The supply of matzah (unleavened bread) which the Jewish people brought out of Egypt--enough for 60 meals--was exhausted on the 15th of Iyar, the 30th day after the Exodus. The people complained to Moses that they have nothing to eat. G-d notified them that He will rain down "bread from heaven" to sustain them (Exodus 16; see "Today in Jewish History" for tomorrow, Iyar 16).
A few months prior to her death, Empress Catherine I, the second wife of Peter the Great, expelled all Jews from Russia.
Rostov-on-Don, Russia, was home to 14 Synagogues and many communal institutions. With the encouragement of local Russian officials, a wave of anti-Jewish riots (pogroms) swept the city on the 15th of Iyar of 1883.
In preparation for the festival of Shavuot, we study one of the six chapters of the Talmud's Ethics of the Fathers ("Avot") on the afternoon of each of the six Shabbatot between Passover and Shavuot; this week we study Chapter Four. (In many communities -- and such is the Chabad custom -- the study cycle is repeated through the summer, until the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah.)
Tomorrow is the thirty-first 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 thirty-one days, which are four weeks and three 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: Tifferet sheb'Hod -- "Harmony in Humility"
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
Your soul is full of words, some inscribed, some engraved.
The words inscribed on your soul are like ink upon a page. They came to you from the outside, from life and its experiences. Eventually, they may fade and fall away, to be replaced by other words.
The words engraved are of the soul itself—just as engravings are no more than the form of the stone. When the soul finds quietude, those words are there. If the soul is in turmoil, or soiled by experience, those engravings need only be cleaned and uncovered. But they can never be torn away.
Those same words that are engraved in your soul are also engraved in a holy fire within the depths of the Soul of All Things. They are the words that Moses heard and inscribed on stone and on parchment. They are the words of the holy sages of Torah who found them within their own souls.
Immerse yourself in the words of Torah, allow them entry to touch your soul. Listen quietly, and you will hear those same engravings resonating within your soul.