When Does Counting the Omer Begin?

For discussion, see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 23-27 (AB 3B; New York: Doubleday, 2001) 1990-2011; Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989/5749) 158-160.

Editor’s note, for more on this see, Norman Solomon, “Shavuot: How the Festival of Harvest Grew,” TheTorah.com (2014).

Translation if from “Jubilees” translated by James L. Kugel, in Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, vol. 1 (3 volumes; eds., Louis H. Feldman, James H. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 2013), 272-465 [p. 345]. For more on Shavuot in Jubilees, see Michael Segal, “The Festival of Covenants,” TheTorah.com (2014).

For more on the 364 day sectarian calendar, see Michael Segal, “The Jewish Calendar in Jubilees,” TheTorah.com (2014).

This is Qimron’s reconstruction, which appears in his edition of the Temple Scroll in, Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2010 [Hebrew]), 137-207 [p. 157].

See Benyamim Tsedaka, “The Samaritan Shavuot,” TheTorah.com (2014); Benyamim Tsedaka, (translator and editor) and Sharon Sullivan (co-editor), The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version (Eerdmans, 2013), 284.

For the full text and translation, See Moses Gaster, The Samaritans: Schweich Lectures 1923 (London: British Academy, 1925), 170-180. Admittedly, the phrase “from the days of Matzot” could also be understood as “the Shabbat of Matzot,” but this is not what the Samaritans do. Another letter, from the late 17^th or early 18^th century C.E., is similarly ambiguous:

ויום שביעי חג המצות נחג ראש שלש רגלים וממחרת השבת ספירות חמשים יום עד ממחרת השבת נחג ביום הבכורים.

And the seventh day of the Festaval of Matzot we celebrate as the first of the three pilgrimage festivals. And on the day of the Shabbat [begins] the counting of fifty days until the day after the [seventh] Shabbat, when we celebrate the Festival of the Bikkurim.

(Gaster, Samaritans, 159-169.) As the Shabbat is referenced after the seventh day of Matzot, and this is how Samaritans practice, it is likely that this is what the text means to convey. Bernard Revel also takes for granted that the Samaritans read the verse as the Sadducees did. See Bernard Revel, The Karaite Halachah (Philadelphia: Cahan, 1913), 43, n. 66.

See “Shavuot,” on The Karaite Korner.

For more on the Karaite calendar, see Daniel Lasker, “Biblical Exegesis as a Source of Jewish Pluralism: The Case of the Karaites,” TheTorah.com (2017).

^{ויקרא כג:ז} בַּיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן מִקְרָא קֹדֶשׁ יִהְיֶה לָכֶם כָּל מְלֶאכֶת עֲבֹדָה לֹא תַעֲשׂוּ.^כג:ח …בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי מִקְרָא קֹדֶשׁ כָּל מְלֶאכֶת עֲבֹדָה לֹא תַעֲשׂוּ.

^{Lev 23:7} On the first day you shall celebrate a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations. ^23:8 …The seventh day shall be a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations.

See Sharon Shalom, From Sinai to Ethiopia (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Aharonot, 2012), 181-182 [Hebrew].

Philo, “On the Special Laws 1-4,” trans. Naomi G. Cohen, in Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture (eds., Louis H. Feldman, James H. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman; Philadelphia: JPS, 2013), 1075.

Josephus, Jewish Antiquities Books I-IV (trans., H. St. J. Thackeray; Loeb Classical Library; London: William Heinemann, 1967, 1930), 438-441.

See Sifra, Emor, Parasha 12, ch. 10, 1-4; b. Menachot 65a-66a; Megillat Taanit, Scholian on the 8^th of Nissan entry.

Strangely, the Peshitta here reads ܘܡܢܘ ܠܟܘܢ ܡܢ ܒܬܪܗ ܕܝܘܡܐ, “and count from after the day” (ומנו לכון מן בתרא דיומא), which does not seem to clarify one way or the other (perhaps the text is corrupt).

The Rabbis never actually say to which Shabbat these groups refer, but from Jubilees and what we know of the Essenes, we can deduce it referred to the Shabbat after Matzot (see above).

Interestingly, the rabbis never mention the Samaritans who did exist during their time and also read the verse this way.

For more on these sources, see Vered Noam, “Megillat Ta’anit and Its Scholion,”TheTorah.com (2015).

The Rabbis always call Shavuot “Atzeret.”

The text here is from the Parma MS, the Oxford MS, the standard edition and the Babylonian Talmud all have versions of this story, but with a Boethesian instead of a Sadducee. See discussion in Vered Noam, Megillat Taʿanit: Versions, Interpretation, History (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2003), 60-61, 174-179 [Hebrew].

The prevalence of this assumption implies that the tradition of first grain being celebrated (whether offered or eaten) immediately after Pesach and on Matzot may imply that such a tradition predates the verse in Leviticus. Perhaps such a tradition is reflected in the book of Joshua, which describes the Israelites first Pesach on the land:

^{יהושע ה:יא} וַיֹּאכְלוּ מֵעֲבוּר הָאָרֶץ מִמָּחֳרַת הַפֶּסַח מַצּוֹת וְקָלוּי בְּעֶצֶם הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה.

^{Josh 5:11} On the day after the Pesach offering, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the country, unleavened bread and parched grain.

Be that as it may, the rabbis inherited the Torah as we have it and needed to explain the verse and defend their practice.