Siman 489, Se'if 1 (4)

The Shulchan Aruch, the laws of Sefiras Ha'Omer: "He counts the days and the weeks... and so on until he reaches the fourteenth day"
(Shulchan Aruch)

The question: why do we count from the Omer?

The wording of the count: We say "today is such and such a day la'Omer," meaning that we count from the day the Omer offering was brought, a day that is already behind us.
The difficulty: The entire fifty day process is a movement toward Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah. It would seem more fitting to count toward what is coming ("another so many days until Matan Torah") rather than counting from something whose time has already passed.
Two answers: One answer from the Sefer HaChinuch, which we explained in the previous shiur, and a second answer from the Alshich, with which we will now complete what we began.

The Alshich's answer: from barley to wheat

Minchah offerings come from wheat: Some korbanos come from animals and some come from produce, and a korban that comes from produce is called a minchah. Every minchah comes from wheat, including the minchah that accompanies a korban todah and any minchah a person brings as a voluntary offering.
Two minchah offerings come from barley: Only two minchah offerings come from barley: the minchah of the Omer, and the minchah of the sotah, the woman whose husband suspects her of unfaithfulness, who brings a minchah as part of the procedure in the Beis HaMikdash.

"She acted like an animal, therefore her offering is animal food"
(Mishnah)

Barley as animal food: From here we see that barley is defined as animal food, and the minchah of the Omer comes from barley.
The Shtei HaLechem come from wheat: On Shavuos we bring the Shtei HaLechem, the two loaves, a minchah made from wheat, which is human food.
Grain and understanding: Chazal teach that a child begins to develop da'as, understanding, from the time he starts eating grain. Until then his mind is driven by instinct, on the level of an animal, and from the time he eats grain and bread he becomes more of a human being.
The difference between a human being and an animal: A human being rules over his nature and his drives. "There is no free man other than one who occupies himself with Torah": a free man is not someone who does whatever he wants, because the one doing the wanting is the nature he was born with and the body making demands on him. A free man is one who rules over himself.
The berachah before eating (the Ritva): Everything is given to a person conditionally, comparable to something consecrated that must be examined and redeemed. And the idea behind it: a person does not grab at his food, he masters his appetite (similar to what we explained regarding the chagigah of the fourteenth).
The progression of the count: In Egypt the Jewish people were slaves with no Torah and no laws, each person doing as he pleased, and to a certain degree they were like the other nations who have no moral code. That is why we count "today is two days la'Omer," "today is three days," meaning: how far we have moved away from the Omer and from that animal-like state.
Moving away is really ascending: Moving away is not a goal in itself. It happens by a person raising himself to a higher level, leaving the state of an animal for the state of a human being, and preparing himself to receive the Torah.

The Dubno Maggid's parable

"And Yaakov went out from Be'er Sheva and went toward Charan"
(Bereishis)

The precise reading of the pasuk: Why does the Torah stress both the departure from Be'er Sheva and the journey to Charan? Why not simply say that he went to Charan?
The parable: An orphan whose father married a difficult woman, and the boy suffered from her. When he turned eighteen his father proposed a match for him, and he traveled from his town to his bride in Yerushalayim. With every step that took him further from home he was happy, because he was getting away from her, and with every step that brought him closer to his intended he was happy as well.
The application: Yaakov was happy at leaving Be'er Sheva, escaping his brother and the problems he had there, and he was happy at drawing closer to Charan, to the place destined for him and to his match.
For our purposes: Everything depends on a person's orientation, whether he is aiming to move away or to draw close. In Sefiras Ha'Omer both orientations are present at once: moving away from the animal-like state of Egypt, and drawing closer to receiving the Torah.

A further hint: kemach

The flour offerings: The barley minchah of the Omer and the wheat minchah of Shavuos both point to kemach, flour.
Without flour there is no Torah: From the bringing of the Omer until the Shtei HaLechem we travel from flour to flour, and as we know, if there is no flour there is no Torah.
Kemach as an acronym: Kemach can also be read as kinyan mem-ches, the acquisition of the forty eight things through which Torah is acquired.

