The Mitzva of Sefirat HaOmer: Torah Law or Zecher L’Mikdash? By Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

okay good morning everyone hope you all had a wonderful wonderful PES you had a little raus on you last week is that we didn't have but now God willing we're back in a regular a regular session uh you know it's interesting yesterday was of course uh y y we're coming up with Y and then y so it's kind of a very big mixture of happy occasions joyous occasions and occasions of memory occasions of sadness and of course that's superimposed with the mat that we're in right now which is a mat of mat of people who are still in captivity uh indeed one of the hostages unfortunately uh passed away who um I don't remember the name but one of them is was say a relatively young person like 48 how long no wasin the past few days they just announced that the person had uh had died in in captivity so like life in general it's really a mixture of of happiness and joy together with with sadness and confusion and uh we turn to our KES to help us through uh this kind of moras of conflicting feelings and beem may all of the suffering both in the past and in the present may it be the precursor to uh the G that should come you know it's interesting that it's not maybe not the most comforting bit of news that kazal do tell us that the days before mashia are going to be very very difficult times going to be very very turbulent times in fact one of the rabbis of the talmud said that he prays for the coming of mashia but he also prays he won't be alive when that time comes he'd rather show up later with you know and like because the immediate uh period before the coming of mashiah will be very very difficult this is the famous Wars of go and MOG that are described in in Sak and just to add to our consternation uh there's a famous statement of the vnon which for 200 years no one understood what it meant and he said the final apocalyptic Wars of go and MOG will only last 12 minutes and no one understood what on Earth what type of War will be over in 12 minutes nuclear war well that's the end yeah listen when the Von said it nobody nobody knew what he was talking about but obviously a nuclear war could indeed be of very very short duration tremendously destructive and or even that electromagnetic thing that just wipes out uh wipes out essentially the ability of the world to function uh and and and the like so you know you have to understand that in some ways uh both kazal and the Nim had to speak in a in a language that would was contemporary in other words you're not going to look at a PK and talk about atom bombs or the like it'll use figurative language it'll talk about uh no fire pillars of smoke you know and the like so you often don't know what that means till you're you're conversant with the present realities that we face in fact even the prophets themselves may not have known exactly what the these things were referring to but it is true that as history progresses we can go back into the words of the prophets and we can see all sorts of hidden meanings that maybe were not even known to earlier Generations that sadly were able to understand so the uh statement of the vagon that gooun MoGo could last 12 minutes is fortunately something that we are able to understand today that for a number of centuries was simply Beyond people's comprehension however let me point out that the same vnon that says that has another teaching in which he points out that go and MOG is only a worst case scenario meaning to say there are different Pathways to mashia there is the pathway via go and MOG but there's also the pathway through Chua and aat Isel in which all of the Goen MoGo can be bypassed so that's the good news and the bad news meaning to say there is a way out of all of these situations and even if we've already started on the path of Goen MOG we can kind of reverse and restart and reset and kind of proceed on an alternative path so uh if anything else that should encourage us to try to work on what we need to to work on uh basically Building Bridges uh with with our fellow Jews so that really brings us to the Mitzvah of counting the OM and we're going to spend again next few weeks on om we're kind of a we're kind of a seasonal Shear uh in that sense again I warn you that uh I make no promises about inspiration that's not the purpose of this year we basically go through analytical but if occasionally a thought comes out I will not automatically suppress it uh and and and and the like uh the first thing I want to make a point is a very very simple point it's a very actually it's very obvious point but sometimes it escapes people the Mitzvah of counting the OM and the various mourning restrictions that we observe on the Omare are two totally separate things there was a Mitzvah of counting the OM before there was morning restrictions of the OM so don't confuse them I'm going to be talking today about the Mitzvah of counting the OM that has nothing to do with haircuts that has nothing to do with weddings that has nothing to do with music historically it's not even connected uh to that we'll