Today is 41 days, which is 5 weeks and 6 days of the Omer
Instructions for counting the omer are found on our Omer Overview Page. You can find the specific blessing for today at chabad.org.
We’re dedicating new Siddurim on the first day of Shavuot. In honor of this wonderful occasion, we’re using the counting of the Omer to learn about the siddur.
Enjoy today’s siddur related question and answer, which was provided by Howard S..
Every day of the week we recite a different psalm. Who came up with this recipe?
The practice of reciting psalms appears to be quite ancient. King David established singing by the Levites even before the Temple was built. The Mishnah, in Tamid 7:4, says that the Levites sang a daily psalm in the Temple with instrumental accompaniment. After the Temple, these psalms were incorporated into the synagogue service. Were the psalms we recite today actually the ones recited in the Temple? The Septuagint (the Hebrew bible in Greek, dating from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE) identifies the psalms for Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Shabbat, the ones we recite today, but not the ones for Tuesday and Thursday. Besides following tradition, why are these particular psalms the ones we recite (recognizing the mystery of the Tuesday and Thursday psalms)? One interpretation is that each psalm hints at the events of a day of creation for the day it is recited. The Zohar says that each psalm represents a 1,000-year period, with the seventh standing for the messianic future. Regrettably, we do not have a definitive answer.
Learn More
You can learn more at:
Raymond Apple, “The Psalm of the Day,” Jewish Bible Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2014, pp. 114-120.