Days and weeks in the count (Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 7)

"He counts days and weeks, for it is written: You shall count fifty days, and it is written: Seven weeks you shall count for yourself"
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 7)

The two pesukim: On one side, "from when the sickle begins in the standing grain you shall begin to count seven weeks," and on the other side, "until the day after the seventh week you shall count fifty days."
A dispute in the Gemara: The Gemara debates what the essence of the count is, the days or the weeks, and among the later authorities there are six or seven different approaches. The Shulchan Aruch ruled according to one particular approach, that one must count both.
Why it matters to know that other approaches exist: Even an approach that was not accepted as the halachah still carries a certain standing, and at times one can rely on it in a pressing situation or where there would be a monetary loss, as in the expression "Rabbi Shimon is worthy to be relied upon in a pressing situation." In practice we follow the accepted halachah, and there is no need to go through all the approaches here, because with too many trees you cannot see the forest.
The reasoning that the days are the essence: The counting of the weeks is stated as "from when the sickle begins in the standing grain," and is tied to the harvesting of the Omer, which does not exist nowadays. "You shall count fifty days," by contrast, is not tied to the Omer at all, but to the days between Pesach and Shavuos. Furthermore, Shavuos is the only Yom Tov in the Torah with no calendar date; its time is fixed by the count of fifty days, which is not dependent on the harvest or on the offering.

If he counted the days and did not mention the weeks

"If he counted only the days and did not mention the weeks, some say that after the fact he has fulfilled his obligation, and some say that he must go back and count days and weeks as required... he goes back and counts without a berachah, and if he forgot to go back and count, he counts the remaining days with a berachah"
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 7)

The Mishnah Berurah's ruling: He prefers the approach that the days are the essence, and therefore someone who mentioned the days and forgot the weeks has not invalidated his count after the fact.
In practice: He goes back and counts days and weeks properly, without a berachah.
If he did not go back: He counts the remaining days with a berachah, since he did count the days, having said "today is eight days la'Omer," even though he did not say "which is one week and one day."

If he counted the weeks and not the days

"And if he counted the weeks and not the days, for example, on the seventh day he said today is one week and did not mention the days, according to all opinions he has not fulfilled his obligation"
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 7)

The reason: The days are the essence of the count, and this is the precise reading of the Gemara, that the approaches which count days are the foundation and the halachah follows them. Therefore someone who says only "today is one week la'Omer" has not fulfilled his obligation, even though on the surface what he said was true, because the mention of the days is missing.
A qualification on the wording: The phrase "according to all opinions" is not precise; there are later authorities who disagree and hold otherwise. These are interesting approaches, but we will not enter into them here so as not to blur the main point, and in practice we follow the Mishnah Berurah.
The practical difficulty: Since he has not fulfilled his obligation, it follows that he must repeat the count with a berachah, and where there are opinions that disagree, the rule is not to recite a berachah out of doubt, because of the concern of a berachah recited in vain and using Hashem's Name in vain. Had he gone back and said "today is seven days, which is one week, la'Omer" without a berachah, he would have fulfilled the mitzvah, so the ruling here is not straightforward.
Where the issue is really tested: Someone who counted only weeks and then went back and counted properly counts again without a berachah and has fulfilled his obligation. The main practical difference concerns someone who missed an entire day, where according to the view that he did not fulfill his obligation he loses the ability to count with a berachah from then on. That issue was not clarified here.

Mentioning the weeks every day (Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 9)

"And on the eighth day he says: today is eight days, which is one week and one day, and so on until he reaches the fourteenth day, when he says: today is fourteen days, which is two weeks"
(Shulchan Aruch)

"And if he said only today is eight days and did not conclude with which is one week and one day, he has fulfilled his obligation, since he mentioned the weeks yesterday on the seventh day. And likewise if he said only today is one week and one day, he has fulfilled his obligation, since he already mentioned the days that passed, each one on its own day"
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 9)

The days change and the weeks do not: The days are new each day, thirty five, thirty six, thirty seven, but the week stays the same week throughout the six days following the completion of a week.
The announcement was already made on the seventh day: We always count what has already passed, and when he said on the seventh day "today is seven days, which is one week," he already announced that a week was completed. When he says on the eighth day "one week and one day," he is repeating that very same week, and likewise on the ninth and tenth, adding nothing new.
An example: He said "today is thirty five days, which is five weeks," and the next day "today is thirty six days, which is five weeks and one day." The five weeks were already stated explicitly, and repeating them on each of the following six days adds nothing.
Two lines of reasoning to validate it after the fact: Not only because the days are the essence, but even if we would not say that the days are the essence, there is reasoning that omitting the weeks is no deficiency, since he mentioned that week once and with that its mention was complete.
A difficulty, since each day is its own mitzvah: If each day's count is a self-contained unit, to the point that one who forgot a day cannot continue, it would seem that he should have to mention the weeks every day as well. The answer: a week is not a day but a period of time, and there is no need to announce each day that he stands within that period, since he already announced yesterday that the fifth week had begun. Furthermore, the definition that each day is a separate unit is only one approach, and there are at least five approaches on this question.
A similar difficulty in the laws of berachos: On the marror we do not recite borei pri ha'adamah, because he already recited it earlier at the seder, whereas on each cup of wine we recite a fresh berachah and the berachah of kiddush does not cover the other cups. The distinctions in the laws of berachos are not simple to explain, and this is how the poskim established them.

