2. Question: Why does the Kaf HaChaim say in one halacha that if one asks, is today the 8th of the Omer and it really is then he can still say a blessing and count the Omer but if he was learning the halacha in the evening before he counted and reads “on the eighth day one should say ‘today is the 8th day which is one week and one day of the omer’” then there is an argument whether you fulfilled the mitzvah at that point and you should count without a blessing?
Background:
A. The Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 489:4 says that if one asks you by twilight what is tonight’s count of the Omer, tell him yesterday’s count, for if you say today is so and so you will not be able to count with a blessing. The Mishna Berura (20) adds that even if you say it in your own language. But if you don’t say “today is” rather just the number that is fine because the main mitzvah of counting is to say, “today is so and so”.
B. The Kaf HaChaim says that if on the night of Lag B’omer one tells his friend ‘Do not say tachanun the next day because today is Lag B’omer’ he has no intention of saying the day’s count, rather he is just saying that today is a day we don’t say tachanun, therefore he has not fulfilled his mitzvah yet and he can declare the 33rd day of the Omer with a blessing.
Answer: It is not the way to count by asking a question therefore it doesn’t count and you can definitely still count with a blessing but when you read the count of the day in your learning then there is a question of whether you did the mitzvah because you read it the normal way you would declare that day. (See Dirshu Mishna Berura 489:4:20:56)