Hayom Yom

It is customary not to recite the b'racha she'he'che'yanu during the days of the omer count.

We all possess an element of "non-good." Why, the scapegoat (representing evil, banished to Azazeil)[1] was actually a service in the Beit hamikdash![2] A physical created being inevitably has a negative element, but we must banish that evil to a "desolate land."

Compiled and arranged by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, in 5703 (1943) from the talks and letters of the sixth Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory.

See Vayikra 16. This was part of the Yom Kippur rites. Two goats were chosen by lot, one "for G‑d" to be offered on the altar, the other, the scape-goat, to be cast down Azazeil, a rocky mountain in the "desolate land," the wilderness, "bearing their sins."

This sentence (like the ones preceding it and following it) continues the emphasis on the ubiquity of evil in this world, exclaiming that a procedure involving banishment of evil was even part of the sacred service within the holy Jerusalem sanctuary!

נוהגים שאין מברכים שהחיינו בימי ספירת העומר. לא טוב האבען מיר אלע. שעיר לעזאזל איז געווען אן עבודה אין בית המקדש. ווי באלד א נברא איז דא לא טוב, דארף מען עס אוועקשיקען אין ארץ גזרה.