Rabbi Chaim Weiner is a champion of old Ashkenazi traditions, and he insists he does not want the Mitzvah of counting the Omer to disappear. He wants people in our community in London to see it done and how to do it after the Kabbalat Shabbat services that fall between Pesach and Shavuot.
Recently, while visiting Zikhron Ya'akov, Rabbi Chaim found himself thinking about what the Vilna Gaon would say on the subject. The central synagogue in Zichron, Ohel Yaakov, is so popular with Jews of all kinds on Kabbalat Shabbat, that it can be difficult for the smaller neighbourhood shuls to gather a minyan. It is so popular that Rabbi Chaim couldn’t find a siddur to use when he was there a few weeks ago. He scratched around to the back of the shelf and found an old Siddur with a faded blue cover.
Inside was a footnote listing the customs of the Vilna Gaon. The footnote in the old siddur explained that the Vilna Gaon (The Gra) would go home after the service and repeat the Shema after dark, but did not repeat the counting of the Omer. This suggests that the Gra was happy with counting the Omer before nightfall. The note referenced the Mishnah Berurah and its accompanying Biur Halachah on counting the Omer. The Biur Halachah notes an important dispute, including a version introduced with the phrase yesh omrim, “there are some who say.” Some authorities argue that today the mitzvah of counting the Omer is only, זכר למקדש, a remembrance of the Temple service, rather than a full Torah obligation, because the original biblical mitzvah depended on the bringing of the Omer offering in the Temple itself. According to those opinions, the obligation today is a custom rather than a full obligation, and therefore there is more room for flexibility about exactly when one counts.
This makes the old Ashkenazi practice especially striking. Communities in northern Europe were already praying Maariv and reciting the evening Shema before full nightfall during the long summer evenings, even though Shema is itself a Torah obligation. In northern Europe it was simply too difficult to wait until sunset to pray.
Why become more exacting about the timing of the Omer than about the timing of Shema?
The Shema, after all, is a Torah obligation. If communities are prepared to rely on early times for Shema, why become suddenly strict about the Omer, which many authorities regard as rabbinic today?
This debate about when we say the evening Shema goes back centuries.
In the second Rashi comment on the first Massechet of the Talmud, Rashi explains that the Shema recited in synagogue before nightfall does not fully discharge the Torah level obligation. One should recite the Shema again later at night before going to sleep. Tosafot challenge Rashi and defend the widespread Ashkenazi practice of praying Maariv early. They bring several arguments, including the idea that halakhic time is not only astronomical.
One of the Tosafists, Ri Hazeken, points out that Jewish law sometimes follows social rhythms rather than pure celestial calculation. In fact, it’s mandated that way in the Torah itself where the times for Shema are “when you lie down and when you rise up."
That is social time, time as lived by human behaviour, not just counted by a clock.
In northern Europe, where summer sunsets come extremely late, Ashkenazi communities adapted. People could not realistically wait until very late at night every evening for communal prayer. So, communities developed around an earlier social definition of evening. The Vilna Gaon was famously uncomfortable with some of these leniencies and preferred astronomical timings to human ones. In general, he showed discomfort with ordinary communal life and preferred to study alone. Still, Rabbi Chaim likes to joke that perhaps even the Gra himself, might have found room for the old Ashkenazi custom here.
But we will never know.
A few days later, Rabbi Chaim went back to Ohel Yaakov hoping to find the old blue siddur again.
But this time he couldn’t find it.
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