[Avodah] sephira question

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 12:23:32PM -0400, hankman wrote:
: This has bothered me for a while. The mitzva of sephira is to count
: two time periods, both the days and the weeks of the omer. We count the
: days in advance but the weeks in arrears, why?

RJJB asks this and a more general question on his
blog in an entry titled "The Omer: Cardinal or Ordinal"
<http://thanbook.blogspot.com/2009/04/omer-cardinal-or-ordinal.html>.
Cardinal: The number 7 as in shiv'ah neqi'im. The size of a set
Ordinal: The n-th, such as the 8th in "beyom hashemini yimol besar
    arlaso".

In <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol13/v13n009.shtml#13>, R' Elozor
Reich also discusses the question. He suggests that we are actually
counting the days "in arrears". "Mimacharas haShabbos" because we're
counting days since the Shabbos.

I rephrase his point in terms of the cardinal vs ordinal question in
that discussion <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol13/v13n013.shtml#06>.
There I also note that this fits the Maadanei Yom Tov defining "tisperu
chamishim yom" as requiring 50 whole days, including day 0 (the 15th
of Nissan). On the first Pesach, it wasn't tamim, and the year of
yetzi'as Mitzrayim was counted from Nissan 16. This explains why Shavuos
was a day later than usual.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 22nd day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        3 weeks and 1 day in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Chesed sheb'Netzach: Do I take control of the
Fax: (270) 514-1507                 situation for the benefit of others?