One morn­ing in late March 2019, a qui­et but extra­or­di­nary thing hap­pened to me that pre­cip­i­tat­ed my embark­ing on the ancient Jew­ish prac­tice of Count­ing the Omer. 

My son had just come out of a res­i­den­tial treat­ment cen­ter (due to com­pli­ca­tions from his depres­sion) and was look­ing for a short-term rental in Boston. For­tu­nate­ly, he found an ad for a fur­nished apart­ment, avail­able immediately. 

Accom­pa­ny­ing my son, we met Nate, the young man who was sub­let­ting the apart­ment. Nate had an easy man­ner and smile. We learned he was a senior at the near­by col­lege, a phi­los­o­phy major, grad­u­at­ing in May. The place was per­fect — two rooms, ful­ly equipped kitchen, and a sep­a­rate living/​bedroom area. So per­fect, I won­dered, why was he leav­ing now? 

“May I ask why you’re sub­let­ting so close to graduating?”

“I just got out of a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal,” Nate said, with­out hes­i­ta­tion. ​“They felt it would be bet­ter if I went back to liv­ing in the dorm with oth­er people.” 

This stunned me, but my son didn’t miss a beat. He put out his hand to shake Nate’s, and told him that he too had also just come from a res­i­den­tial treat­ment cen­ter. These two sen­si­tive men in their twen­ties had a brief and beau­ti­ful moment of con­nec­tion. I felt over­come with admi­ra­tion and respect for their hon­esty. I knew too well the com­plex­i­ties of men­tal health strug­gles for young adults, how peo­ple rarely talked open­ly about these things. 

Nate hand­ed our son the key. I wrote Nate a check for April. 

After a few weeks, how­ev­er, our son real­ized he need­ed more sup­port and entered anoth­er pro­gram in anoth­er state. When I met Nate to return the key, I men­tioned that he hadn’t yet cashed the check for April.

“I ripped it up,” he said. ​“I don’t have to pay for the apart­ment any­way, and I want­ed to do some­thing good for some­one else.”

My eyes filled up. ​“Are you sure?”

He nod­ded and said he felt bad for our son and wished him well. He added, ​“I wish I could have been more present for him.” 

We were stand­ing out­side the apart­ment build­ing. It was a mild April day in Boston, with a blue sky and bright sun­shine that makes you feel hope­ful after a long win­ter. I respond­ed, ​“This is so kind of you. I hope you know how spe­cial you are.” 

Nate then shared that he had gone through a kind of rebirth. ​“It sounds hokey, but I believe love and good­ness will save the world.”

“I don’t think it sounds hokey at all,” I said. ​“If only the rest of the world would lis­ten. I’m so touched by your kind­ness; I’m going to tell every per­son I meet. Your kind­ness will have a rip­ple effect.” We hugged. Our busi­ness was done. He planned to move west after he graduated.

As for Nate, I can’t recall his last name (because he had ripped up the check), but I can hon­or the promise I made to myself – to share the pow­er of his kind ges­ture and compassion.

That after­noon, I met my friend Risa Miller for a walk. Risa’s a won­der­ful nov­el­ist. On our walks, we typ­i­cal­ly dis­cussed our works-in-progress and inevitably Judaism would find its way into our con­ver­sa­tion. She’s an Ortho­dox Jew. I think of myself as a non-tra­di­tion­al, spir­i­tu­al Jew. 

As with all of my nov­els, I am drawn to emo­tion­al dilem­mas in rela­tion­ships. In my newest nov­el, Evening Begins the Day, I was explor­ing themes of trau­ma and betray­al in fam­i­lies. Set in con­tem­po­rary times, I knew I want­ed to add a lay­er of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty to the sto­ry but I didn’t know how it would show up or what it would look like. When­ev­er I face this kind of conun­drum in my work, I inten­tion­al­ly remind myself to have faith and stay open — kind of like a prayer — and trust that the uni­verse will deliv­er an answer to me. Hope­ful­ly soon! 

I was telling Risa about Nate — how his kind­ness had giv­en me chills. I felt tears ris­ing yet again. It was then that she made a com­ment about how Nate’s inter­ac­tion remind­ed her of the Count­ing of the Omer. 

I must pause here to con­fess: I had nev­er heard of the Count­ing of the Omer. Grow­ing up in the six­ties, I attend­ed a Reform tem­ple every week until I got con­firmed in the ninth grade. My grand­moth­er was a devout Ortho­dox Jew. In my adult­hood, I acknowl­edged major Jew­ish hol­i­days but rarely attend­ed ser­vices. I hadn’t a clue about the Count­ing of the Omer.

Risa explained it was a sev­en-week prac­tice that start­ed every year on the sec­ond night of Passover and addressed Kabal­is­tic themes, such as char­i­ty and kind­ness. Dat­ing back 3,000 years, it entailed count­ing forty-nine days out loud and includ­ed spe­cial bless­ings. (This year, the Count­ing starts on the evening of April 2nd and ends at night­fall on May 21st.)

I was intrigued. After our walk, I hus­tled over to the Jew­ish book­store in my town (a ver­sion of which appears in my nov­el) and found a primer on the Count­ing of the Omer by Rab­bi Simon Jacob­son, designed by Rae Sha­galov. The intro­duc­tion list­ed descrip­tions of the sev­en emo­tion­al attrib­ut­es inspired by the Kab­bal­ah: lov­ingkind­ness, dis­ci­pline, beau­ty, endurance, humil­i­ty, bond­ing, and nobil­i­ty. Each week and each day of the forty-nine days is ded­i­cat­ed to a com­bi­na­tion of two of these sev­en attrib­ut­es. So, for exam­ple, on day two of week one, the attribute of dis­ci­pline (day two) is fold­ed into lov­ingkind­ness (week one). After recit­ing the week and day, par­tic­i­pants can con­sid­er what dis­ci­pline in lov­ingkind­ness means and how it plays out in their lives.

Back home, I devoured the book. This was the miss­ing ele­ment I’d been search­ing for, one that could con­nect my char­ac­ters to some­thing out­side the con­fines of time and space and offer them a chance to rise above the tri­als of their quo­tid­i­an lives. As I delved deep­er, it struck me that this ancient rit­u­al of self-reflec­tion — as I inter­pret­ed it — could adapt eas­i­ly to con­tem­po­rary sit­u­a­tions and offer heal­ing insights to any­one will­ing to give it a try.

As for Nate, I can’t recall his last name (because he had ripped up the check), but I can hon­or the promise I made to myself – to share the pow­er of his kind ges­ture and compassion.