PSA: To Those Who Missed A Night Of Sefira

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Dear Matzav,

I’m writing this letter because my Rav just taught me something I never knew and I wanted to pass it along.

My rav said that people have a misconception that if you miss a night of say sefira you shouldn’t bother counting anymore. In actuality, the bracha is m’drabanan and if you missed a night you lose the chance to make the bracha. (He also said that it’s a machlokes in the poskim and it’s a chiddush that we pasken this way.)

But the Rav emphasized that even though you cant make the bracha anymore the mitza to count each day is m’daraysa and applies even you miss a night.

I never knew this and missed out many years of counting and doing mitzvos all because of night I had missed. I’m sure that I am not the only one which is why I’m passing along this message.

A Reader


14 COMMENTS

  1. Why dont you count the next day? And then the following night you can still count with a bracha.
    But you are right if you missed both night and day you should still count without a bracha.

  2. I think this is common knowledge. Most people, at least men, should have been taught this in elementary school.

    • Some of us are women who do not daven maariv. Thank you for this article. It is very helpful to many who never knew

      • A mitzvah that is a zman grama, women are not michuyav. You don’t have to count sefira, and many poskim hold that lichatchila a woman should NOT count, knowing that she has many tirda’s and is likely to forget, making the first few brachos into brachos livatala when she ultimately forgets.

  3. Thank you to the letter writer. There are undoubtedly people who didn’t know this. Now, thanks to your taking the time to write this letter, those people will be able to continue getting the mitzva of counting sefira.

  4. “I’m sure that I am not the only one ”

    I’m sure that you are.

    It is assur to believe such lashon hara about our school system, that someone could come out not knowing something so basic

  5. With all due respect, this post as written has many inaccuracies. While the “bottom line” – that even one who misses a night should continue to count on future nights – is 100% correct, the ‘backstory’ of the lomdus is not correct. (No tayna on the Rov, I must assume that the poster did not understand his Rov’s words.)
    Regardless of whether the Mitzvah of Sefiras HaOmer is m’d’Oraysa nowadays, there is a machlokes if one night’s mitzvah is dependent on continued perfection in the other nights’ countings. When someone misses a night, he enters the realm of that Machlokes, and he is thus not able to make a berachah thereafter, out of concern for the one opinion that he is no longer fulfilling a mitzvah. But he should most certainly continue to count on future nights without a berachah, as he does fulfill the mitzvah according to the other opinion that he is fulfilling the mitzvah.

  6. Not only should you keep counting, but you should also ask someone else ( shliach tsibur) to moitzi you with their bracha

  7. Let’s be don l’chaf zechus – especially important now during sefiras ha’omer when we mourn great talmidei chachomim who were less than perfect in bein adam l’chaveiro: Perhaps this person was away from school the day the class learned it. And some people work long hours so they don’t always have the opportunity to daven ma’ariv with a minyan.

  8. Let’s be דן לכף זכות, especially important during the time we mourn great talmidei chachomim who weren’t perfect in this area: It seems that the writer was away from school the day the class learned this, or perhaps he grew up in a community far from the major Jewish Torah centers and it wasn’t taught. Maybe he works long hours and doesn’t have the opportunity to daven ma’ariv every day with a minyan. Still, he made the effort to point out to the readership, what is to him a major חידוש.

  9. Each and every comment above is very apt for the writer of this article. I would add that he should add to his daily morning prayers the Sefira (without a bracha) like many shuls do before Baruch She’amar. Some people even count the Sefira again (without a bracha) in the afternoon.

  10. Did the people during Bayis Rishon ever count Sefirah? Nowhere does such a thing say in any of the Pesukim. Did they put on Tefilin, Tzitzis, Mezuzah, Birchas Hamozon etc, ?

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