[Avodah] omer - Rihal

[Michael Makovi]

> It may be old news to many but I just learned about the opinion of
> R.Yehuda Halevi on the date pf shavuot.
> He holds that from the Torah there is no fixed date for bringing the
> Omer it depends on the harvest season. Shavuot starts on the 50th
> day afterwards (ie count 49 days).
> It was onlt chazal that set it to be brought on the 16th of Nissan and
> so Shavuot is on the 5/6/7 of Sivan and with the calendar on the 6th.
>
> This answers many questions
> ...
> R Eli Turkel

The Kuzari says one other thing: Since the Torah set no exact date,
and it was only Chazal who hard-set it to count from the second day of
Pesach, the Kuzari says that the drash by the Tzadukim really has
nothing inherently wrong with it; in theory, the Tzadukim were as
correct as Chazal, and there was nothing wrong with the former. The
only thing the Tzadukim did wrong was go against a decision that had
already been codified by Chazal.

Even if the Kuzari's theory that the Omer has no d'oraita-date, is
incorrect, we can still drink to the hava amina:

If drashot used to be more flexible than we sometimes realize, i.e.
drashot could be at times creative and at times overturned in favor of
new drashot, then many times, the drashot of the Tzadukim wouldn't be
anything objectionable, except that they

a) went against a Chazalic decision that for one reason or another was
not disputable or overturnable (as with our present case of the Omer
aliba d'Kuzari)

b) were Tzadukim after all, so we didn't listen to them even when they
were correct. There is a midrash of one of the many Rabban Gamliels
being put to death, and he asked Rabbi Akiva why, and Rabbi Akiva
replied that maybe he once found a drasha of a min to be pleasing, and
indeed, Rabban Gamliel replied that a min gave a nice halachic drash,
and Rabban Gamliel liked it, and instead, he should have rejected
anything from an apikorus even if it was valid in theory.

c) (Of course, at times, the Tzadukim went against an explicit TSBP
kabbalah, that no drash could overturn. End of discussion.)

Mikha'el Makovi