The 4th of Iyar was observed by Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, 1135-1204) as a personal day of fasting and prayer. Maimonides recounts that when he and his family were fleeing Islamic persecution from Fez, Morocco to the Holy Land, their ship was caught in a fierce storm at sea. He cried out to G-d in prayer and vowed to fast each year on this date.
Tomorrow is the twentieth day of the Omer Count. Since, on the Jewish calendar, the day begins at nightfall of the previous evening, we count the omer for tomorrow's date tonight, after nightfall: "Today is twenty days, which are two weeks and six days, to the Omer." (If you miss the count tonight, you can count the omer all day tomorrow, but without the preceding blessing).
The 49-day "Counting of the Omer" retraces our ancestors' seven-week spiritual journey from the Exodus to Sinai. Each evening we recite a special blessing and count the days and weeks that have passed since the Omer; the 50th day is Shavuot, the festival celebrating the Giving of the Torah at Sinai.
Tonight's Sefirah: Yesod sheb'Tifferet -- "Connection in Harmony"
The teachings of Kabbalah explain that there are seven "Divine Attributes" -- Sefirot -- that G-d assumes through which to relate to our existence: Chessed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malchut ("Love", "Strength", "Beauty", "Victory", "Splendor", "Foundation" and "Sovereignty"). In the human being, created in the "image of G-d," the seven sefirot are mirrored in the seven "emotional attributes" of the human soul: Kindness, Restraint, Harmony, Ambition, Humility, Connection and Receptiveness. Each of the seven attributes contain elements of all seven--i.e., "Kindness in Kindness", "Restraint in Kindness", "Harmony in Kindness", etc.--making for a total of forty-nine traits. The 49-day Omer Count is thus a 49-step process of self-refinement, with each day devoted to the "rectification" and perfection of one the forty-nine "sefirot."
Links:
How to count the Omer
The deeper significance of the Omer Count
Sometimes the cloud would be upon the Tabernacle for a number of days, and by G-d's command they encamped, and by G-d's command they journeyed.
And sometimes the cloud would be there from evening until morning, and the cloud was lifted in the morning and they journeyed...Or two days, or a year, or a month...By G-d's command they would encamp, and by G-d's command they journeyed. (Numbers 9:20-23.)
At every stop along their journey, whether it was for a year or for one day, the Children of Israel set up the Tabernacle and made all their offerings. Because they knew that they had been brought to this place by a divine hand, and so there must be purpose in this place, here, now.
Which teaches that in every journey of your life you must be where you are.
It may seem that you are only passing through on your way to somewhere else—but in truth there is purpose, divine purpose, in wherever you are right now.
Listen, learn, heal, plant seeds and water them. Neither you nor this place must stay the same.