The Baal Teshuva comes home one day in May and asks his wife what is for dinner. She answers "Last night we had chicken and rice".
We all know that one may not tell someone what day of the omer it is before one counted and if he does, then he may no longer count with a bracha. This is because the opinion of some poskim is that מצוות אין צריכות כוונה and therefore even though he didn't intend to fulfill his obligation, he nevertheless did.
The Mishna Brura notes that this is only true until day 6. Afterwards, since he didn't mention weeks, there is an אומדנא [assessment] that he didn't intend to fulfill his obligation. If this is true, then why don't we also say that since he didn't make a bracha when asked what day of the omer it is, there is a clear אומדנא that he didn't want to fulfill his obligation and he may then count again with a bracha? Yet the Shulchan Aruch says that one [possibly] does fulfill his obligation when omitting the bracha.
Rav Avraham Genechovski tried to defend the Mishna Brura by saying that there is a difference between omitting a bracha which is external to the fundamental mitzva of counting and omitting the mention of weeks which is inherent to the counting and thus critical.
Would love to hear other explanations....