talk about the morning later but in your own mind you have to be sure when we think of SP we automatically think of the morning restrictions but that's not what the Mitzvah is the Mitzvah in the Torah is in parasor that's going to be the para we're going to read the chabas After Next chabas you shall count I'm going to translate this very literally you shall count from the day after shabas now normally normally shabas is Saturday and MIM shabas would be Sunday okay we'll come back to that you should count from the day after shabas from the day that you bring or you brought the OM now om is a measure a measure like a bushel an Omare is technically a tenth of an AA right so the word om doesn't mean barley and the word Omar doesn't mean the period between p and om is a volume of grain equal to what's called a tenth of an AA which is equal to the amount of man that fell every day in the desert which is equal to the amount of dough of flour rather you have to have in order to be so uh which which turns out to be 43 and a fifth eggs but there's a mlus if the eggs are bigger or smaller today so that translates into anything between 2 and2 pounds to 5 pounds of flour that's an Omar so I'll go back to each of these terms because there's a lot to unpack here and again I I I apologize if some of this is well known to you or push it to you but I want to be sure that people understand the words you shall begin to count from the day after chabas from the day that you brought the Omare offering that is waved we'll describe that Chev shabas to mimos TI there shall be seven complete weeks that is 49 days then it seems to repeat it OD until now until means not including until the day after the seventh week meaning you don't count that day you shall count now this is already a little bit of a contradiction you shall count 50 days and then it said now which of course that's the SH now of course we don't count 50 days we only count 49 days but okay well we'll come back to that too now let's first focus on the words you start counting the day after chabas now here already record that there was a huge mlus that spans hundreds of years between sadim the sades and the pusim the pH the Pharisees now the Pharisees are maybe the bad guys in the Christian Bible but they happen to be araz they called the Pim regarding the interpretation ofab theim took this very literally and they said you begin counting the OM on a Sunday and this would be the Sunday after PES the first Sunday after PES every single year no matter what day of the week p is you start counting now let me digress for a moment uh theim so named sadis sadim is simply because the founder of this movement was a man called sadok so his followers were called called sadim theim were a movements that lived during the second temple period theim more or less became extinct around theban B sheny that whatever it was they they ceased to exist as a movement were there individual sauses probably yes but they no longer had any type of movement now don't confused that stuk him with a much later movement that had much of the same belief system called the kites the Kim now theim Liv during the second temple period and they were extinct the Kim was a mo or were a movement that began in around the 10th Century or early 11th century the 900s 10 hundreds and indeed we actually know the founder it has it has a definitive founder a man called Anan Ben David founded a new kind of religion within Judaism and it's interesting what was his motivation he didn't claim to have some Revelation from God rather he was born into regular Judaism and he wanted a certain job he wanted to be Ruta he wanted to be the political head of the Jewish Community he was passed over somebody else got it so he started his own religion and however what is interesting is there are many commonalities between Kim and St Kim although they are not the same movement historically and the commonality is they rejected the tal and they only regarded the T as Authority this was the position of the sades during the second temple and this later became the position of the Karim now Kar there are no sases today you're not going to find anyone who says I'm a stuki but there are Kim today Kim is a uh is a practice within Judaism that still exists uh there is a kyite synagogue in fact Kim have very interesting Customs people often say oh carites read the Torah overly literally that's not quite true they do read the Torah without the gar without the talmud without the T but they also have figurative interpretations in fact one outstanding example is Fillin do wear and they do wear a toilet because after all that's pretty explicit in par sh you shall make fringes on your garments but but I think we mentioned a few weeks ago they don't wear Fillin because they understand that when the Torah says you shall tie it upon your arm and make it an adornment between your eyes that is a symbolic expression that means you commit your action to God and you commit your mind to go now the truth is we also understand that symbolically but we take it literally as well so it is interesting that the common statement