Question

In honor of my teacher and rabbi, the crown of Israel, holy of holies, wholly suffused with everlasting love, the great master of Torah, may he live long:
 
Greetings and all best wishes.
 
The Chayei Adam (Rule 5:16) and Pri Megadim (Introduction to the Laws of Blessings, sec. 4) ruled that even in a case where there is a double doubt as to whether one must recite a blessing—for example, there is doubt whether he ate an olive’s bulk, and doubt whether a whole creature obligates even with less than an olive’s bulk—he does not recite the blessing. And although throughout the Torah we generally follow a double doubt, here because of the severity of the prohibition of “You shall not take [God’s name in vain],” he should not bless. But this requires investigation from what we rule (Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chaim 489:8) regarding the counting of the Omer: if one forgot and did not count one day, he should continue counting the remaining nights without a blessing, because it is a legal doubt in a dispute among great authorities whether we require “completeness” or not; but if he is unsure whether he counted, he does recite a blessing on the remaining days. And Pri Chadash and others explained this (see there in Sha’ar HaTziyun), that this is a double doubt—perhaps he counted, and even if he did not count, perhaps we do not require “completeness.” We thus see explicitly that one does recite a blessing in a case of double doubt, and we do not say that he should not bless because of the severity of the prohibition of “You shall not take [God’s name in vain].”
 
And I, the small one, answered as follows: perhaps the distinction is between a double doubt that comes to create an obligation—such as regarding eating, whether he ate something that obligates Grace after Meals or not—about which we say that the double doubt is not strong enough to obligate him, since he still stands under the possible prohibition of “You shall not take [God’s name in vain]”; and a double doubt that comes to remove an existing obligation, as with counting the Omer, where he is already under obligation, and the question is whether something occurred that invalidates the act from being complete—such as if there is doubt whether he forgot, in which case his counting is not complete, and of course actual forgetting itself invalidates the completeness of the commandment-act. In such a case, one can indeed say that the double doubt leaves him established in his obligation.
And the reason for the distinction is, seemingly, this: why indeed should we not follow a double doubt, as in the rest of Torah law? It must therefore be that even if “majority is preferable” [and “double doubt works by force of majority”], still this is only a matter of preference [just as majority prevails over presumptive status]; whereas if it is a double doubt that comes to create an obligation, this is not a case of “majority versus presumption.” And that is what was said, with God’s help: regarding obligating Grace after Meals, there is no presumption of obligation, since the doubt is that perhaps he was never obligated at all [because it was less than an olive’s bulk]. So the “majority” inherent in double doubt cannot remove us from his presumption of exemption [because of the severity of taking God’s name in vain]. But regarding counting the Omer, since he is already obligated, and you want to disqualify him on the basis of double doubt, in that case we indeed say that there is nothing to block the operation of the “majority” within the double doubt, as explained.
 
I would be glad to know your honor’s opinion on what I wrote.
 
And regarding practical questions, I would be glad if he would look into them:
A. Regarding one who recited the blessing with one count in mind, and then counted a different count:
The Mishnah Berurah (585:2, subsec. 4) cites in the name of Binyan Olam that if they took the shofar away in the middle of the blasts and brought him another shofar, he need not recite the blessing again. But if they took the shofar away between the blessing and the beginning of the blast, he must bless again. It would seem that the blessing takes effect on the commandment-object—the shofar that was before him. But this is difficult, for regarding counting the Omer it is explained in the Shulchan Arukh that if he blessed intending to count four days and then remembered that it is five days, he does not bless again, since he intended to fulfill the commandment. This is difficult, because at the end of the day he did not intend the commandment of this particular day—so what is different from shofar, where there is a requirement to intend the commandment itself?
 
B. On the law of reciting the Shema as Torah study:
The Mishnah at the beginning of chapter 2 of Berakhot says: “And he may complete it until sunrise. Rabbi Yehoshua says: until three hours… One who reads from then on has not lost out, like a person reading from the Torah.” And in the Shulchan Arukh (Orach Chaim 46), in the gloss, it says: “And it is good to say in the morning after ‘Hear O Israel’ etc. ‘Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever,’ because sometimes they delay with Shema and recite it not in its proper time, and one thereby fulfills the obligation.” The later authorities explained that this means when he sees that the congregation will pass the time for Shema, he should intend to fulfill his obligation through this. And in the Shulchan Arukh of Rabbi Zalman (there, sec. 9) he added that he should intend that if the congregation will pass the time for Shema, he will fulfill the obligation with this, and if not, it should be as one reading from the Torah. And so too in the novellae of Rabbi Akiva Eiger. Now, people have already raised the difficulty from what is explained in Ketubot (74b), that every stipulation requires that it be something that could be fulfilled through an agent. For that reason, when one says to him, “Perform halitzah for her on condition that she give you two hundred zuz,” the halitzah is valid even if she does not give it, because all stipulations are learned from the tribes of Gad and Reuben, and there Moses commanded Joshua to give them the land, and he was Moses’ agent—so only in such a case does stipulation work. But halitzah, which cannot be done through an agent, likewise does not work with a stipulation. Yet here we find that a stipulation regarding Shema is effective, even though one cannot fulfill the commandment of Shema through an agent. And similarly we find regarding the afikoman and counting the Omer. This requires explanation.
 
