Extreme Love for One Another: Lag B'Omer and Pandemic Decisions

Tomorrow is Lag B'Omer, the 33rd day of the Omer, the days we count in the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot. 

In the month after Passover, there was a plague that killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva's students. The Talmud explains that this happened because they were disrespecting each other and this was their punishment. We commemorate this each year by taking on acts of mourning, like refraining from listening to music and abstaining from hair cuts and clothes shopping. On day 33 of the Omer, their deaths ceased, so we celebrate. 

Lag B'Omer is one of the few Jewish Holidays where we aren't commemorating the end of tyranny and savior from death at the hand of another nation. 

Instead, we were dying at the hand of God, as a result of great discord amongst ourselves. 

Jews not getting along isn't exactly a surprising state of affairs, but consider this: These men were students of Rabbi Akiva, whose claim to fame is his emphasis on Ahavas Yisroel, loving your fellow Jew. 

So how could his students have been acting so disrespectfully to one another than it caused a plague?

The problem was love for one another taken to an unhealthy extreme. 

Each one of them had slightly different but correct understandings of the Torah -- two Jews, three opinions and all. Each one believed that his way was unequivocally correct. 

If they'd loved each other less, they might have been able to coexist peacefully with all their different understandings. 

But they loved each other so intensely that each man was pained when he perceived that his fellow Jews were acting wrong. It became intolerable to them. 

And so they argued and fought out of this extreme love. They couldn't handle the thought of their brethren living, what they perceived to be, a less than perfect Torah life. 

It's hard to recall this story in 2021 without thinking of the plague we're all living through now.

True, our plague isn't the direct result of anyone's bad behavior. To say that would feel an awful lot like playing God. 

But it sure has brought out a fair share of bad behavior in us all. 

Even the experts can't seem to agree what the right path is. Each of us is left with too many decisions to make, with stakes too high for comfort. 

Add to that the fact that none of us can take on a pandemic alone. The decisions we make can impact others and their decisions impact us. 

We must act out of love for each other and at times make hard decisions for the sake of the public good, out of love for our love for our more fragile neighbours. 

After making such painstaking decisions, it can feel like what we've decided to do is best, for ourselves and for the world at large. It can feel as though our interpretation of the data and the experts we trust are the one true way. Others making different decisions can feel like an affront.

Someone has to be wrong, we think, and it’s got to be them, right?

We want them to be safe and in order to be safe, they should do what we're doing. Why don't they care about themselves and others and much as we do!?

But this line of thought helps no one. 

We are interconnected and our actions all affect each other, but we are each responsible only for our own actions. 

Everyone must decide the best course of action for ourselves, taking into account both our own circumstances and expert opinions.

True love, Rabbi Akivas students eventually had to learn, is not thinking your way is the best way and shoving it down your neighbours throats. That's just hubris. Maybe it’s out of love, but anything can be taken to an unhealthy extreme. 

True love is trusting others to make their own decisions and do things differently. It's extending grace to ourselves, knowing that our decisions don't need to be perfect or right for everyone. It’s extending the same grace to others.

It's accepting that we're all a little flawed and doing our best.

I’d love to hear what you think and how you’re celebrating Lag B’Omer this year!