that theim or the kites are over ly literal it's not quite true sometimes they have a very symbolic interpretation but it is not rooted in the M of our they reject now there were karite Scholars who knew the talud but again a carite scholar who knows the talmid is like a Jewish scholar who happens to know the New Testament meaning they didn't regard the talmid as binding some of them knew it as a matter of scholarly interest and uh and and and and like another example do not blow chaur and R because it is very interesting if you literally look at the Torah the Torah does not use the word Chau for with respect to rashash it talks about Yer you blow the chauffer on rash it says now we interpret tra to mean blowing of the show for but they point out that in other biblical contexts tra is shouting out to God and therefore they look at rashash which we also look at as a day of shouting a day of prayer in so they have a holiday called R but they don't blow the chauffers right right all right so be isn't May though uh the K and earlier theim took a very literalist position regarding the Omare that you don't begin counting the Omare till Sunday and we find that this was a dispute that's already recorded in the mishna and this dispute went on for a very very long time and the went to very Great Lengths to dispel this erroneous interpretation now it's interesting it's been suggested why were people paying attention to the stuk like why was I mean the stum did plenty of stuff that was wrong that that most people didn't pay attention to why would people be attracted to the notion that the Omare is counted on a Sunday and the answer is because it gives you extra vacation time because here's the thing uh if you always count s on Sunday so what does that mean sh is going to be on Sunday right you understand this that the 50th day will always be the same day of the week as they were because 49 days is seven weeks then you have an extra day so as a result Shu you know was was not a uh it was a rough holiday period for people because is only one day there's no uh so if shat was Friday so you have a Friday in a Shabbat but otherwise you only have one day but if you always make it on if you always count the OM on Sunday then shu will always be on Sunday so you get a Shabbat and a Sunday so as a result people's theology was defined by the convenience of a two-day vacation uh again we maybe maybe we appreciate that less today Israel still Sundays are work day even in Israel you could appreciate that in America you know you wouldn't appreciate it because people generally have Sundays off anyway uh and the like but be it as it may our tradition is very different we interpret the word shabas in that P not to refer to Saturday but shabat to refer to the first day of p in other words when we count that means we start counting the second day of PES why would PES be called Shabbat so K say because even yov can be called Shabbat because it is a day of shita it is a day where we refrain from doing M albeit not to the same degree as shabas I'm going to leave it as a question for now and I'll address it later why does the Torah use a confusing term why doesn't it say you shall count from the day after the PES or the second day of pesak why you use the term Shabbat to refer to P we will come back to that but right now it's just very important to note the idea that the Sim and later the Kim interpreted Shabbat to be Saturday andat to be Sunday through understood Shabbat to be the first day of PES therefore Shabbat is the second day of P which is what we do right which we do and we'll discuss later why would the Tyra employ the phrase Shabbat if it means PES we we will come back to that question okay so you should start counting from the day after the first day of PES okay that's one marker so we have two markers here marker number one is start your count that's marker number one marker number two is from the day that you bring the OM now these two markers are the same we bring the OM on the second day of PES but note that there are two markers and you'll see why that's significant when do you start marker number one marker number two the day that you bring the Omare offering now what is the Omare offering so in the time where there was a mikash again this is in on the second day of P which is of course here in ER Isel we bring an offering of barley flour barley flour let see it's a coarse coarse meal really it's not really flour that's mixed with oil uh and part of it is burnt on the M A Fistful or three fingers full is burnt on the mbak the rest is eaten by the kohanim it is baked uh in an unleavened State now you might think oh that's obvious it's PES that's not the reason although that would also be a reason the truth is virtually all meal offerings have to be eaten in as unleavened bread this is very interesting even if you bring a corbon m in the middle of the year it generally has to be matah the bet mikdash is largely a free zone so the reason why the OM offering again the kamit is flour and oil and that's burnt on the altar the shirim The Leftovers are baked as barley matah never tasted barley