Rashi explains that the Beth Din determines when the holiday is to occur (depending on when the New Moon is seen and attested to before the Beth Din), and we must of necessity ask when Passover begins in order to be able to start counting the omer on the morrow of the first day of Passover. The Talmud ( ibid.) also cites the verse in parashat Re’eh (Deuteronomy 16:9), “Seven weeks shall you count from such time that the sickle is put to the standing crop shall you begin counting seven weeks.” The Gemara notes that this verse teaches us that the counting depends on the Beth Din. This, indeed, is how we proceed with the counting of the Omer. The Talmud ( Menachot 65b) discusses the two verses in parashat Emor that deal with the counting of the omer: The first (Leviticus 23:15) “You shall count for yourselves – from the morrow after the Sabbath – from the day when bring the omer of the waving – seven complete weeks shall there be,” and the verse immediately following (23:16) “Until the morrow of the seventh week shall you count fifty days, and you shall offer a new meal-offering to Hashem.” The Gemara concludes that the first verse, using the phrase “seven complete weeks,” refers to the case when the first day of Passover happens to fall on a Sabbath, with the result that the weeks counted are seven full weeks, like the seven days of creation, each starting on a Sunday – whereas the second verse indicates that the counting of the fifty days starts on the second day of Passover – “the morrow after the Sabbath,” meaning the morrow after the day of the Festival of Passover – no matter what day it falls on, and the Festival of Shavuot thus occurs when fifty days have been counted. The Magen Avraham notes that we derive that counting the o mer is an obligation incumbent upon each individual from the fact that it states ( Leviticus 23:15), “ U’sefartem lachem,” similar to the language used for the commandment ( Leviticus 23:40) to take the Four Species on Sukkot, “ U’lekachtem lachem.” 15:13), “When the person … ceases his discharge, he shall count seven days from his cessation …” In these two cases, the purpose of the counting is to attain the conclusion of a finite time period, whereas in Sefirat HaOmer the act of counting is itself a mitzvah and therefore requires a bracha. ” The counting of the omer is also different from counting the days toward purification by a person who has become contaminated due to an impure discharge, as stated in parashat Metzora ( ibid. The Taz adds that the counting of the omer is different from the counting toward the Jubilee Year, which is stated in parashat Behar (Leviticus 25:8), “You shall count seven cycles of sabbatical years, seven years seven times. Yosef Caro, author of the Shulchan Aruch) states ( Orach Chayyim 489:1): “… t is incumbent upon each and everyone to count by himself he has to count while standing he has to recite a blessing before the counting and he has to count the days as well as the weeks. We are commanded in parashat Emor (Leviticus 23:15), “You shall count from the morrow after the Sabbath (i.e., the first day of Passover), from the day when you bring the omer of the wave offering, seven complete weeks shall there be.” The mitzvah to count the omer is incumbent upon all men (women are exempt since it is in the category of mitzvat aseh she’hazeman gerama, a positive precept dependent upon time). Because of your question’s timeliness, we will review that discussion. That correspondent compared the omer to the Jubilee Year. We also noted the leeway one is afforded if one counted at dusk that such counting would be valid even though it is suggested not to do so a priori, nevertheless, after the fact we aver to lenience.Īnswer: As for your second question, we had a similar query several years ago. Citing Pnei Yehoshua, we noted that this remains true whether one considers blessings to be rabbinical in nature or even if they are biblical. Synopsis: Last week (citing Berachot 15a) we noted the rule of “ein beracha me’akevet – that the proper performance of mitzvot is not dependent on whether one recites a blessing or not.
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