In the Year of the Small Count

Judith Ronat writes:

I’ve just returned from a brief sightseeing trip to Amsterdam. Over the entrance to its Portuguese Synagogue is the Hebrew inscription: בשנת ואני ברב חסדך אבא ביתך לפק. Can you explain the first word and the last one and make sense of the entire sentence?

I can, though it’s a bit complicated. First, however, for the benefit of those who know little or no Hebrew, let me explain the question. Transliterated into Latin characters, the seven words of the inscription read B’shnat v’ani b’rov ḥasdekha avo beytekha l’pak, and the five middle words, which come from Psalms 5:7, are translated in the King James Bible’s sixteen words (truly, biblical Hebrew is a concise language!) as follows: “But as for me, I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy.” This leaves the first and last words that puzzle Judith Ronat. The first, b’shnat, means “In the year of.” The last consists of the Hebrew letters lamed, peh, and kuf, which are an abbreviation, usually pronounced l’pak, of the phrase l’phrat katan, “in the short count.”