C. The obligation of counting the Omer nowadays:
The position of Maimonides (Laws of Daily Offerings and Additional Offerings 7:24) is that the commandment of counting the Omer is a Torah commandment even nowadays. But this requires investigation from what we say (Menachot 66a): “Abaye said: It is a commandment to count days, and it is a commandment to count weeks… Ameimar counted days but did not count weeks. He said: It is only a memorial to the Temple.” And Rashi explained: “He said: This counting nowadays is not an obligation, for there is no Omer, but merely a memorial to the Temple; therefore days alone suffice.” And it would seem that Abaye too held that it is merely a memorial to the Temple, since there is no Omer, only that he held that even so it is a commandment to count weeks. If so, Maimonides’ position—that even nowadays it is Torah-level—whose view does that follow?
 
D. The conceptual nature of the commandment of counting the Omer:
On the foundation of the commandment of counting the Omer, Sefer HaChinukh (commandment 306) wrote: “For the whole essence of Israel is only the Torah, and for the Torah heaven and earth and Israel were created, as it is written (Jeremiah 33:25), ‘If not for My covenant day and night…’ and it is the essence and the reason they were redeemed and went out from Egypt, in order that they receive the Torah at Sinai and observe it… Therefore, since it is the whole essence of Israel, and for its sake they were redeemed and attained all the greatness they attained, we were commanded to count from the day after the first festival day of Passover until the day of the giving of the Torah, to show in our souls the great desire for that honored day for which our hearts long…” In other words, the basis of the commandment is the counting-act of the person, an act that expresses affection and longing for the giving of the Torah. But regarding the days in themselves, it seems there is no intrinsic status or legal significance [and this is what Rabbenu Yerucham wrote (Toledot Adam, Netiv 5, part 4): “Like a groom counting the day of bringing his bride into the wedding canopy… and this is a homiletic approach and a correct reason, for these days are numbered like the years from the Sabbatical year to the Jubilee. It says, ‘You shall count fifty days’—that we count forty-nine days, which are seven weeks, and sanctify the counted fiftieth day, just as it says regarding the Jubilee that they sanctify the fiftieth year…” See there. And Or HaChaim on the Torah (Leviticus 23:15) also brought another statement of the Sages: “And God wished to unite with this nation, so He judged it by the law of a menstruant woman, whose law is to count seven clean days, and He commanded that they count seven weeks, and then they would be fit to bring them as a bride into the wedding canopy. And though there it is seven days and here seven weeks…” That is, these days are days of purification and sanctification so that the Jewish person may be fit to reach the fiftieth day.]
Now in Menachot (65b) it says: “The rabbis taught: ‘And you shall count for yourselves’—the counting must be for each and every individual.” And Magen Avraham (Orach Chaim 489, subsec. 1) explained that this comes to exclude the rule of “one who hears is as if he answered” with respect to counting the Omer. Meaning, Scripture decreed here that each and every person must count for himself. However, Tosafot (Menachot there, s.v. ‘And you shall count’) explained the baraita differently. They wrote: regarding Jubilee it says, ‘And you shall count for yourself,’ where the Merciful One speaks to the court… see there. Their intention is clear: that this is what the Gemara teaches us—that the obligation of counting the Omer is not on the court as with the Jubilee, but on each individual. And this is explicit in the Sifrei (Parashat Re’eh): “‘Seven weeks shall you count for yourself’—in the court; and from where do we know for each and every individual? Therefore Scripture says, ‘And you shall count for yourselves.’” [So reads the version before us and in the commentary of Rabbenu Hillel there. In the glosses of the Vilna Gaon he emended: “Could it be in the court? Therefore Scripture says…”] It is explained explicitly that one might have thought that the commandment of counting the Omer is only on the court, and the verse teaches that we derive that it is on each and every individual. If so, the words of Magen Avraham are difficult: why did he depart from the explanation of Tosafot and from what is explicit in the Sifrei? Another thing requiring investigation is: what was the initial thought to say that the commandment of counting is only on the court? After all, it is a commandment-act like the other commandments of the Torah, many of which are stated in the singular, and there is no reason at all to say that they are only for the court. Where would the thought come from that Scripture expanded here with additional commandments? Now in Chizkuni (Leviticus 25:8) we find a novel statement. He writes: “‘And you shall count for yourself seven Sabbaths of years’—since there is only one counting here, and it is in the court, there is no need to recite a blessing. But regarding the Omer, where two countings are written—one in Parashat Re’eh and one in Parashat Emor—one for the court and one for the community, one must recite a blessing.” It is thus explained that even after the inclusion from the verse “And you shall count for yourselves” that the counting must be for each individual, still in the law of counting the Omer there remains an obligation of counting on the court in addition to the obligation on each individual. All this requires investigation.