Understanding Lag B'Omer

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The first 33 days of the Omer are observed as a period of mourning. We do not take haircuts, perform weddings, or listen to music. What’s the mourning all about?

Rabbi Akiva, the towering sage of the Mishna, exerted a powerful influence on the Torah scholars of his day, to the point that he had 24,000 disciples. Great as the members of this group was, they had one short-coming: They failed to show proper love and respect for one another. The tragic consequence of this shortcoming was a brief but cataclysmic epidemic that claimed the lives of these students – all 24,000 of them. The period during which the epidemic took place was none other than the first 32 days of the Omer.

The 33rd day of the Omer signified a new period in the life of Rabbi Akiva. The last students of his aborted legacy died, and he established a new venue for his legacy. This consisted of five sages. Their names were Rabbi Meir; Rabbi Yehuda; Rabbi Elazar; Rabbi Nechemiah; and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. All of these names are familiar to any student of Mishna or Talmud, but the most prominent among them is the sage Rabbi Shimon, about whom we shall learn more. (There is an opinion that Rabbi Shimon later died on the 33rd of the Omer, and we therefore celebrate his memory on that day.)

Significantly, it was Rabbi Shimon, most prominent of Rabbi Akiva’s disciples, who affirmed the immortality of the chain of transmission of the Oral Torah. In a discussion recorded in the Talmud (Shabbat 138b), some sages voiced the opinion that the Torah was destined to be forgotten. Rabbi Shimon said, “God forbid that the Torah shall ever be forgotten!” He buttressed his view with a verse from the Torah, “For it (the Torah) will not be forgotten from the mouth of progeny of the Jews.” (Even today, visitors to Rabbi Shimon’s tomb, nestled among the breathtaking mountains of northern Israel, are greeted by this very verse painted at the entrance to the memorial building.)

If these five new students were able to survive and keep the chain going, there must have been a qualitative difference between them and their fellow disciples of Rabbi Akiva. If the first group failed in their interpersonal relationships, the second were able to rectify that defect. Just as we mourn the dimensions of Torah lost through lack of appreciation for one another, so do we celebrate the reclaimed dimensions that were made possible by devotion to one another.