matah but baked as barley matah and eaten by the kohanim and the reason it's barley matah is not only because it's PES but because the of the leftovers of after you're mck the kamit the kamit is the finger the the fistful have to be mat that is a general general rule with only two exceptions which we'll get to later now because the Tyra gives two different markers we have a very very fascinating M sh him is the Mitzvah of counting the OM It's called counting the truth is if you think about this count the Omare is actually grammatically not not even a sensible sentence what do what do you mean you're not counting the Omare you're counting 49 days starting from the bringing of the OM om is what you brought it's not what you count you see uh but so the idea of is not used in the Torah it's simply the colloquial expression that we use but here is the huge toos and most weon him take the position that when there's no B mikash and there's no there is no longer a to count the OM because after all the Torah says at least in the second marker you shall count from the day you bring the OM well last time I checked we didn't bring an OM this year if that's the case s today is no longer obligatory on a Torah level but we still do it mik to remember what was done when we had a bet mikash so most say and I'll give you a practical difference again in a minute that the mitvah of counting the is mik because without a corbon om the trigger of the spa is lacking now you may ask me a question well if that is the case then how can can I make a blessed you our God the king of the universe who Sanctified us with his Commandments and commanded us but God didn't command us because when there's no Corb it's only a not a how can I say but the answer is very simple if you're asking the question here you can ask the question on a gazillion Commandments we make it before we light kanah candles did God command you in the Torah to light Kan candles no before we read the mill did God command you to read the Milla no it's not in the Torah this this happened after the Torah even n Hashem commanded us to keep Shabbat hasm did not command Us in the Torah to light candles in honor of Shabbat so the gorah says and the RAM elaborates on this that since the Torah commands us to obey all of the takot of the because the Torah says in do not depart from whatever they tell you so every time the raban create a it becomes a Torah not because it's directly a there is no direct to count the OM as far as the Torah is concerned there is no direct to read Milla as far as the Torah is concerned there is no direct to light kanah candles as far as the torah's concerned but if the instructed me to do so and the Torah said I must obey the decisions of the so automatically Hashem commanded me to do it in other words all I'm saying is this is why we do make the even on a that's so even if I make the okay this is the of toos and most we shown him that is mid the ran is a but it is the r so it's very significant takes a different View and he says it's not clear what his proof is going to be but he says that the Torah gives you two different markers the Torah says you start counting the OM Shabbat which is the second day of pesak and it also says from the day you bring the OM but the rambam learns these are two independent markers either one of which will trigger the and therefore even though today we don't have a bikash yet unfortunately and we have we don't bring the OM today but from the day after uh the first day of P there is a and that's independent of the therefore according to the r the of counting is a Torah commandment not a Dr on now you may say well none of this is a practical difference because like both opinions you have to do it like both opinions you make a so is there any practical difference whether is the Ora or D you got to be careful sometimes you know sometimes when you teach and you even use the phrase which you know I use all the time but everybody does it's only drub on that's that sends a that sends a wrong message that's oh it's only drub I don't have to keep it well if you're a car rider stooky uh that may be true well even then you have to keep it but you don't think you have to keep it uh but certainly we have to keep dunans and indeed as the rambam pointed the ramb I just quoted pointed out every draan is a but there are nafas there are differences between draan and do say and let me give you a very very practical difference and that is the issue of counting the OM okay let let me uh describe what this is we know that according to uh night the day begins of course at night right the new day begins at night and that's based on the it is the evening and it is morning and that's Y and this is the fundamental uh principle of Jewish time that's the day begins from the preceding night not from midnight but from the preceding night now the question becomes what is the halic definition of night what is night right what is night so have the following tradition the definition of night is when the darkness in the sky is strong enough that you can see three intermediate level Stars that's called now you have