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When we count the Sefiras Haomer, why do we count up and not down?

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4 Answers

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I have heard that we count up because each day of Sefira builds on the previous one, towards the ultimate goal (i.e. working on all our Midos).

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Actually we count down! - We start from Hesed and work our way to Malchus. We start from simplicity, working our way to ever greater complexity. The more fleshed out, complex, and variable things are the more Earthly they are and the simpler things are the more spiritual they are. We always work down from Klal to P'rat, from generalities and simplicity which oversee reality to details and complexity that are intimately involved with reality.

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Counting implies Numbers.Cute Pshat none the less – SimchasTorah Apr 19 '10 at 22:45
That's the whole point- The higher the number the more the involvement with the more Earthly reality. It is up regarding quantity but down regarding the hierarchy of the sefiros. – Yahu Apr 20 '10 at 0:34
And sefiros means numbers as well- But that is fora different discussion. – Yahu Apr 20 '10 at 0:45
up vote 2 down vote

We count up because the Pasuk (Vayikra 23:15) says to count "from the day of the Omer-offering" not "to the day of Shavuot".

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up vote 1 down vote

not to say Yahu is wrong but my idea why we count up is because we count up to the top level of binah-understanding. in that case we count "up".

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2  
That's "Rebbi" to you! – Yahu Apr 20 '10 at 0:44

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