Rabbis, 3 cases of numerical imperatives as spelled out in the torah don't match up to either what we do (#1) or to internal consistencie (numbers 2 and 3) which, if analyzed could possibly lead us to baal tosef and/or baal tigra....
1. give 40 lashes (we only give 39).
2. eat matza 6 days or 7 (both amounts spelled out in the torah)
3. count the omer 7 weeks (49 days) or count it 50 days (chamishim yom).
In numbers 2 and 3 above, it would seem to me that no matter what one does, he/she would be over on either baal tosef or on lo tigra, since two consecutive (non-identical) numbers are spelled out, and to do the lesser might be over on lo tigra (if the higher number is correct) or on baal tosef (if the lower number is correct).
hb
benton, usa
Shalom Harvey,
You seem to be looking at Bal Tosif and Bal Tigra before looking at any other part of the Torah. When the Torah said both seven weeks and fifty days, it didn't do it so we would become sinners and automatically transgress Bal Tosif etc. It obviously meant to analyze the Torah and figure out what Hash-m means, as our Chachamim indeed do in Menachos (65b) where this question is asked. The same is true for the question about eating Matzah, asked on the very next page in Menachos (66a). Forty lashes is an argument in Makos (22a), with Rebbi Yehudah indeed holding forty, and the Chachamim understanding the word "b'Mispar" modifies forty to mean thirty nine. Rest assured, however, that there is no Mitzvah in the Torah that is there to have us automatically do the wrong thing.
All the best,
Yaakov Montrose