to understand something it's a little complicated today because of uh light pollution and and and everything else you often don't see any stars in fact I I remember growing up as a kid I you know I read in the Kish God says to abam you're seed will be like the stars of the heaven and I look up at the sky and like I see like five things up there uh but then you go to amuka you go to a valley there are millions of things up there it's amazing they're really there so in the olden days they didn't go with uh you know 35 minutes 45 minutes 72 minutes that's not how they ended chabas they would go out side they would look at the sky and if they saw three now technically it's three middle level stars but but today we're M has be three small Stars you have to wait until the smaller stars are visible just to be sure but they didn't go with this automatic thing 42 or whatever it is we go with that simply because we can't always rely on what we see because often we don't see things okay but theic definition of night it's cloud completely it's cloudy yeah the definition of night is the visibility of three intermediate levels of stars which we translate to three smaller Stars which maybe a little longer than that it was a cloudy huh what did they do in no no so then situations no so so they then they did like we did they would have to kind of based on their experience it would be how many minutes would it be in other words you're you're right I mean uh ultimately they sometimes would have to estimate well well no I don't mean they never it's not like oh we have to wait till the clouds go away I mean they never did that but they they figured you know uh what did say once said it's a bit of a pun in Hebrew uh where yum Kipper was already over but some people were not sure and the like so they wanted to wait longer and longer soer pointed out the language of the is that if you don't see the if you don't see the stars you have to wait until the doubt is no longer in your heart said it's a little bit of a joke it doesn't it says it doesn't say it doesn't say you have to wait until you lose your heart because of the death meaning at some point you know you could say garu uh and and and the like okay so it is interesting to know that all of these debates about minutes and everything else are are fundamentally second level reconstructions of now what is I'm sorry what is the status of what is called Twilight Twilight is the period between sunset in Hebrew that and we call that Twilight so Hala has a term for the Twilight period And by the way although this is a little complicated but please rest assured I am grossly oversimplifying right now this is actually tremendously complicated sugya in which many not just a book but many many whole have been written on but I'm going to keep it uh relatively simple and that is the Twilight period is called ban has so that's the period again between Sunset and before is definitively daytime after is it is definitively nighttime the gamar gives us three possibilities maybe it's still Day meaning it's day until SA or maybe it's night to suff or maybe part of it is day and part of it is night and at some point in the darkness it switches we don't know and you don't even know where theu is going to be so Twilight is suff once you hit sa night Twilight is suff now this explains very simply why shabbat and yum Kipper is longer than 24 hours because here is the thing I got to refrain from Mala on Friday I mean normally I do it earlier but at the I the absolute end point for Mala is Sunset and the reason is because maybe BM is night if B Mas is night it's chabas but I can't end chabas at Sunset because maybe is day and I have to wait until so I got to be to begin chabas no later than sh but I have to be not to end shabas no earlier than and that's besides the Mitzvah of adding onto shabas that's a Mitzvah anyway but even without the Mitzvah of adding onto chabas that could even be a minute or two minutes but I have to keep Shas because is a suff huh you talking about yeah yes so that's that became a so again that became a custom to kind of add from the to The KES but it if you missed but for example uh if you did not light 18 minutes before Sunset you are still supposed to light until sunset so shabas does not I mean I mean if you accept shabas you accept shabus but shabas does not begin until and the 18 minutes is to make a fence around that and you sh of course we do 40 minutes uh but uh you know the MS is uh if a person didn't Light Within 18 minutes I would tell them to light until but we would probably say 3 minutes before sh because of a margin of error uh we would say 3 to four minutes before meaning do not light if you're within 3 to four minutes of sunset simply because clocks are not accurate and uh and everything and everything else yeah that you have to make a declaration that I am not taking shabus until oh that yeah that's if you light yeah yeah that's true because the general issue is that when a when a woman lights chabas candles she is considered to have accepted chabas with her lighting so if she wants to do until she must make a verbal