On Saturday evening we finish counting three weeks of the Omer. With four more weeks to go, we have metaphorically left Egypt behind, but — on the spiritual journey — we are closer to Egypt than Sinai. This is a meditation on being in the place between. This piece appears in my latest book This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer from CCAR Press.

Between Egypt and Sinai
Between Egypt
And Sinai
There is only the journey.
The long march from what was
To what might be,
From servitude
To service,
From pain
To purpose,
From Pharoah
To G-d’s holy mountain.

Some days,
More than I care to admit,
I am closer to Egypt than Sinai,
Closer to narrowness of mind
And constriction of heart.
Still I see the mountain
And rededicate myself
To the destination.

Between Egypt
And Sinai
There is only one question.
Are we ready
To become a nation of priests,
Guided by Torah,
Serving G-d,
The Jewish people,
And all of humanity
With our hands,
With our souls,
And with our lives.

© 2021 CCAR Press from This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer

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Postscript: Here’s a link to my meditations for each day of counting the Omer.

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Joyous Soul , This Grateful Heart, and This Precious Life. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. For a taste of my teaching, see my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer.”

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