Shortchanged?
‘You Shall Count 50 Days’
(Menachos 65b)
Our Gemara discusses the mitzvah of counting the Omer at length, citing Vayikra 23:16: “Until the morrow of the seventh week, you shall count 50 days…” We all know that in performing the mitzvah, one counts only 49 days. Where did the 50th day disappear to?
40 minus 1?
This question appears in the writings of the Rishonim and Acharonim. The Rosh writes (Pesachim 10:40): “Some ask: Since the verse directs counting 50 days, why do we count only 49?”
A similar question is asked regarding the number of lashes beis din is supposed to give someone who violated certain sins. The Torah (Devarim 25:3) writes, “Forty shall he strike him, he shall not add,” but Chazal (Makos 22a) interpret these words to mean “40 minus one.” The Rambam (Hilchos Sanhedrin 17:1) writes: “The sages said: He is struck 39 times so that if he adds one, he is only struck with the 40 he deserves.”
In other words, Chazal apparently subtracted from the stipulated number provided in the Torah so that the one designated to mete out punishment avoids the prohibition of “he shall not add.” Due to a number of difficulties, though, most Acharonim interpret the Rambam’s words differently. They write that “the sages received this interpretation from Moshe.” In other words, the number 39 comes from the Torah. It isn’t a protective measure of Chazal.
The Torah’s Way
Why, then, does the Torah write “50” and “40” when it means “49” and “39”? The Rosh (Pesachim 10:40; see Ritva, Makkos 22a) writes: “That is the way of the Torah: When a number approaches the tens minus one, it counts it as a ten and pays no attention to the lack of one.” In other words, the Torah ignores the lack of one if it can state a number in whole tens: 40, 50, etc.
‘Im Hakolel’
Some people say the Torah is “not necessarily exact” (lo dak). In other words, the lack of one does not matter. Others say, the numbers of a certain subset themselves count as an additional number. This approach to Torah calculations is called “im hakolel.”
Rishonim and Acharonim mention Bereishis 46:27 as an example of a place where the Torah is not precise about numbers. It states that “all the souls of the house of Yaakov coming to Egypt were 70” even though they only numbered 69.
All For The Sake Of Prevention
The Leket Yosher (Orach Chayim) cites the following proof in the name of his mentor, the Terumas HaDeshen, that the Torah is not precise about numbers. The Gemara (Gittin 88a) says that Hashem caused our forefathers to be exiled from Eretz Yisrael two years before their time to prevent their destruction. How so?
The Torah states: “and you will grow old (venoshantem) in the land and you will sin…for you will perish” (Devarim 4:25-26). The gematria of “venoshantem” 852. If our forefathers had sinned for that number of years, they would have perished in accordance with the Torah’s prophecy. To prevent such catastrophe, Hashem caused them to be exiled two years earlier. But why two years earlier? Why not just one year? Because, the Terumas HaDeshen argues, the Torah is not precise about number and 851 years would have been equivalent to 852 and the Jews would have been destroyed had Hashem only advanced the punishment by one year!
Kabbalists cite Bereishis 48:5 as a source for this rule. Yaakov says, “Ephraim and Menashe will be for me like Reuven and Shimon. The numerical value of Ephraim and Menashe together is 732, one less than Reuven and Shimon, which is 731 (Devash Lefi by the Chida 2:14, in the name of the pupils of the Rema and the Arizal; see also Rema, Orach Chayim 21:3; Magen Avraham 295, in the name of the Tashbatz; and Beis Yosef, 582).