Lag B'Omer - The Mysterious Holiday

After Pesach (Passover) we count the Omer, the 49 days that lead up to the holiday of Shevuot. The 33rd day of the counting, is called Lag B'Omer. (The "L" has a value of 30, the "g" has a value of 3, so we combine them to call it "Lag" for simplicity).

For some reason, over the past few centuries, it has been a custom to treat this 7-week period as though one is in mourning. The reasons for this seem to be many, and it is not really the focus of this post. But on Lag B'Omer, we have a break from the mourning customs, and sing songs, light bonfires, get haircuts, get married, and so forth.

Interestingly enough, since the first prohibition (marriage) during the counting of the Omer seems to have been added during the period of the Crusades, and there is no break in the middle mentioned at all for several more centuries, what is this Lag B'Omer celebration?

According to the Shulchan Aruch (one of the codifiers of customs and rules), we read:

The custom is not to get married between Passover and Shavuot – until Lag B'Omer, because during this time the students of Rabbi Akiva perished. (Shulchan Aruch section 493:1)

 So one might expect that there was a date given for the death of Rabbi Akiva's Students as Lag B'Omer. As an aside, the custom for not getting married does have a conection to Rabbi Akiva's students, who refused to get married because they would not have been able to participate in the Bar Kochba Rebellion (the first year of marriage, one is not permitted to go to war). That fact that this prohibition was introduced during the Crusades (another war) is an interesting rallying point, but also would make this post too long to explain.

However, the Gemara (Talmuld) that explains this is not a statement of history, but a Midrash (parable) steeped in symbolism, and written during the period of the Roman occupation. It reads (Yevamot 62b):

It was said [by one school of thought]:"Rabbi Akiva had 12,000 pairs of students from [the town of Gevat until Antiparis, and they all died during the same ("one") period because this one did not give respect to that one (to one another)....(Another source:) They all died a bad/evil ("Rah") death. What [sort of death] was it? Rav Nachman said: Askera."

 Giving it the period of the counting of the Omer is symbolic at best. The Gemara does not give a date, but since Shavuot is the celebration of the giving of the Torah, and the death of his students follwed by his gaining new students might be symbolically seen as a connecting point, then we plop this story to somehow be connected to the counting of the Omer.
But the Lag B'Omer does was not a date used during ancient times, but appears to be a recent application, and has some Kabbalistic references. Furthermore, the Gemara says that all of Rabbi Akiva's students died during that time period, although we know for a fact that this was not historically correct, because many of those mentioned after the death of Rabbi Akiva, are also mentioned as his early students. But one could, I suppose, say that he had more than 12,000 pairs, and only those were the ones who died.

But I suggest that this Bareita (a teaching that was not universally accepted) is Midrashic (symbolic, a tool meant to teach something that is underneath the story) for the following reasons:

1. Using "pairs" instead of 24,000 is a very odd way to describe a count.
2. 12,000 is too round of a number to be real.
3. Gevat and Antiparis (or Antopartis) define the historical borders of the Bar Kochba Rebellion.
4. What killed them is not mentioned, just that they acted in a bad way, and died.
5. Another source says that their death was an evil/bad one (in contrast to a good one).
6. No one is certain what Askera is. Some say it has to do with the through. I came across one source that says it has to do with being a soldier.

This requires a lot of thought to see that the Gemara was not clearly speaking of history. Again, it would make this post way too long to explain what is really going on in detail, but suffice to say, this Midrash was speaking of the troubles of that time, of a war with Rome, of the losses and that tearing apart of the Jewish people over having a war that not everyone wanted (some of the greatest leaders of that time were opposed to it), and eventually failed in getting rid of the Romans, but it united the Jewish people in the end.

So why is there a Lag B'Omer? We have a customer of mourning that seems to stem back only as far as the Crusades, with additional restrictions added over the centuries, and finally a break in the "middle". It really has nothing historically to do with Rabbi Akiva, but it appears to has a historical connection to other oppressions that would take place centuries later.

In addition to this, there is a customer to bring 3-year old boys to the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (an important figure of the Bar Kochba War who took over after the death of Rabbi Akiva) to get their first haircuts. There are those who say that Lag B'Omer is his Yarzeit (anniversary of his death), but there is no historical source for this assignment. It seems to have been added to also associate Bar Kochba to this "holiday".

Over the years, customs to light bonfires, like the burning of enemy villages (but has devolved into a campfire and barbecue), to practice shooting with a bow (which has fallen out of style over the past century, but has given way to teenagers telling ghost stories to the younger children), and singing patriotic songs (which have been replaced by folk songs in many places) were put into place. And when asked why they do these things, most of the participants say "It's a custom", without really giving much thought to when it came about, why it was, and what it has become.

So why do we have a break in the "middle" of a period of mourning that had no connection to Aveilut (mourning practices) that has no historical connection to a specific occurrence?

Good question! And it deserves a good answer, something beyond "it's a custom".

I suggest that since these customs began with periods of oppression, and that they use the symbolism of rebellion and fighting back, even when one may fail, and that this period is historically and symbolically a period of preparation, that Lag B'Omer isn't such a bad thing, but is a holiday to remind us of our strengths and who we are as a people, even if most of the people only know it as the "bonfire holiday"!