Miriam Brosseau, CEO
Every year, between Passover and Shavuot, we count up.
Forty-nine days, each with its own blessing, each with its own special characteristic. It’s as much about marking time as it is about preparing for it. The counting of the omer is an act of intention: we are not simply waiting for revelation. We are getting ready to receive it.
But what does it mean to be ready? The Israelites who arrived at Sinai had just come through everything. Their ancestors had known Joseph's Egypt, full of abundance and ingenuity, a people with more than enough. They themselves had known bondage: the structural, grinding deficit of slavery. They had wandered in the wilderness for three months, collecting the just-enoughness of manna to eat each morning.
All of that was in their bones by the time they stood at the foot of the mountain.
So as we find ourselves in this time between Passover and Shavuot, counting up, we are being invited to ask ourselves, honestly, where are you right now? Of all these things we could be, of all that we carry with us, where are we?
It's the same question God asks Adam in the garden. And it's the question at the heart of the framework I want to share with you here.
Here's the thing about the Torah: the rabbis teach us אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה — there is no beginning, no end, no chronological order to the Torah. The stories don't progress in a neat line from crisis to resolution. They coexist. And that means the characters we encounter—whether it’s Joseph in his abundance, the Israelites in their bondage, the wanderers collecting manna—aren't a sequence we move through once and leave behind. They're conditions we inhabit simultaneously, in different corners of our work and our lives.
So the question isn't which of these are you. The question is where are each of these, right now, in your organization?
Surplus: Joseph
Before he saves Egypt from famine, Joseph is a dreamer with a talent nobody quite knows what to do with. He can interpret visions no one else can see. He has insight, foresight, courage, patience, and imagination. His unique skills and connections lead him to one of the highest offices in Egypt where he devises a brilliant system to ensure the country is prepared for the famine he predicted. He stores up a surplus, making Egypt the place to be once disaster strikes.
Where do you have more than enough? Maybe it's institutional knowledge, hard-won relationships, a program that punches above its weight, a staff person whose genius is underutilized. Surplus isn't something to be hoarded or apologized for. Joseph's abundance in Egypt became the mechanism of survival for an entire civilization. The question to sit with: Where and how can I give?
Deficit: Israelites in Egypt
There's no softening this one. The Israelites spend hundreds of years in bondage. Their labor is extracted, their voices suppressed. They are lacking, and the lack is structural, not personal.
Most organizations have a version of this. The place where resources are genuinely scarce. Where capacity is stretched past its limit. Where something important simply isn't getting done, not for lack of will, but for lack of what's needed to do it. The work here isn't to shame ourselves for the gap—it's to name it honestly. Where and how do I need to ask for help? That's not weakness. That's the beginning of liberation.
Enoughness: Manna in the Desert
After the sea splits and the Israelites are free, they find themselves in the wilderness, the vast, whispering expanses of the midbar. It’s not hospitable or habitable, yet every morning, there is manna. Exactly enough. Not a feast, not a famine. Just enough to get through the day, with the expectation that tomorrow will bring tomorrow's portion.
This is, perhaps, the most underrated condition in organizational life. Where things are working. Where it ain’t broke. The systems are holding, the work is getting done, the team is okay. We tend to rush past enoughness. It doesn't feel like an achievement because nothing is on fire, and nothing’s screaming success. But manna teaches us that sustainability can be built here, in the in-between. The question is: How might I build systems? This is where the infrastructure gets laid for the journey ahead.
Thriving: Eretz Yisrael
The promised land isn't a reward at the end of a linear journey. It's a destination that exists in relationship to everything else. It’s a place of rootedness, of the sweet sustenance of milk and honey. This is where we have genuine sustainability. For our organizations, thriving looks like alignment: mission and resources and people and culture all pointing in the same direction. It feels like breathing room and purpose at once.
The question here isn't just how do I get here? It's where am I already there? Which part of your work already feels like home?
At Tiny Windows, we've used this framework to map our own organization honestly. Our networking and relationships? Surplus. Our project management systems? Enoughness — built with intention. Long-term planning? Feels like a deficit, and we're naming it. Personal fulfillment in the work? That, for us, is thriving.
The power of this map isn't that it tells you what to fix. It's that it tells you where you actually are. Which is pretty great! It’s the only place you can ever start from.
Where are you?