[Avodah] How much is an Omer?

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

The last pasuk in Parshas haMan tells us that "An omer is one-tenth of an eifah." To me, it seems likely to me that the Torah told us this because it was an uncommon measurement. But even so, it seems somewhat superfluous. Let me offer two versions of what is probably the same question:

a) Why was this information included in Torah Sheb'ksav? Isn't this exactly the sort of thing which is usually relegated to Torah Sheb'al Peh?

b) Are there any other examples of where the Torah goes out of its way to define a word? We have lots of places where the Torah explains why a person was given a certain name, but that's not quite the same thing.

The Torah tells us not to eat pork because pigs have cloven hooves but they don't chew their cud. But in that case, the Torah is NOT telling us how to recognize what a chazir is. The Torah presumes that we would recognize a chazir when we see one, and it's just explaining why it is tamei. I'm looking for an example of where some technical term appears in the Torah - and names of animals or plants *would* qualify for this - and the Torah goes out of its way to explain it for us. (There are probably lots of examples, and I just can't think of any.)

Akiva Miller

PS: Hmmm... Here's a very wild guess: As I wrote above, there are many examples of where, in the course of the story, we are "present" at the birth of a baby, and the Torah tells us how the baby got that name. In Parshas haMan, we are present at the creation of a new kind of food, about which we asked, "Mann hu?" This whole parsha is one which defines for us the meaning of the word "mann". An argument could also be made that this parsha defined the word "Shabbos" as well. So maybe that's why it defined "omer" too. Did I just answer my own question? Any comments?

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