Now is the appropriate time to discuss the root ayin, mem, resh, which is (hopefully!) on everyone’s mind nightly.

The word omer appears in only two contexts in Tanach. In both contexts, it is merely a measure. At Exodus 16, it is the measure of the amount of man that was allowed to be collected daily. At Leviticus 23, it is the measure of the amount of new grain that was brought to the priest in a waving ceremony that took place on the second day of Pesach.

What specific amount was this measure? The Torah tell us (Ex. 16:36) that an omer is one-tenth of an eifah. Not too helpful for us contemporary readers! But fortunately, there is R. Aryeh Kaplan’s The Living Torah to bring the Torah to life and inform us that one omer is approximately two quarts. See his comm. to Lev. 23:10. So in Biblical times, what we were doing in the Omer period was counting the days from when new barley grain in an amount of an omer was brought to the priest for a waving ceremony until a day 50 days later when the minchah chadashah, from a different grain, was brought with its own waving ceremony.

But the root ayin, mem, resh has a different meaning in the book of Ruth (2:7 and 2:15) and in a few other places (e.g., Deut 24:19.) In all these places, it means a bundle of grain. (Please do not expect me to explain further here; my agricultural knowledge is very limited!)

Is there a connection between these two different meanings, a specific measure and a bundle of grain? It has been suggested that the omer measure is the amount of grain that one derived from one typical bundle! See, e.g., Shadal to Exodus 16:36 and the concordance of S. Mandelkern. While this is a very clever explanation, I remain suspicious. A different approach views the ayin, mem, resh “bundle” meaning as just a metathesis from an original ayin, resh, mem spelling. We know from many places that ayin, resh, mem means “pile” (a word close in meaning to “bundle”). See, e.g., the language in Az Yashir: ne’ermu mayim.

(Ayin, resh, mem also has a very different meaning, “cunning,” as in Gen. 3:1. How these two meanings can co-exist is its own puzzle!)

Going back to ayin, mem, resh, we still have two more verses to deal with. At Deut. 21:24, we are commanded “lo titamer bah” in connection with the eshet yefat to’ar taken in war. Later, at Deut. 24:7, we are told about the case of an Israelite who is first kidnapped and then ayin, mem, resh is done to him and he is sold. In both contexts, the root seems to imply the use of force. A connection to the “bundle” meaning has been suggested. When you bundle something together, you are overpowering it and using force on it. This is suggested by S. Mandelkern in his concordance. (But see Shadal to Deut. 21:24 for a different approach.)

I initially thought we had now covered all the ayin, mem, resh usages. But then I saw an interesting comment of R. Hirsch on the place name Amorah. Amorah and its neighboring cities are listed at Gen. 14:2: Sedom, Amorah, Admah and Tzviyim. R. Hirsch suggests that these names allude to their richness: Sedom, an allusion to many fields (even though sadeh is spelled with a sin); Amorah, an allusion to much grain; Admah, an allusion to many minerals from the earth and Tzviyim, an allusion to many game animals. R. Hirsch suggests that this high level of abundance contributed to their sinking into immorality. See his commentary to Gen. 18:16.

By Mitchell First

Mitchell First is an attorney and Jewish history scholar. His recently published book, Esther Unmasked: Solving Eleven Mysteries of the Jewish Holidays and Liturgy (Kodesh Press, 2015), is available at the Judaica House in Teaneck and at amazon.com. He can be reached at [email protected].

For more articles by Mitchell First, and information on his books, please visit his website at rootsandrituals.org.