[Avodah] sephira question

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, May 05, 2009 at 07:35:02PM -0400, hankman wrote:
: I also think the ordinal/cardinal issue is a red herring as is the
: notion of temimos as an answer to my question. They do not imply a count
: of days in arrears, as I could hear these going either way - neither being
: more compelling than the other. We seem to want to dance at both chasunas,
: its 49 that are also fifty that are sort of in arrears but not really
: as we only count 49 with 49 brochos (which implies count in advance).

I think the distinction does help. ("Red herring" is a strong term, I
think you're confusing my pointer to other people grappling with the
same question with someone claiming to present a final answer.)

Are we counting days, or measuring time? I am suggesting that we count
50 days because we're measuring the passage of 49 days from the night
of the seder (day 0). "Hayom yom echad" means, it's 1 day, 24 hours,
since day 0. Which would also work for not counting shavu'ah echad
until one week since day 0.

Day 0 is the 1st day, such that when we measure the passage of 49 days,
we fulfilled "tisperu chamishim yom".

:-)BBii!
-Micha