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Ohr HaChaim

Really the name of a commentary written by Rabbi Chaim ben Mosheh ben Atar (1696-1743). But rabbis often were referred to by the name of their best-known work. So no one knows who Rabbi Chaim ben Mosheh ben Atar was. But lots of people know that the Ohr HaChaim was a bold Torah commentator with Kabbalist tendencies. He was originally from Morocco, but eventually moved to Italy and then to Israel. I like him because he often asks the questions I ask. His usual comment goes something like this: The Torah's statement X has to be explained and Y has to be explained and its difficult to understand how the Torah can say Z when we all know A. Rashi explained it this way and our sages explained it that way, but that doesn't solve the problem at all. It seems to me that ...

Omer

According to the Torah (Leviticus 23:15), we are to count the days from the second night of Passover to the day before Shavu'ot, seven full weeks. This period is known as the Counting of the Omer. An omer is a unit of measure, something like a "bushel." Thus, the counting of the omer is a way of marking the time between the very first, early grains of Passover and the appearance of the first summer fruits, which is the time of Shavuot.

Onkelos

There's a translation of the Torah into Aramaic called Targum Onkelos -- the Onkelos translation -- because it is ascribed to a guy named Onkelos. (It's not absolutely certain that Onkelos existed, but his translation certainly does; In fact, it's sitting in front of me on my desk right now!) The date of composition of Targum Onkelos is generally given as second century C.E.