A rare decorated parchment Scroll for counting the Omer, Holland: Early 18th Century

Grace Cohen Grossman, Jewish Art, 1995. p. 224; Guide Joods Historisch Musem, Amsterdam: 1995. p. 54.

According to Jewish custom, the seven week period between Passover and Shavuot is marked by the counting of the omer. For forty-nine days, starting with the 16th of Nissan, the second day of Passover on which the korban ha-omer or new grain offering was brought in the Temple, a special blessing is recited and the particular day of the omer is counted. Beginning at the end of the seventeenth century, decorative scrolls and plaques were produced in order to facilitate the observance of this commandment and to ensure that each day was properly enumerated. The present scroll is remarkably similar to a rare group of exceptional omer calendars produced in Holland in the early eighteenth century; examples can be found in the collections of the Joods Historisch Museum (Amsterdam, no. 493) and the Jewish Museum (New York, F3205).

In this calendar, the three tiers of numerals, from top to bottom, match the format used when fulfilling the commandment.  After reciting the appropriate blessing, one states the omer-count in terms of  total days and again in terms of  weeks and days together. For example, on the 23rd day the count would be stated thus: "Today is twenty-three days, which is three weeks and two days of the omer."

The artist has presented each numeral in its own independently framed panel, each exuberantly decorated with floral motifs. Typically, this type of calendar would be set within a wooden or metal display case with a glass panel that allowed only a single column to be viewed on a given day.  After completing the daily omer count, the manuscript would be rotated to the next day's illustrated panels, by turning the wooden rollers on which the scroll was mounted.