the name of the Grain-Offering of barley which was brought in the time of the Temple on the Sixteenth of Nisan. The bringing of this Offering in those times and, in our times, it is the Day itself, which constitutes the barrier between two “states” of grain, the prohibited “chadash” state and the permitted “yashan” state. The Counting of the Forty-Nine Days beginning the Second Day of Passover (Sixteenth of Nisan) until (and including) the Day before Shavuot, is a Positive Command of the Torah and is called Sefirat HaOmer.
