How difficult is it to count, really? We learn how to count as little children, and it's really not hard at all. We start with the number one and we move on from there.

Why then is it so difficult to count the Omer? All you have to do is to count the days between the first day of Passover and Shavuot. There are 49 of them. What could be simpler than that?

And yet, I for one -- and many others, I'm sure -- find it hard to do. It isn't the act of counting -- that's easy. It's remembering to count, each and every evening, that is the problem.

I can't think of another mitzvah that has so many constituent parts, each of which is necessary to be done properly for the mitzvah to be fulfilled. Just think: you can remember to count the Omer on each of the first forty-seven days, but if you forget to count on the eve of the forty-eighth day, then you don't recite the brachah (blessing) before counting the Omer on the eve of the forty-ninth day. That seems awfully unfair to those of us who find it difficult to keep to a schedule.

And yet, maybe that's precisely the point. After all, when it comes to activities that really matter to us, we don't forget to do them regularly. We eat regularly. We sleep regularly. We go to work regularly. It seems clear that if we (that is, I) thought that the counting of the Omer was as essential as those, I wouldn't have trouble remembering to do it.

So there's a lesson here.