[Mesorah] Ba'omer vs la'omer.

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 04:22:09PM +0300, Yisrael Dubitsky wrote:
: How similar (or not) is all this to the discussion here a while back re kol
: yisrael areivim zeh BAzeh vs LAzeh?

I first thought the similarity is little, but while writing this post
I changed my mind (and modified this sentence). So, I went back for
a rewrite...

I was first thinking that both are preposition confusion, but one is
about the preposition to use when counting, the other is about the
preposition to use for the word "areivim", because "areiv" varies so
wildly in meaning. The root meaning is mixture, but once it came to
mean guarantor, in the sense of someone else mixed into the deal, the
meaning shifts greatly. Does the preposition change, or not? And does
areivim zeh bazeh actually mean "mixed", as the Or haChaim suggests?

The thought that caused me to shift my thought midpost is that the
same is true for omer. The word originally meant a qorban, and grew
to include the period being counted. When the meaning grew, should the
preposition shift to "ba-"? (Admittedly that's the reverse shift as in
"areivim", where the raw meaning would take "ba-" and the derived "la-",
but the sevara of changing preposition vs not parallels.) And perhaps
even we're counting days since the original meaning -- when the qorban
should have been brought.


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 16th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        2 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Tifferes: What type of discipline
Fax: (270) 514-1507                             does harmony promote?