[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:
> ...
>
> Mikha'el Makovi

This is all in Kuzari 3:41.

I'll note that R' Turkel's inferences, as well as mine, are nowhere in
the Kuzari. All the Kuzari says is that the Torah left the date of the
Omer to the discretion of the sages, and R' Turkel derived what he did
about relationship between Pesach and Shavuot, and I derived what I
did about drashot of Tzadukim. But neither of our inferences are found
in the Kuzari itself, so don't look too hard.

Mikha'el Makovi