פרשת אמור תשכ"ה - ספירת העומר וחג השבועות

And ye shall make proclamation on the selfsame day; there shall be a holy convocation unto you; ye shall do no manner of servile work; it is a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

והקרבתם אשה לה' שבעת ימים, the offering of the mussaph offering for seven consecutive days is to remind us that the intervening days of this festival are not totally secular in nature, although only the first and seventh day have been accorded the title מקרא קודש. The whole matter of the mussaph, additional communal offerings, has not been gone into in detail here as this is a subject treated in Numbers when this legislation appears in detail in chapters 28-29. The reason why in connection with the New Year’s day the Torah does mention the offering of an אשה לה', is that this day already qualified for a mussaph offering, it being not only the first day of the new year but also the first day of the month of Tishrey. In Numbers 29,6 the Torah once more draws our attention to this fact, [presumably to tell us that New Year’s day does not replace the significance of the date of the new moon. Ed.] If you were to counter that אשה ה' is also mentioned in this chapter in connection with the day of Atonement, remember that what is referred to there are burnt offerings and sin offerings, both on behalf of the High Priest and the people but not by each individual member of the people as are sin offerings generally, not mussaph offerings which are mandatory communal offerings.

We learned in the mishna that Rabbi Eliezer said that if slaughter, which is ordinarily forbidden on Shabbat as a biblically prohibited labor, nevertheless overrides Shabbat when performed for the sake of the Paschal lamb, then activities that are prohibited by rabbinic decree should certainly override Shabbat when performed for that purpose. Rabbi Yehoshua disagreed, arguing that the law governing a Festival proves otherwise. Rabbi Eliezer countered that the law governing an optional activity, such as preparing food on a Festival, cannot be brought as proof with regard to the mitzva of offering the Paschal lamb. The Gemara notes that Rabbi Yehoshua follows his regular line of reasoning, for he said that rejoicing on a Festival is also a mitzva, and therefore whatever one does in order to enhance one’s enjoyment of the Festival is considered an act performed for the sake of a mitzva, just like the offering of a sacrifice. For it was taught in a baraita that these two tanna’im disagreed about this matter: Rabbi Eliezer says: A person has nothing but to choose on a Festival; he either eats and drinks or sits and learns the entire day, but there is no specific mitzva to eat on the Festival. Rabbi Yehoshua, on the other hand, says: Divide the day, half of it for eating and drinking and half of it for the study hall, for he holds that eating and drinking are obligatory on the Festival. And Rabbi Yoḥanan said: And both of them derived their opinions from one verse, i.e., the two of them addressed the same textual difficulty, resolving it in different ways. For one verse says: “It shall be an assembly for the Lord your God; you shall do no labor” (Deuteronomy 16:8), which indicates that the day is set aside for Divine service, and another verse says: “It shall be an assembly for you; you shall do no servile labor” (Numbers 29:35), which indicates a celebratory assembly for the Jewish people. Rabbi Eliezer holds that the two verses should be understood as offering a choice: The day is to be either entirely for God or entirely for you. And Rabbi Yehoshua holds that it is possible to fulfill both verses: Split the day into two, half of it for God and half of it for you.

GEMARA: The Sages taught in a baraita: On the first day of Passover, the congregation reads from the portion of the Festivals (Leviticus 22:26–23:44), and they read as the haftara the account of the Passover celebrated at Gilgal (Joshua 5:2–14). The Gemara comments: And nowadays, in the Diaspora, when there are two Festival days of Passover, on the first day they read as the haftara the account of the Passover celebrated at Gilgal, and on the next day they read from the account of the Passover observed by Josiah (II Kings 23).

'חמשים יום והקרבתם מנחה חדשה לה‎… FIFTY DAYS — AND YE SHALL OFFER A NEW OBLATION UNTO THE LORD — i. e. on the fiftieth day ye shall offer it. This, I say, is a Midrashic explanation, but the literal sense is: “Even unto the morrow of the seventh week which is the fiftieth day shall ye number”: the text has its phrases inverted.

'חמשים יום והקרבתם מנחה חדשה לה‎… FIFTY DAYS — AND YE SHALL OFFER A NEW OBLATION UNTO THE LORD — i. e. on the fiftieth day ye shall offer it. This, I say, is a Midrashic explanation, but the literal sense is: “Even unto the morrow of the seventh week which is the fiftieth day shall ye number”: the text has its phrases inverted. מנחה חדשה A NEW MEAL OFFERING — It was the first meal-offering that was offered from the new crop. And if you ask, “But surely the meal-offering of the Omer has already been offered on the 16th of Nisan”?! Then I reply: It (the Omer) was not like all the other meal-offerings — which, with one exception (cf. Numbers 5:15), were all brought of wheat — since it was brought of barley and therefore it is not taken into account (cf. Menachot 84b).

לחם תנופה WAVE LOAVES — i. e. heave loaves that have been heaved in honour of the Lord. It is these which constitute the “new meal-offering” mentioned above (v. 16).