Torah Reading: Bechukotai (My Laws), Leviticus 26:3 to end of Leviticus.
Haftarah Reading: Jeremiah 16:10 to 17:14.
Even though this was my bar mitzvah parsha, instead of discussing the reading from Leviticus or Jeremiah, I want to continue the discussion begun with Ramara's excellent diary of two weeks ago, about counting the Omer and the bizarre minor holiday of Lag B'omer, which comes this Saturday night and Sunday. As Ramara pointed out, based on Leviticus 23: 15-16, Jews are commanded to count each day, day after day, from the second day of Passover until we reach day 49. The following day, day 50 which we don't count, is the holiday of Shavuot. The rabbis distinguished between commandments that have a rational or a moral basis, for example, the command to love our neighbor as ourselves, and commandments which seem to have no ethical or rational basis. The commandment to count the Omer, from day 1 to day 49, seems to fall in the latter category of commandments.
These 49 days of counting are considered to be a period of semi-mourning. Pious Jews do not shave or get haircuts. (After 8 years in the military of people telling me to get a haircut, this is one custom I am delighted to follow! I HATE haircuts!) Marriages are not performed in Orthodox communities - I was married the week before Passover - the rabbi told us we would otherwise have to wait the two months until after Shavuot. But on Lag B'Omer, the 33rd day of the Omer counting, we celebrate and do not mourn.
Why the mourning, and why the celebration? Answers after the orange squiggly.
First, the mourning. There are two explanations for why we are in mourning.
Explanation 1 - From the Talmud:
In the Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 62b:
It was said that Rabbi Akiva had 12,000 pairs of disciples, from [the northern Israel towns of] Gabbatha to Antipatris; and all of them died at the same time because they did not treat each other with respect. The world remained desolate until Rabbi Akiva came to our Masters in the South and taught the Torah to them. These were Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Judah, Rabbi Jose, Rabbi Simeon, and Rabbi Eleazar ben [son of] Shammua; and it was they who revived the Torah at that time. A Tanna taught: All of them [the 24,000 disciples of Rabbi Akiva] died between Passover and Shavuot. Rabbi Hama ben Abba or, some say, Rabbi Hiyya ben Abin said: All of them died a cruel death. What was it? — Rabbi Nachman replied: Croup.
This to me is interesting, but the historian in me wants to know more. First, I have heard and read many times that the Romans murdered Rabbi Akiva's students during the
Emperor Hadrian's mass murder of the Jews at the end of the
Bar Kochba Revolt. The Romans murdered Rabbi Akiva's students during the first 32 days of the Omer, but on Day 33, Lag B'Omer, they supposedly decided they had murdered enough students, so they stopped.
I wrote a diary about Hadrian's mass murder of the Jews last month. The revolt ended in 136 C.E., and the Romans murdered Rabbi Akiva the following year, in 137. Did the Romans murder 24,000 (12,000 pairs of) disciples of Rabbi Akiva in the first 32 days of the Omer in 136, leaving Rabbi Akiva a full year to travel south to teach Torah to the five rabbis who would carry on his teachings before the Romans would murder Rabbi Akiva? If so, why did the Romans stop murdering the students on the 33rd day of the Omer? Wouldn't they have wanted to finish the ugly job? Unlike the Nazis, who had to leave Jewish survivors in late 1944 and early 1945, the Romans had won their war. Then perhaps this mass murder of students occurred in 137? But, if so, Akiva would not have had enough time before his murder to travel south and teach Torah to his five colleagues.
Then there is the cause of the death of these 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva. The Talmud, quoted above, seems to state that the cause of death was natural - maybe the result of an epidemic. Those who linked to the Talmudic text may have noticed that the word "croup" is footnoted with "choked" as an alternate translation. Those familiar with the original Aramaic are invited to help me out here. But if these 24,000 young people died from an epidemic, why a happy holiday on the 33rd day of the Omer?
These ambiguities may be due to the fact that the above Talmudic text was authored no earlier than the mid Fourth Century, when Rabbi Hiyya ben Abin and Rabbi Nachman taught and argued in the Babylonian academies - and no later than the late Fifth Century, when Rabbi Ashi made the final edits to the Talmud - in other words, 200 to 300 years after the Hadrianic persecution. Over the course of centuries, a lot can be forgotten, and many myths can arise.
