The fiftieth day as the root beyond all mixture

בענין תספרו חמשים יום.

Concerning "you shall count fifty days" (Vayikra 23:16).

The Sefas Emes addresses the counting of the Omer, which leads up to the fiftieth day, the day of Shavuos.

דיש מ"ט פנים טמא.

For there are forty-nine "faces" (panim) of impurity (tamei).

Chazal teach that in the realm of halachic reasoning there are forty-nine ways to argue that something is tamei and forty-nine to argue it is tahor — reflecting that within the forty-nine there is always a mixture of pure and impure.

א"כ משמע דפן הנ' אין בו תערובות כי בשורש מבורר האחדות.

If so, it implies that the fiftieth "face" has no admixture in it, for at the root the unity (achdus) is clarified.

Since the back-and-forth of pure and impure only reaches forty-nine, the fiftieth level is beyond all mixture — it is the root, where everything resolves into pure oneness.

ולכן במ"ט ימים צריכין ספירה ובירור וביום הנ' הכל אחד.

And therefore during the forty-nine days one needs counting and clarification (berur), and on the fiftieth day all is one.

The forty-nine days of the Omer are days of refinement — sifting and clarifying — because they are still mixed; but the fiftieth day, Shavuos, is the level of pure unity where no sifting is needed.

וזה ענין מי יתן טהור מטמא לא אחד.

And this is the matter of "Who can bring a pure thing out of an impure one — is it not the One?" (Iyov 14:4).

The pasuk hints that only "the One" — the level of absolute oneness at the root — has the power to draw purity out of impurity, since at that source there is no division.

ועיין בזוה"ק בפסוק ונטמתם בלא א'.

And see the Zohar HaKadosh on the pasuk "and you shall become impure (v'nitmeisem)" — read as "without an aleph."

The Zohar notes that the word "v'nitmeisem" is spelled without the letter aleph, hinting that impurity comes about specifically through the absence of the "aleph" — the One, the root of unity.

וכבר כתבנו שם מזה כי אות הא' בטמא הוא רומז על השורש שמצד זה יכולין לטהר מהטומאה.

And we have already written there about this, that the letter aleph in the word "tamei" alludes to the root, by virtue of which one can be purified from tumah.

Even within the word "tamei" there is an aleph, hinting that every impure thing still contains a trace of the root of oneness — and it is through that hidden point that purification becomes possible.

ולכן ביום הנ' שתי הלחם חמץ כדאיתא דאית בי' ביטול יצה"ר ונק' יום הביכורים ע"ש שורש הראשית.

And therefore on the fiftieth day the shtei ha'lechem (two loaves) are chametz, as it is brought that in it there is the nullification of the yetzer hara; and it is called "Yom HaBikkurim" (the day of first-fruits), on account of the root of "reishis" (beginning).

On Shavuos, uniquely, the offering is leavened — chametz, which usually symbolizes the yetzer hara — because at this level of pure unity even the yetzer hara is nullified and absorbed into holiness. The day is called "of the first-fruits" because it reaches back to the very root and beginning, before any mixture set in.

וכ' בתיקוני זוהר בפסוק ראשית בכורי אדמתך כו' לא תבשל גדי בחלב אמו כי כשהראשית מבורר אין מתערב אח"כ פסולת.

And it is written in the Tikkunei Zohar on the pasuk "the first of the first-fruits of your land… you shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk" (Shemos 23:19): that when the "reishis" (beginning) is clarified, no waste (pesoles) becomes mixed in afterward.

The Tikkunei Zohar connects the first-fruits with the prohibition of mixing milk and meat to teach that if the very beginning of a thing is pure and clarified, then no impurity can later become intermingled with it.

ומכש"כ בביכורים של כל הציבור נעשה מזה שמירה על כל השנה.

And all the more so, with the bikkurim of the entire community (the two loaves), a protection (shemirah) is made from this for the whole year.

Since the two loaves are a communal first-fruits offering clarifying the root for all of Bnei Yisrael, they generate a spiritual safeguard that guards the entire year from the intrusion of impurity.

ואפשר שזה הרמז של מאכלי חלב בשבועות להבדיל בין חלב לבשר כנ"ל:

And it is possible that this is the hint of the dairy foods on Shavuos — to distinguish between milk and meat, as above.

The custom of eating dairy on Shavuos may allude to this very theme of separation and clarification — distinguishing milk from meat — expressing the day's power to keep the pure root unmixed with any "waste."

Summary: The forty-nine days of Sefiras HaOmer correspond to the forty-nine "faces" of pure and impure that still require counting and clarification, while the fiftieth day — Shavuos — is the level of the root, beyond all admixture, where everything resolves into pure oneness. Only "the One" can draw purity from impurity, and the hidden "aleph" (the root) within even an impure thing makes purification possible. Hence on Shavuos the leavened two-loaf offering signals the nullification of the yetzer hara, and as the communal "first-fruits" it clarifies the root and creates a safeguard for the whole year — a theme also hinted in the custom of dairy foods, which distinguish milk from meat.