declaration at the time that she lights yeah uh but if she didn't light then she hasn't accepted so there's no verbal declaration that she needs but if she likes and does not say the Declaration and and then something happens well it depends if she clearly had in her mind that she was not accepting chabas so even without a verbal declaration that's okay but on the other hand if she didn't have that in mind she is stuck she cannot do until because the lighting is considered to be an act of accepting shabas in fact as as you know uh the woman should not even blow out I mean some allow it but but when you light shabas candles and you didn't make a condition that you do you don't even blow out the match you put it down and let it go out by itself because you're not allowed to blow out the uh blow out the match uh this is a this is an issue about the driving uh you know to go to show after you like Etc you know so again this is maybe unfair discrimination men are not considered to have accepted shabas just because their wives have lit chabas candles uh but the woman generally does accept shabas unless she made a a condition now somebody gave rosha it's interesting people have the that they noticed that R mosha would uh be driven to mtj to his Yeshiva Bas medish Friday night after Friday afternoon after Li Bening so somebody said you know it doesn't pass it's not fitting for a great rashash Shiva that after his wife lights the candles uh he's driven and he wrote along chuba saying it's absolutely mucher it's mucher but he said he's not going to do it anymore he says if it's something that people think is wrong he doesn't want to do things that may take away from the sanctity of chabas so rosha was maab mus and rosha stopped doing it uh another interesting just me lean is laere and everyone knows that one of things one of kad's big campaigns is their Fillin campaign right I guess women probably have not been stopped but you know men have been stopped and say did you put Onin are you je are you Jewish uh do you put on Fillin or whatever whatever whatever it would be uh so you figure that the main audience for that type of campaign are you know non-religious Jews who know we it's filling but the rabbi actually targeted rosha Feinstein about its filling question he asked Feinstein if rosha Feinstein puts on Ru and R mosha because as we spoke a few weeks ago uh the normal F that people wear are based on rashi's opinion R is worn by and but most as do not wear R so ra Moshe wrote The Following he said he used to wear rabenu Fain in Russia but since it was a that's not required by Haka he only wore it because there was a sof that was 100% 100 100% reliable he says he has not found such a Sofer in America so when it comes to Rashi he's stuck he has to do the best that he can but he's not going to wear re without a Sofer that qualifies for the highest standard so said to him I will find you a Sofer that you will approve even you will approve of and uh he did find him a sof and rosha said he will start wearing re I don't know how many years rosha wore it but uh actually was M Moshe to go back to a wearing of thein of R all right so this is B now this is why for example by a britz britz Mila let's talk about a baby that is born after Sunset let's take a regular situation the baby is born Monday evening after Sunset now is he a Monday baby because if he's a Monday Baby he'll have a Monday bris if he's a Tuesday B Tuesday baby he'll have a Tuesday bris so if he's born before on Monday Monday bris if he's born after say Monday night that's Tuesday bris if he's born B you got to go with the later date meaning meaning the problem is this we don't know if B is day or night if it's day it would be a Monday if it's night it would be a Tuesday but I can't do the bris on Monday because if BM is night he's a Tuesday baby and I did a bris on the seventh day so I got to go with Tuesday now if it's night Tuesday is the eighth day and if it's day Tuesday is the ninth day but better to do a bris on day nine than to do a bris on day seven because a bris on day nine is kosher a bris on day seven is not Kosher so when you're about you always have to go with the later date okay know you got to assume B might be the next day and push off the bris now this raises a fascinating problem when it's a Friday baby because here you have a real problem the baby is born Friday after Sunset now we know if a baby is born on chabas WE of course do the bris on chabas a Brit La overrides the laws of chabas but only if it's an eighth day bris if you're doing the bris later uh you got to wait right if a baby's bris is delayed for whatever reason a is not so now here's the problem if the baby is born after when it's definitively chabas of course we do the bris and chabas if the baby is born before it's a Friday baby so of course we do the bris on Friday those are simple but if the baby is born in the Twilight period which can happen it happens here's our problem I I don't know if he's a Friday baby so the bris is Friday or it's a shabas baby so the bris is shabas so I can't do I can't do the bris on Friday because maybe he's