MESSAGE FROM THE RABBIS

As we journey through the Omer, counting the days between Passover and Shavuot, each week invites us to reflect on a different spiritual quality. This week is dedicated to gevurah—strength, boundaries, discipline, and discernment.

In honor of this week’s theme, we’re sharing a poem by Rabbi Ben about gevurah.

With love,

Rabbis Shoshana and Ben

Week Two of the Omer – Gevurah/Din: The Grace in Boundaries

This is the week of holding.

Of shaping.

Of strength—not the kind that dominates,

but the kind that cradles.

The kind that says:

Here is the edge. And it is holy.

We often think of judgment, of din,

as cold or cruel—

but what if it is a container?

A vessel that keeps the water from spilling,

a womb that holds new life

until it is ready to breathe on its own.

Gevurah is the boundary

that makes beauty possible.

A blossom is beautiful

because it opens slowly,

because its petals know when to stop.

Spring is beautiful

because it doesn’t last.

Because the bloom is held

in time’s gentle hands

before it fades.

We are beginning again,

in this week of April,

as the world reawakens.

And we are reminded:

to grow wild is not always to grow whole.

Discipline can be devotion.

Limits can be love.

So this week,

we honor the sacred edge.

We say yes to the quiet strength of saying no.

We practice being held

so we can know how to hold others—

not to contain them,

but to make space

for what is becoming.

This is Gevurah:

Not a wall, but a form.

Not punishment, but presence.

Not fear, but clarity.

It teaches us that everything passes,

but not before it fully becomes itself.

And that is beautiful.

And that is enough.