Why don’t we just make one bracha at the beginning of the count, on the first night, & then say a closing bracha on the last night? Why are there 49 separate brachot recited?!
Two ideas permeate our nightly enumeration: 1) The linking up of Pesach & Shavuot & 2) The semi-mourning practices associated with this time of the year, due to the deaths of the students of Rabbi Akiva. Is there a connection?