Count the days

(20) Blessed is the Lord. Day by day He supports us, God, our deliverance. Selah.

(15) And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: (16) you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to יהוה.

(9) You shall count off seven weeks; start to count the seven weeks when the sickle is first put to the standing grain.

(1) A prayer of Moses, the man of God. O Lord, You have been our refuge in every generation. (2) Before the mountains came into being, before You brought forth the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity You are God. (3) You return man to dust; You decreed, “Return you mortals!” (4) For in Your sight a thousand years are like yesterday that has passed, like a watch of the night. (5) You engulf men in sleep; at daybreak they are like grass that renews itself; (6) at daybreak it flourishes anew; by dusk it withers and dries up. (7) So we are consumed by Your anger, terror-struck by Your fury. (8) You have set our iniquities before You, our hidden sins in the light of Your face. (9) All our days pass away in Your wrath; we spend our years like a sigh. (10) The span of our life is seventy years, or, given the strength, eighty years; but the best of them are trouble and sorrow. They pass by speedily, and we are in darkness. (11) Who can know Your furious anger? Your wrath matches the fear of You. (12) Teach us to count our days rightly, that we may obtain a wise heart.

(22) It is a positive commandment to count seven complete weeks from the day the omer is brought, as [Leviticus 23:15] states: "And from the day after the Sabbath, you shall count... seven weeks." It is a mitzvah to count the days together with the weeks, as [ibid.:15] states: "You shall count 50 days." One should count at the inception of the [new] day. Therefore one counts at night, [beginning] from the night of the sixteenth of Nisan.

(23) When one forgot and did not count at night, he should count during the day. One should count only when standing. If one counted while sitting, he fulfilled his obligation.

(24) This mitzvah is incumbent on every Jewish male in every place and at all times. Women and servants are absolved from it.

The Sages taught in a baraita: The verse states: “And you shall count for you from the morrow after the day of rest [hashabbat], from the day that you brought the sheaf of the waving; seven weeks there shall be complete” (Leviticus 23:15). The phrase: “And you shall count for you,” teaches that the mitzva of counting is not a communal obligation. Rather, there should be a counting by each and every person.

§ The Gemara analyzes the matter itself of Abaye’s statement cited in the course of the previous discussion. Abaye said: It is a mitzva to count days, and it is also a mitzva to count weeks. The Gemara notes that in fact the Sages of the study hall of Rav Ashi counted days and they also counted weeks. Ameimar counted days but not weeks. In explanation of his practice, Ameimar said: Since there is no longer an omer offering, the counting is performed only in commemoration of the Temple. Therefore, one does not need to be so scrupulous to count both days and weeks.

(7) If he forgot [to count] and did not do the blessing all night, he should count during the day without a blessing.

(8) If he forgot to bless on one of the days, between the first day [of the omer] and the rest of the days, he should count the rest of the days without a blessing. But, if he uncertain if he skipped a single day and didn’t count, he should count the days with a blessing.

(4) And because of this — that it is [the] essence of Israel, and because of it were they redeemed and went up to all of the greatness to which they rose — we were commanded to tally from the morrow of the holiday of Pesach until the day of the giving of the Torah; to show about ourselves the great desire [we have] for the honored day, which our hearts yearn [for] like “a slave seeks shade” and always tallies when will come the yearned-for time that he goes out to freedom. As the tally shows about a man that all of his deliverance and all of his desire is to reach that time. And that which we count to the omer, meaning, “Such-and-such days have passed from the tally,” and we do not tally “Such-and-such days do we have to the time,” is because all of this shows us the great desire to reach the time [of Shavuot]. Therefore, we do not want to mention at the beginning of our counting the large number of days that we have to reach the offering of the two breads of [Shavuot]. And let it not be difficult for you, to say, “If so, after most of the days of these seven weeks have passed, why do we not mention the minority of the remaining days?” [It is] as one should not change the nature of the counting in the middle. And if you shall ask, “If so, why do we begin counting from the day after [Pesach] and not from the first day?” The answer [is that] it is because the first day is entirely dedicated to remembering the great miracle, which is the exodus from Egypt, that is a sign and a proof of the world having been created and of God’s — may He be blessed — providence over people. And we may not mix [something else into] its joy and mention anything else with it. And as such, the counting begins immediately from the second day. And we should not say, “Today is such-and-such days from the second day of Pesach” — as the count would not be fitting to say, “From the second day.” And therefore it was ordained to count the tally from that which is done on it — and this is the omer-offering, which is a significant sacrifice. As through it is the remembrance that we believe that God, blessed be He, wants — through His providence over people — to sustain them and [so] renews for them the seed of the grains in each and every year, to live through them.

(5) From the laws of the commandment is that which they, may their memory be blessed, said (Menachot 66a) that it is a commandment to tally them from the evening so that they be complete. As the verse stated, “complete shall they be” — and they, may their memory be blessed, said, “From when are they complete? From when he begins from the evening.” And nonetheless, the commentators (Tosafot in the name of Behag on Menachot, s.v. zecher) explained that if he forgot and did not tally from the evening, he [may] tally on the morrow the whole day. And some say there that one who forgot and did not tally one day may not tally again that year, since they are all one commandment; and since he forgot one day from them, the entire count is negated for him. And our teacher in our generation did not concede to this reasoning. Rather, one who forgot a day should say, “Yesterday was such,” without a blessing; and tally the other [days] with all of Israel. And it is a choice [fulfillment] of the commandment to tally [while] standing (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Daily Offerings and Additional Offerings 7:23). And he recites the blessing, “Who has sanctified us, etc.” And one who has tallied without a blessing has fulfilled [the commandment], and [hence] he is not permitted to return and tally with a blessing (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Daily Offerings and Additional Offerings 7:25). And the rest of its details are in Tractate Menachot. (See Tur, Orach Chaim 479.)

It is taught in a baraita: They said about Shammai the Elder that all his days he would eat in honor of Shabbat. How so? If he found a choice animal, he would say: This is for Shabbat. If he subsequently found another one choicer than it, he would set aside the second for Shabbat and eat the first. He would eat the first to leave the better-quality animal for Shabbat, which continually rendered his eating an act of honoring Shabbat. However, Hillel the Elder had a different trait, that all his actions, including those on a weekday, were for the sake of Heaven, as it is stated: “Blessed be the Lord, day by day; He bears our burden, our God who is our salvation; Selah” (Psalms 68:20), meaning that God gives a blessing for each and every day. That is also taught in a baraita in more general terms: Beit Shammai say: From the first day of the week, Sunday, start preparing already for your Shabbat. And Beit Hillel say: “Blessed be the Lord, day by day.”

(1) יהוה said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: (2) This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. (3) Speak to the community leadership of Israel and say that on the tenth of this month each of them shall take a lamb to a family, a lamb to a household.

(13) I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, (14) but both with those who are standing here with us this day before our God יהוה and with those who are not with us here this day.

(1) יהוה spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: These are My fixed times, the fixed times of יהוה, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions. (3) On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a sabbath of complete rest, a sacred occasion. You shall do no work; it shall be a sabbath of יהוה throughout your settlements.

(1) A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven: (2) A time for being born and a time for dying, A time for planting and a time for uprooting the planted; (3) A time for slaying and a time for healing, A time for tearing down and a time for building up; (4) A time for weeping and a time for laughing, A time for wailing and a time for dancing; (5) A time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones, A time for embracing and a time for shunning embraces; (6) A time for seeking and a time for losing, A time for keeping and a time for discarding; (7) A time for ripping and a time for sewing, A time for silence and a time for speaking; (8) A time for loving and a time for hating; A time for war and a time for peace.