a chabas baby and it's day seven but I can't do the bris on chabas because maybe he's a Friday baby and shabas is day nine and you can't do a ninth day bris on chabas so as a result you have to do it Sunday now what's fascinating is Sunday is the wrong day for sure Sunday is for sure not the Eighth Day Sunday is either the ninth day or Sunday is the 10th day so for sure you're doing it the wrong day but you have no choice because you can't do it Friday you can't do it chabas so you got to do it the wrong day either 9 or or 10 all right now all of this is just a little digression about B now here is the issue those of you who remember the old country America you know whatever it would be uh know that generally speaking uh in most shs unless it's a Yesa type minion andv are D in close proximity and the way they try to do it is that they'll D in M hopefully and finish before Shia and they will dive in arvit after Shia so so they'll they'll they'll time it so to speak that they'll D 10 or 15 minutes before so they finished by Sunset and then they'll davv after in the period that is called B now let me talk about that generally before I get to Counting of the OM that is one thing you need to know is this the of and the of they can all be said after that's actually true but the which is a has to be said after so if you're ding before say you can D in all of your but you have to remember to say shma over again when you get home at night that's very very important a lot of people may not be aware of this but anyone that is daving arvit before they're y they're y they are y but they must recite kishma over again now what about the counting of the OM can we count the OM in The Bash period so see how this is connected this is actually connected to the m toos and the ramb so it's been a long while since to remind you again according to the she of toos the counting of the OM when you don't have the Corbin of om is only a MRA according to the the counting of the is of now one of the big differences between a and is how do you deal with a doubt when you're not sure any doubt with respect to a Torah law you must Heir on the side of stringency stringency any doubt with respect to a d dban obligation you may be lenient example if I don't remember if I D since daving isid even any one of them I don't DAV again I give myself the benefit of the doubt if I don't remember if I said Sha of the morning or the evening I have to say it over again because now is a y so if the count of the OM is MRA I am allowed to be lenient and treat b as the next day so I could count the BM according to the rambam however that the counting of the OM is AA I would have to treat as a and not count so the shs that count the OM with a B right the new day the new day B they're treating it like night are following the view of the uh toos that the counting of the OM is midra and therefore those who are not to count the are are following the opinion of the r that it's a Mitzvah and therefore you have to be and treat as the day and therefore it's not the new time yet so the truth of the matter is schs are permitted to count with a but the individuals either no individuals want to be more meticulous either don't count with a braa at all till later or even if they count with a braa now they will count again without a without a you don't say the again when it's so at a minimum even if you counted in sh early uh and even if you made a br and you again there are grounds to permit making the uh one should very definitely count the Omar again in order to follow the rambam's position right so this is a sorry uh this is the Practical difference whether the counting of the OM Isa or the counting of the OM is Duran toos and the other Ron him uh versus the ramban now it's interesting that this possibly might be reflected in a another mlus which is a very small M it's not that significant but perhaps there's a deeper meaning behind it there are two texts when you count the OM right today is the 14th day of the OM right uh I counted last night so no problem right uh you know the idea someone ask you what day it is you didn't count yet you you always have to say yesterday was because otherwise you've counted you can't make the bre So when you say let's say the first day keep it simple do you say or do you say law what's the difference in meaning that's what I want to say right so what's the difference now keep in mind that your Yos say either way this is nothing to go crazy about uh you said B you said in fact maybe he didn't say anything you just you know and you intended to count this right so this is not a a major Earth shattering issue of am I yot you're yot but why are there two versions so here is the thing if you say B this is the first day in the Omare so you're using om in a non-literal sense meaning there's a period of time although grammatically it doesn't make sense that's called the OM period and this is the first day in the OM period That's What B om means the first day in the OM period if on the other hand you say this is the first day La om to the Omare you're connecting it to an event om means the BR bringing of The