My revelation about the mourning during sefira

Tonight is Lag B'Omer, a day when many people end their observation of the mourning practices associated with the days between Pesach and Shavuoth. Someone said something this past Sunday that revealed something about behavior that appears to be good but also involves hurting certain people  that  gave me new insight into why the tragedy of the deaths of R' Akiva's students is one we continue to observe so many centuries later. 

Let's go back to the source, the passage in Yavom 62b:

 אָמְרוּ: שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר אָלֶף זוּגִים תַּלְמִידִים הָיוּ לוֹ לְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא מִגְּבָת עַד אַנְטִיפְרַס, וְכוּלָּן מֵתוּ בְּפֶרֶק אֶחָד, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁלֹּא נָהֲגוּ כָּבוֹד זֶה לָזֶה.

Rebbi Akiva had twelve thousand pairs of students in an area of land that stretched from Gevat to Antipatris in Judea. They all died in one period of time [between Pesach and Shavuoth], because they did act with respect to each other.

When you relay this historical incident, it sounds completely out of proportion to sentence these great Torah scholars to death by plague for what appears to be a slight failing. It doesn't say that they directly insulted or undermined each other, so we have to ask: What's going on here? 

Notice that it doesn't say 24,000 but 12,000 pairs. One can understand that as a reference to the pairs of chavrusos [learning partners]. However,  I see another point to it now, which makes me understand why this kind of behavior was punished so severely.

Each pair was a unit unto itself. They respected each other as learning partners who collaborate. They likely would have invited each other over to their homes to further their discussions and the like and so maintained what would be considered respectful behavior to each other. However, the closeness they would have built up between them may have ended defining a very tightly defined circle that excluded the 11,999 pairs, and that is what led them to not behave quite the way they should have with the other students. 

You don't have to go out of your way to snub someone to be guilty of this kind of thing. It can happen just from showing that you regard them as outside your circle -- not worth of your regard and attention. Is that really so bad? In the eyes of a true Torah perspective, yes, it is. 

That is the fundamental lesson of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, whose cliquishness led to literal disaster in the form of the churban. We learn this as ancient history that is still relevant to us because sinas chinam is what is preventing the Bais Hamikdash from being rebuilt. For Rabbi Akiva's students, though, it wasn't ancient history; it was very recent -- in living memory of many people around them.  

I believe that is why they are dealt with so harshly for not applying that lesson to their own lives when they proceeded to form their own closed groups and treating those outside it as outsiders whom they have a right to exclude. I'd also say that it is the same reason we observe mourning during sefira -- not just fo the 24,000  lives snuffed out but for the failure to apply the lesson of Kamtza and bar Kamtza which keeps the state of churban and  galus in effect for  two thousand years. 

Even when such behavior was not something that led to the churban, it aroused very severe punishment. Consider the consequences of Penina behavior toward Chana -- even though she had good intentions -- the loss of nearly her children. Or think about what the Gemara says about Boaz/Ivtan in Bava Basra 91a

דְּאָמַר רַבָּה בַּר רַב הוּנָא אָמַר רַב: מֵאָה וְעֶשְׂרִים מִשְׁתָּאוֹת עָשָׂה בֹּעַז לְבָנָיו, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיְהִי לוֹ שְׁלֹשִׁים בָּנִים, וּשְׁלֹשִׁים בָּנוֹת שִׁלַּח הַחוּצָה וּשְׁלֹשִׁים בָּנוֹת הֵבִיא לְבָנָיו מִן הַחוּץ. וַיִּשְׁפֹּט אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים״,וּבְכָל אַחַת וְאַחַת עָשָׂה שְׁנֵי מִשְׁתָּאוֹת: אֶחָד בְּבֵית אָבִיו וְאֶחָד בְּבֵית חָמִיו. וּבְכוּלָּן לֹא זִימֵּן אֶת מָנוֹחַ, אֲמַר: כּוּדְנָא עֲקָרָה בְּמַאי פָּרְעָא לִי

תָּאנָא: וְכוּלָּן מֵתוּ בְּחַיָּיו.

Rabba bar Rav Huna says that Rav says: The judge Ibzan of Bethlehem (see Judges 12:8–10) is Boaz. The Gemara asks: What is he teaching us? The Gemara explains that this comment is in accordance with the other statement of Rabba bar Rav Huna, as Rabba bar Rav Huna says that Rav says: Boaz prepared one hundred and twenty feasts for his children at their weddings. As it is stated, concerning Ibzan: “And he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters he sent abroad, and thirty daughters he brought in from abroad for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years” (Judges 12:9). The verse indicates that he had sixty children.And at each and every wedding he prepared for his children, he made two feasts, one in the house of the father of the groom and one in the house of the father-in-law of the groom. And he did not invite Manoah, [who became the father of Shimshon] to any of them, as he said: It is not worth inviting him; he is a sterile mule, how will he pay me back? Manoah will never invite me in return, as he has no children. All those children died in his lifetime. 

It is highly unlikely that someone of Ivtzan's status -- one of the leaders listed in Shoftim -- made a point of not inviting Manoach to the feasts made for his many children's weddings because he felt he would lose out monetarily.He may well have intended it as point of sensitivity -- not to make Manoach feel bad tht he's invited to something he could never offer himself. Nevertheless, there was still an element her of exclusion that can cause another pain, and so  Ivtazan lost that wealth of children hat made him feel he and Manoach were in completely different circles that need not mix. This is very important to bear in mind any time you think you'll not invite someone to your simcha with rationalizations of any kind. You have no idea what kind of hurt you may cause and how you may be judged by the one true Judge as a result. 

As Shavuoth is supposed to be on everyone's mind during the sefira period as the goal to which we count up from the second night of Pesach, it is fitting to also consider how Ivtzan as Boaz in Megillat Ruth redeemed himself. At the point at which Ruth accompanies Naomi to Beit Lechem, Boaz had already lost all his children and his wife.He demonstrates that he has  learned his lesson of not excluding people who are not quite of his set in making the public declaration that he will marry Ruth whom Ploni Almoni (who was actually named Tov, according to some commentators, but failed to live up to his name) refused to accept as a wife with the excuse that it would harm his estate. Boaz who did take her on then merited the greatest estate of all -- becoming the ancestor of David who heads of the monarchy of the Jewish people. 

According to even the most stringent view of observing mourning for the entire sefira period, that ends within three days of Shavuoth when Bnay Yisrael gathered together as one - keish echad beleve echad -- with no divisions of cliques in order to receive the Torah.  But even those who will abstain from music and haircuts through the third of Sivan typically will take a break from mourning on Lag B'Omer. 

Perhaps Lag B'Omer, the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai -- one of R' Akiva's surviving students -- is associated with relief from this mourning because he had to learn this lesson of not just staying within your own chosen circle and disdaining everyone else. It took a full 13 year for him to absorb that. But at least he did. How many of us go through our entire lifetime, in effect, harming the people we treat with disdain even while thinking of ourselves as good and noble because we're frum and learned?

Related:

https://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/05/thought-on-r-shimon-bar-yochai-on-lag.html

https://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2016/05/hadassim-for-shabbos-thoughts-for-lag.html

https://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-anti-hero-and-heroine-in-book-of.html

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