Physical Description:

52 ff., 32°, 115:75 mm., light age and damp staining, nice margins, worming, f. 26 in facsimile. A good copy loose in contemporary leather over boards.

Detailed Description:   

Pocket size prayer book for the evening services and the counting of the omer following the Italian Rite. The injunction to count the 49 days from the 16th of Nisan until Shavuot is considered to be at present time of rabbinic authority only. The 49 days themselves are commonly known as the sefirah. The counting is preceded by a special benediction "... concerning the counting of the Omer."

The kabbalists used the 49 days (7 X 7) to form permutations of various sefirot denoting the ascent out of the 49 "gates" of impurity of the Egyptian bondage to the purity of the revelation at Sinai. In many prayer books these combinations are printed at the side of each day listed.

In order not to forget the count of the day it was fairly common practice to have an "Omer calendar" in the home with movable numbers on it. These "calendars" even developed into an art form and several early specimens show intricate work and lettering. .

Originally called the Minhag Romi, later the Italian rite, which with the expansion of Roman Jewry became widely established in Italy and in one or two places overseas and was the parent of the Ashkenazi rite. The formulation of this is associated with the name of R. Menahem b. Solomon b. Isaac (12th cent.), author of the popular Midrash Sekhel Tov. The rite, also called Minhag ha-Lo'azim, is in use in Rome, in the interior of Italy, in a few communities in Salonika and Constantinople, and also in the Italian synagogue in Jerusalem.

Hebrew Description:    

וסדר ספירות העומר. ישמרך האל השומר. גזירות קל וחומר.

ספירת דפים משובשת.
כמנהג איטאליאני. עם דיני ספירת העומר (דף כב,ב-כג, א).

Reference:   

CD-NLI 0306846