Barley offering so I would suggest I didn't see this but I would suggest that laware fits the rambam's text that the Mitzvah is connected to the bringing of the OM and we do it today Z is simply calling it a period of time and it's not connected to the Corban uh I'm sorry I meant the other way around La would be um TOA opinion that the Mitzvah is connected to the bringing of the OM and therefore today it's means it's not connected to the bringing of the OM it's a d so the other way so the ramb would say B the rambam would say B uh toas would say la om because it's connected to the bringing of the OM but it could be again I did not see a clear mcor uh and I'm not sure if if the geara of B lines up with these different we Shin them okay see is the first in the OM period means the OM period the OM period LA right La Means to the bringing mean it's connected to the bringing of the OM okay as a Corin as a Corbin the Corbin om yeah yeah you say both is that okay yeah you say the thing the counting and then no you you repeat some do that I don't think it's necessary but sure it just there's nothing wrong with it nothing wrong with it okay now I just want to bring in a third opinion and I'll just mention it and uh we'll we'll leave the elaboration for next week the op the third opinion about om is the opinion of a Reon who's very very very very prominent in the history OFA but largely unknown this is rabeno yuran rabo is quoted by the B and all the poim all the time he was a tment of the rush he wrote codes of Jewish law that were earlier than the shul so a lot of the incorporates R there are some strange legendary material about rabim that that it's hard to make sense of uh the legendary material is anyone who tries to reprint his book has a curse that the Die Young uh it's very mysterious on one hand uh he's absolutely very very authoritative and quoted all the time on the other hand there's kind of a a curse against reprinting his work and when they came out with new additions they wrote long introductions why the curse didn't apply to them they really had to spend like 20 Pages explaining why it was permitted apparently it may have something to do with the fact that the manuscript this is before printing were copied so many times precisely because he was so popular that there were many many many many Corruptions that were introduced and as a result there was a counter reaction can't use this book anymore it's been tainted by too many mistakes and that's why the person said but since I'm printing a corrected Edition it doesn't apply to me because I've corrected all the mistakes okay uh but be it as it may and I was a he was aan he was aan helmet of the rush but again anyone that learns to B I mean sees R is quoted all the time a great great great great authoritative POS so says the following we know when it comes to Counting of the Omare you have to count both in days and in weeks so for example last night we said this is the 14th day right two weeks and the gor says there's sorry there's a Mitzvah to count days a Mitzvah to count weeks you got to do both so says I'll leave this as a brain teaser puzzle for you to think about the whole week there is a Mitzvah to count days and weeks yes but the weeks I'm sorry the days are required by the Torah even when there's no om and the weeks only apply when there's an OM so unlike when there's a carbon carbon om so yeah when I say om I mean corbon om so here here are our three opinions to says the Mitzvah is M when there's no B the r says the Mitzvah is even when there's no B says the Mitzvah of counting days is min Torah even when there's no B Mikes but the Mitzvah of counting weeks is only M when there's no again when there is a bik they're both when there's no B mikash it's the weeks that are D now obviously Ra's opinion needs some explanation I mean I can understand that the Mitzvah is linked to the cor which make it raan today or I can understand it's not linked to the carbon om which would make ITA but why would weeks be linked to the carbon om and days not where do you get that difference now I do want to say though that although we don't pass once again I have a little speculation that this might explain a certain that some spom have let's take yesterday we said yesterday now some say like this in other words let let me finish in other words instead of putting the word b or La I'm not dealing with that at the end they put it after the days and not after the weeks had you heard that geara why would they put it after the days and not after the weeks my speculative answer I didn't see any source for this is that since according to it is the days count that's a Torah requirement today and the weeks count is only a they want to give prominence to the count of the days by putting the word or that's a separate thing after the Y meaning in the time of the bikash they would have said the word at the end they move the OM to the Yim and not to the okay so again we we'll uh we'll have more I'm sorry we'll have more detail about this but for now just be aware of the three basic opinions regarding the counting of the OM have a good way