Precision in the wording of the count

Masculine form: We say "shavua echad" and "shnei shavuos," not "shtei shavuos," because shavua is a masculine noun.
Yamim and yom: Up to ten we say "yamim," and from eleven onward we say "yom," for example "echad ve'esrim yom."

"And none of these details are essential, they are only for the elegance of the language"
(Mishnah Berurah)

It does not invalidate: Someone who said "esrim ve'echad yom" instead of "echad ve'esrim yom" has fulfilled his obligation; the issue is only what is more becoming in the language of the count.

"May the Beis HaMikdash be rebuilt," which we say after the count

"And it is the custom to say after the count: May it be Your will that the Beis HaMikdash be rebuilt speedily in our days"
(Mishnah Berurah)

The reason: So that we should merit to fulfill the mitzvah of bringing the Omer.
It is not a late custom: Although the phrase "it is the custom to say" sounds like a practice introduced by the later authorities, the Tosafos already bring it.

Sha'ar HaTziyun (note 15)

The Shibolei HaLeket: One of the works of the Rishonim, it brings the custom without explaining the reason, and the reason is self-evident: someone who wants to fulfill the mitzvah of bringing the Omer looks forward to the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash.
From the angle of the prohibition of chadash: By the enactment of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, new grain is forbidden until the seventeenth of Nisan, whereas in the time of the Beis HaMikdash it was permitted from the sixteenth of Nisan, from the moment the Omer was waved. So we lose a day of eating, or half a day, and therefore it is fitting to mention the service of the Beis HaMikdash and to pray for it, that things should return to the way they were, with the permission depending on the bringing of the Omer and not on the date of the month.
Nowadays: To be on the safe side we wait until the seventeenth of Nisan.

The Tosafos' reason (Megillah), and why we do not say this after shofar and lulav

A reference without a location: The Mishnah Berurah cites Tosafos in Megillah without giving the page, since he was writing for talmidei chachamim.
The words of Tosafos: This case is not comparable to blowing shofar or taking the lulav. It appears that regarding those they noted that they are a remembrance of the Beis HaMikdash, though we do not have the exact wording in front of us.
The background regarding lulav: By Torah law, outside the Beis HaMikdash one takes the lulav on the first day only, "and you shall take for yourselves on the first day," while in the Beis HaMikdash and in Yerushalayim they took it all seven days. After the destruction Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai enacted that we take it seven days as a remembrance of the Beis HaMikdash (and when the first day falls on Shabbos there is a separate discussion).
The background regarding shofar: In the Beis HaMikdash they blew the shofar on a Rosh Hashanah that fell on Shabbos, whereas nowadays we do not blow on Shabbos.

(A tradition was mentioned in passing that the Rif blew shofar in his beis din in Alisana on Shabbos; it was not elaborated on here.)

Rejecting the "loss" explanation: One might have suggested that we do not ask there for the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash because with it rebuilt the performance would be reduced, since by Torah law he would take the lulav on only one day. That is no reason at all; obviously the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash outweighs taking the lulav more often.
The answer of Tosafos: With shofar and lulav there is an act, there is something actually performed, and he blows and takes even nowadays. With Sefiras Ha'Omer nowadays there is no act at all, there is no bringing of the Omer, only a remembrance, and that is precisely why here we add the request that the Beis HaMikdash be rebuilt.

In passing · Being tested on knowledge of the laws of berachos

Those who were exacting about berachos: The Gemara relates that the exacting ones would test a person on the laws of berachos, both on what berachah to recite and on its exact wording, because the wording matters too.
Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson: He would examine candidates for semichah in the laws of berachos.
A story about a chosson: When people wanted to test whether a young man was proficient in these matters, they would bring him to the bride's home and set before him a plate with ten kinds of fruit, to see whether he knew which berachah to recite on each and in what order. One chosson, afraid he would lose the match, excused himself claiming a stomach ailment, went out to the outhouse, and there met a talmid chacham who had already been through such a test and learned the answer from him. He came back happy and sat down in front of the plate, and meanwhile they had switched the fruits.