collaboration between Chabad.org and the Steinsaltz Center!

This partnership makes available to all reams of rich elucidative content from the late Rabbi Adin Even-Israel (Steinsaltz) – the visionary chasid and scholar whose life mission was to share Torah with everyone – some of it for the very first time.

Born in Jerusalem to avowed Marxists, Rabbi Even-Israel (Steinsaltz) was guided by the Rebbe, of righteous memory, to become a towering beacon of Torah scholarship and Jewish thought. With tenacity and brilliance, he toiled mightily to bring Jewish teachings to every sector of the Jewish world and beyond.

Most famously, he blazed a path for aspiring students of Torah to access even obscure passages of Talmud and other parts of Torah, by exposing them to the cumulative works of generations of scholars and teachers, all contextualized in a way that could be grasped by the modern mind.

Even when he felt his burden was too great and the cumulative challenges were too daunting, Rabbi Even-Israel was encouraged by the Rebbe to add even more to his dizzying workload, resulting in an outsized lifetime contribution to Jewish life and learning.

A cohort of Rabbi Even-Israel’s works have long been available on Chabad.org. Now, after years of planning and creating together – punctuated by the immense investment into digitization efforts and architecting and expanding our content delivery systems – we are thrilled to finally bring to fruition our shared goal of nearly two decades, which includes making available the full bilingual texts of the Neviim (Prophets), Ketuvim (Scriptures), Mishnah, Talmud and the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah – all with the rabbi’s signature interpolated translation and commentary.

In the months ahead, we look forward to growing this online treasure trove to include Rabbi Even-Israel’s vaunted commentary to Tanya, the foundational work of Jewish philosophy and indispensable guide to G‑d-centered spiritual living; many more original books and essays by the rabbi; and a plethora of his famed audio and video classes.

This explosion of online content comes in tandem with the Steinsaltz Center’s release of its new Steinsaltz Portal, a cornucopia of learning with even more ways to access the rabbi’s prodigious output. Much of this content can be accessed through a convenient app, making it easier to explore the wealth of knowledge.

This long-anticipated release is part of Chabad.org’s dynamic implementation of its Torah Texts platform, which makes available a wealth of major Jewish works, including Judaism’s classic texts and their accompanying commentaries, halachic treatises, Chassidic discourses — and much more to come.

A key feature of this learning platform is the integration of Chabad.org’s vast array of video and audio classes, offering a “self-guided” learning experience, where students can watch or listen to world-class lectures alongside the text, and progress at a pace comfortable to them.

“This is an exciting moment for all of us at Chabad.org,” says Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, executive director of Chabad.org. “The work of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel has been instrumental in bringing so many Jews closer to the study of Torah, and we are excited to make it accessible to the millions of visitors on Chabad.org.”

“This partnership is the natural extension of my father’s 70+ years of selfless devotion to the mandate of ‘Let my people know,’ “ says Rabbi Meni Even-Israel, CEO of the Steinsaltz Center and the late rabbi’s son. “Chabad.org’s impressive and trailblazing implementation of the Rebbe's vision to make Torah available to millions worldwide made it a natural partner for my father of blessed memory and the Steinsaltz Center. Our partnership with Chabad.org brought him much joy during his lifetime, and reassured him that his work would continue to bear fruit for all time to come. Today, as more of it comes to fruition, I'm certain that he's very proud.”

Explore Rabbi Even-Israel (Steinsaltz)’s interpretations of the classics at Chabad.org/Steinsaltz and propel your learning to even greater heights.

The new Steinsaltz Center Portal aims to make a cornucopia of learning even more accessible to Chabad.org's students.

A Brand New Omer Counter App!

Download Omer Counter

New Collaboration Shares Trove of Rabbi Even-Israel (Steinsaltz) Content