27 Apr EMOR/LAG BAOMER

The Gemara says, “Reb Akiva had twelve thousand pairs of talmidim (24,000 students). They lived [all over in Eretz Yis-rael] from Gavas until Antifras, and they all died in the same peri-od of time because they didn’t honor one another… They died between Pesach and Shavuos.” The Beis Yosef explains that they stopped dying two weeks before Shavuos, on Lag b’Omer. There-fore, the days of sefirah are days of mourning, and Lag b’Omer is a day for celebrating. The Pri Cho-dosh asks why should we cele-brate Lag b’Omer? It’s true that the students stopped dying on Lag b’Omer, but that’s mostly because almost all the students had already perished and only five students remained. So what’s there to be happy about? The Pri Cho-dosh answers, on this day Reb Akiva took his five remaining stu-dents and began to teach them Torah. The five students were: Reb Meir, Reb Yehudah, Reb Yossi, Reb Shi-mon and Reb Elazer ben Shamo’a, and from them the Torah contin-ued to live on in Klal Yisrael. That is a rea-son to celebrate. Let’s contemplate on what happened at that time. Only a few weeks ear-lier, Reb Akiva had twenty-four thousand students. They all died. There were many fu-nerals each day. The situation was tragic. Reb Akiva was left with only five students. But Reb Akiva didn’t give up. If there are only five students left, he will teach them. And from those five students, Torah went forth to the world. All the Torah that we have today is essentially from those five students. The Zohar and Kabbalah, for ex-ample, came from Reb Aki-va’s student, Reb Shimon. It’s these five students that are re-peated throughout Mishnayos. They are the main continua-tion of Torah sheb’al peh. The Torah continued to live on be-cause Reb Akiva didn’t lose hope, and he salvaged what-ever he could so Torah will remain by Yidden. Reb Shi-mon bar Yochai also didn’t give up. Chazal tell us that the Romans wanted to murder Reb Shimon, so he hid in a cave for thirteen years togeth-er with his son, Reb Elazar. Reb Shimon could have de-spaired and felt that all is lost. He was distant from the Torah centers, removed from all teachers and students. Fur-thermore, at this point, Reb Shimon thought that he may need to remain in the cave interminably. He didn’t know that eventu-ally he would leave. (We will soon write what caused Reb Shimon to courageously leave the cave.) Living in a cave forever, doesn’t seem to be very productive and glorious. But Reb Shimon contin-ued to study the Torah with all his might there in the cave, and it was particularly there that he reached his outstanding, unfathomable heights (as we sing “there you ac-quired your glory”). He reached those levels, because he didn’t lose hope. We should learn from Reb Akiva and from Reb Shimon never to lose hope. Sometimes it seems like everything is de-stroyed, but if we don’t lose hope, we can rebuild again. This hap-pened after the Holocaust. The tzaddikim who survived the War didn’t give up. They re-built new Torah centers on top of the ashes, and now the Torah flourishes again. If they would have suc-cumbed to despair, there wouldn’t be Torah and yiddishkeit today. And this is the approach that ev-eryone person should take. Wheth-er one’s problems are spiritual or material issues never lose hope. Keep davening, continue trying, and you will see wonders. On Lag b’Omer we sing Bar Yochai, “the son of Yochai.” Why don’t we sing Reb Shimon? Why do we mention his father’s name? The answer is, we purposely call Reb Shimon “Bar Yochai” to remind us that Reb Shimon was a child, born from parents. He was a hu-man being. He wasn’t a malach. And we have the obligation to try to emulate his ways, and to go in his footsteps. One aspect is to nev-er lose hope. When everything seems desperate, remember that Reb Akiva also had that feeling when 24,000 of his students per-ished. And Reb Shimon may have had that feeling while in the cave. But they didn’t lose hope, they continued on with what they could, and that led to their great-ness.