When tragedy, illness and accidents occur, our worldview morphs immediately. Stability is shaken as reality turns upside down. The Omer says we must go slowly.

We walked through the wilderness with eyes wide shut. Instead of neglecting the lessons of Bemidbar, perhaps -- in an age of questionable leadership -- we need to read it more slowly and carefully and pay better attention to the landscape.

This is the time to sit with the anxiety, the ambiguity and the unknowability of our lives. This is the time to go down deep in to the deepest recesses of who we are, to find resources and riches we didn't know were there.

There has never really been a satisfactory explanation as to how the Lord's "anger" worked as it is described in the Bible.

How does the Book of Deuteronomy end? In the wilderness, with the Israelites never reaching the Promised Land.