Only In Omerica

R’ Moshe Feinstein says in a teshuvah that just about anything extravagant is out of hand. He writes that he never saw anything positive come out of a fancy bar mitzvah, and he urges those that would listen to keep the celebrations simple. My rosh yeshiva once related that his bar mitzvah celebration consisted of kichel and schnapps. I don’t remember if he mentioned herring as well.

A famous discussion used in bar mitzvah pshetels is the issue of becoming bar mitzvah in the middle of counting the Omer.

We all know that if someone forgets to count a day in the Omer, he cannot count the next night with a berachah. This is because we are concerned with the opinion that holds that the counting of 49 days of the Omer is one big mitzvah. If a person misses even one day, he can no longer fulfill the mitzvah. There are opinions that disagree, however. We therefore compromise and tell the forgetful counter to continue counting, but without a blessing.

In fact, the Mishnah Berurah writes that if a woman knows she is liable to forget to count even one day in the Omer (since women generally do not daven Ma’ariv, or at the very least not with a minyan), she should not even begin to count the Omer with a berachah.

Rav Shlomo Zalman, zt’l, rules that this applies only to women, who are technically exempt from the mitzvah of counting the Omer, since it is a time-related mitzvah. A forgetful man, however, should count the Omer with a berachah until he actually forgets to count a day. He discusses an interesting case that is apropos to the above halachah:

What happens if one crosses the halachic dateline during the Omer? (The halachic dateline is either somewhere in the middle of Australia or at the tip of Alaska.) If one crosses the dateline on the 3rd day of the Omer, and he is therefore now in the 4th day, he has in effect lost a day of the Omer. He cannot count this day as the 4th, because he already counted it as the 3rd. That night, everyone else will count the 5th day.

Rav Shlomo Zalman ruled that he should count that night as the 5th, but he must count without a berachah for the remainder of the Omer, since he missed a day. Yet, even if a person knows that he will inevitably be forced to experience this very scenario during the Omer, he should start counting with a berachah. Just as the case with the forgetful man, as long as he is able to count with a berachah he should do so. When he actually misses a day, he should stop counting with a berachah.

However, a boy who has become bar mitzvah in the middle of the Omer faces an interesting problem. Since he was a minor at the beginning of the Omer, one could argue that his performance of the mitzvah of the Omer was only d’Rabbanan and only a mitzvah of chinuch. Technically, such a counting is invalid for an adult. If we were to take the position that counting the Omer nowadays is a mitzvah d’Oraisa, this bar mitzvah boy cannot possibly complete this mitzvah! He only became biblically obligated when he turned bar mitzvah, in the middle of the Omer. Perforce, he missed a number of days until his bar mitzvah and should no longer be able to count with a berachah.

The Eretz Tzvi, however, brings an interesting proof from our Gemara in Sanhedrin that the preceding is not true. The Gemara in Sanhedrin states that a ben sorer u’moreh is executed “al sheim sofo”—in anticipation of the sins he will commit when he matures. His current extreme antisocial behavior as a juvenile will inevitably lead him to commit future acts of homicidal violence as a grown-up. In fact, posits the Talmud, if not for a specific scriptural exegesis that limits the law of ben sorer u’moreh to a 13-year-old, we would execute even a minor who behaves in the same manner, also “al sheim sofo.”

From the fact that this derashah is necessary, infers the Eretz Tzvi, we see that the principle of “al sheim sofo” applies to minors as well. Therefore, a minor who will mature during the Omer is already biblically obligated to count even while he is still a minor, because he will be obligated to count when he becomes an adult. Moreover, there is no verse that tells us that “al sheim sofo” doesn’t apply to a minor in regard to the Omer. Since he was biblically obligated to count as a minor, his counting had legal significance, and he can continue to count with a berachah after he becomes a bar mitzvah.

One bar mitzvah boy who did in fact give a derashah on this topic was told by R’ Shlomo Zalman that his derashah was beautiful, but he should be aware that the halachah is not up for discussion and is clear: a boy who counted as a minor may continue to count as an adult with a berachah. (However, Rav Ovadya Yosef ruled differently. So, perhaps Sephardim who become bar mitzvah during the Omer do not continue counting with a berachah.)

In any case, an extravagant mitzvah may cause one to forget all about counting the Omer, in which case the previous discussion is moot. ™