On Saturday night, while most of Israel was cleaning up from the Seder ritual, a few families went out to the fields near Ruhama in the Negev to harvest the barley to be used in the Omer wave offering.
Photo courtesy Rabbi Hillel Weiss
According to the Bible, the barley for the Omer wave offering is harvested directly after Passover ends on the 16th day of the month of Nisan in the Jewish calendar. The sheaves of grain were brought to Jerusalem where it was beaten, the chaff removed, and sifted through 13 sieves. Finally, the grains were roasted and ground into a coarse meal. Olive oil, specially prepared for temple use, was added, along with frankincense.
Photo courtesy Rabbi Hillel Weiss
As Passover ended, Jews begin counting 50 days until the holiday of Shavuot, when two loaves made from barley were brought to the Temple as an offering.
The Bible commands Jews to bring two loaves of bread on Shavuot to the Temple. Made from the choicest wheat, which was ground and sifted twelve times before being baked, it was brought as a thanksgiving “wave offering” along with two lambs, as a central aspect of the national holiday.
Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals; they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto Hashem. Leviticus 23:17
Shavuot commemorates the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai from God to the exiled Hebrews from Egypt as well as the “official” creation of the Jewish nation.
Rabbi Weiss explained that the treatment of the barley was carried out by the Tomb Of King David.
“The Davidic dynasty began on the night the Omer was harvested,” he explained.
Rabbi Aharon Yitzchak Stern was also in attendance.