Explanation 2 - The Crusades:
In view of the difficulties I have outlined, many believe that the Jews did not begin to observe semi-mourning until the aftermath of the Crusades, when, in 1096, these self-styled warriors for Christ, unwilling to wait until they reached the Holy Land to start their killing, massacred tens of thousands of Jews in the Rhine Valley. This is the first known mass killing of Jews by "Christians" - a periodic slaughter that would eventually lead to the Shoah. Thanks to www.hebcal.com, link here, we can retrieve the Jewish calendar for 1096:
Second day of Passover, first day of the Omer: April 16, 1096
Lag B'Omer: May 19, 1096
Shavuot: June 5, 1096
The linked Wikipedia article on the Rhineland massacres states that the Crusaders traveled from city to city massacring Jews at each city. The murders started at the beginning of May and continued through July. While I believe it is because of the Crusades that we observe this period of semi-mourning - there is no indication that the murders eased on May 19th - in fact, just the opposite was the case.
Then why do we rejoice on Lag B'Omer?
If there was no event in the Hadrianic oppression or the Crusader massacres that calls for a party on the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer, then why do we have this happy day? What follows is just a theory (like evolution and climate change, just kidding).
The library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, the major seminary for Conservative Judaism, has what may be the only surviving copy of an issue of a French Jewish journal, published between the two world wars, which postulates the real reason why we celebrate the 33rd day of the Omer. I confess I have never read this article, and my French is not too good, and I do not know the name of the author, who was later murdered in the Shoah. But the article postulates that it was on the 33rd day of the Omer that the Roman Emperor Julian stood on the ruins of the Temple and presided over the ground breaking ceremony for a building of the Third Temple.
The Emperor Julian, known thereafter in Christiandom as "Julian the Apostate", was born and raised a Christian but renounced the Christian faith after he became emperor. He disestablished Christianity as the State Religion and, to quote the linked Wikipedia article,
on 4 February 362, Julian promulgated an edict to guarantee freedom of religion. This edict proclaimed that all the religions were equal before the law, and that the Roman Empire had to return to its original religious eclecticism, according to which the Roman state did not impose any religion on its provinces.
In 363, not long before Julian left Antioch to launch his campaign against Persia, in keeping with his effort to foster religions other than Christianity, he ordered the Temple rebuilt. A personal friend of his, Ammianus Marcellinus, wrote this about the effort:
"Julian thought to rebuild at an extravagant expense the proud Temple once at Jerusalem, and committed this task to Alypius of Antioch. Alypius set vigorously to work, and was seconded by the governor of the province; when fearful balls of fire, breaking out near the foundations, continued their attacks, till the workmen, after repeated scorchings, could approach no more: and he gave up the attempt." — Ammianus Marcellinus
The failure to rebuild the Temple has been ascribed to the Galilee earthquake of 363, and to the Jews' ambivalence about the project. Sabotage is a possibility, as is an accidental fire. Divine intervention was the common view among Christian historians of the time. Julian's support of Jews caused Jews to call him "Julian the Hellene."
On March 5, 363, Julian left Antioch for the Persian war front to lead the Roman army in one of its perpetual wars against the Persian empire. In mid May, the Roman army approached the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, where, on May 29th, Julian led the Romans into a military victory over the Persians outside the walls of the Persian capital,
The Battle of Ctesiphon, driving the Persians back behind the city's walls. But on June 26, 363, Julian was fatally wounded, having reigned for only two years.
But according to the research done by this French Jewish scholar in the 1930's, Julian left his army as it was approaching Ctesiphon to journey to Jerusalem, where, at the Temple ruins on Lag B'Omer, he dedicated the construction of the Third Temple. According to hebcal.com, Lag B'Omer in 363 was on Sunday May 19th. After the dedication festivities, he returned to the Persian front in time to fight the Battle of Ctesiphon on May 29th.
Julian's successor Jovian quickly restored Christianity as the state religion, and halted the construction of the Third Temple - the construction had lasted only a few weeks. Christianity would remain the state religion of the Roman Empire and its successor states, into the 17th and 18th centuries.
We can speculate how history would have been different had Julian succeeded in making his edict guaranteeing freedom of religion permanent. Perhaps there would have been no Crusades, no Spanish Expulsion, no Inquisition, no Pograms, no Shoah. And perhaps dominionist Christians in this country would not be insisting on requiring others to stand and even participate in their prayers. And perhaps there would have been no Town of Greece v. Galloway that has so seriously chipped away at Thomas Jefferson's vision of separation of church and state.
Shabbat Shalom, and Happy Lag B'Omer.