Q. As we asked on the Rabbi’s well and very popular shiur on line, Is it better for women to count the Omer without a Beracha, since they may forget?
A. The main Halachic question is whether a woman who takes upon herself to count the Omer may recite a bracha. According to the Shulchan Aruch, a woman may not make blessings over any mitzvah from which she is exempt. If she does, she is reciting a blessing in vain. (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 589:6).
This is the prevalent custom among most Sefardic women. (Maran Rabbeinu Ovadia Yosef zt”l) However, the Ashkenazi custom follows the Rama’s opinion, that women who perform time-bound mitzvot are permitted to recite the blessing. Likewise, the nineteenth
century Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein holds that although women are exempt from counting the Omer, because it is a positive time-bound commandment, if they take upon themselves to count, they should recite a bracha like any positive time-bound commandment that women practice. (Aruch Ha-shulchan, Orach Chaim 489:3)
Similarly, any woman who chooses to count the Omer may say a blessing prior to saying it [if they have not missed any previous days, as is the law].
Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a opinion is that women should follow their family tradition.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Hirshman, Horav Dovid Pam, Horav Aharon Miller and Horav Chanoch Ehrentreu and Horav Kalman Ochs Shlit’a.
Important Numbers
