COUNT THE OMER YEAR BY YEAR
IN CALENDAR YEAR 2026, the counting of the Omer started on April 1 and ends on May 20. Each day, the count notes the progression of the 49 days between Passover (Pesach) and the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot). Doing the count each year is one of the 513 commandments (really, life-giving suggestions) in the Torah. Christian practice parallels the Jewish one by counting the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost.
Kabbalists made this Omer count into a spiritual practice, helping the practitioner fit the Tree of Life (our spiritual being) into the day and the week of the count. My book, “The Omer and the Kabbalah, guides this spiritual practice by exploring the Sefirot, also known as chakras. You’ll be surprised how following this book will open new vistas for you into your life and your world.
Teaching the Holocaust
In today’s political climate, denying or trivializing the Holocaust goes along with a spate of burgeoning antisemitism. Therefore it’s ever more important to teach students the actual tragic history of the Holocaust. The Guide for teachers helps student with the difficulty of visualizing the murder of some six million Jews plus many other people. It may be just a little easier to focus on the fate of 155,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands (Holland) 1n 1940, when Nazi Germans began their persecution there.
The Guide focuses specifically on the fate of about 27,000 Jews then living in Holland who resisted deportation by running and hiding. In about 18,000 cases, they they were discovered and deported anyway, for example in the case of Anne Frank, who wrote the well-known Diary of a Young Girl. Around 9,000 others hid successfully—like the Heppners and the Graumanns, the central families appearing in the two companion books.
These two families consisted of a set of parents, each with one son. None were murdered by Nazis. However, students will be shocked to hear that of these six people, only three really survived the Holocaust. During their flight, one member of the Graumann family was murdered by local people-smugglers, and two more members of the group died from aftereffects of their persecution. At their liberation in September of 1944, the three survivors ended up sick and traumatized. When they recovered, they emigrated to the United States and gradually began a new life .
STUBBORN SHEEP
(Latest Addition to the Chickenhouse book)
Nel and I are recovering from being kicked by some miserable sheep.
That thing started out looking like fun. The sheep had pulled up the pegs to which they were chained, and they had run off to the Aartses next door, where the grass looked greener.
Nel and I volunteered to get them home. We circled behind them and then let go with a real whoopee, like cowboys. The sheep responded by trotting off fast with the pegs on their chains going clickety-clack after them. Stubborn as they were, they ran in the wrong direction.
“We’d better pull them back by their chains before they get too far,” I said. I ran off after the first one, caught up, and meant to stop it by stomping my foot on the peg. The sheep didn’t stop and I fell on my nose.
Nel did better, grabbed a chain, and held on tight. Both sheep stopped then, so I got up and grabbed the other chain, and we started pulling. “Go, sheep, go-o-o-o,” we yelled.
Go they did—in circles. We held on tight as we spun around like tops till the sheep had enough—and stopped absolutely dead.
“Haul them in,” Nel said. So we went hand over hand along their chains till we had them by the collar strap. But no matter how we yanked on the strap or kicked the stupid sheep, they wouldn’t move, and they kicked us back hard.
That hurt, so we gave up, but we were too embarrassed to show up at home without the sheep. We let the sheep go, and they went on peacefully grazing on the Aartses’ meadow. Pretty soon the sun went down, and the sheep ran off on their own to go to their stalls.
We went running after them, doing our best to whoop and holler to make it seem we were chasing them in.
Nobody was fooled, however, and we still got a ribbing. Then Harry got serious. “I know you kids were trying hard,” he said. “Let me show you how you move a sheep with ease”.
Father went with us. Harry stepped behind a sheep. Quickly he grabbed a hind leg, started walking, and the sheep meekly hopped beside him on its other three legs.
“Simple as pie,” Harry said.
“Good lesson,” Father said. That evening he made me a cartoon with a poem that said, “Don’t let any sheep bedevil you.”
Don’t let any sheep bedevil you
