Dear Friends,
Not only are we in a unique period in human history – the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 – but also we are in a unique period of the Jewish year: the Counting of the Omer, the period from Passover to Shavuot when in antiquity our forebears watched the barley growing each spring day. And, each day, we count ourselves one step farther from the oppression of Egypt, and one day nearer to Shavuot, and our receiving Torah at Mt. Sinai.
Yet, there is more: during this special period there also is a unique history. Our tradition teaches that early in the second century, CE, there was a terrible plague in which 12,000 students of the great Rabbi Akiva perished. Fascinatingly, the Talmud recorded:
With regard to the twelve thousand pairs of Rabbi Akiva’s students, the Gemara adds: It is taught that all of them died in the period from Passover until Shavuot. Rav Ḥama bar Abba said, and some say it was Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Avin: They all died a bad death. The Gemara inquires: What is it that is called a bad death? Rav Naḥman said: Diphtheria. (Yevamot 62b)
But, their plague, which occurred at the same season as our COVID plague, abated on the 33rd day of the Omer – or this very week, nearly 2000 years ago. The similarities are stunning. This is the same week when, for better or for worse, parts of America began to reopen – hopefully to abate from our current virus. And, in antiquity, the rabbis struggled to describe the illness and death, itself, as our doctors and scientists are doing, today. 2000 years ago, it was determined to be diphtheria.
How fascinating to find this description from a text written fifteen centuries before today’s modern medical world, and to find the frightening illness, diphtheria, referenced. Of course, presently, children are routinely vaccinated with the DPT vaccines, effectively removing the fear of diphtheria. Yet, it took half a century – from the 1880’s to the 1920’s – from when the diphtheria bacterium was discovered until vaccinations were routinized. Fortunately, today, we are anticipating – or hoping for – a vastly swifter process.
Though advances in science have improved our lives dramatically, there are no advances in the psycho-spiritual response to plague. The Talmud records fear and intensity – amid the festival season – when so many perished, and it records a horrible death, with gasping for air as the airways closed. How and why did that plague cease? We do not know. But we are learning how best to control today’s pandemic.
Thus, this Shabbat when we gather during the Counting of the Omer, we pause to recognize the common moments in our history, and to be inspired to endure and support, to care and to hope.
Stay safe, and Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
Not only are we in a unique period in human history – the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 – but also we are in a unique period of the Jewish year: the Counting of the Omer, the period from Passover to Shavuot when in antiquity our forebears watched the barley growing each spring day. And, each day, we count ourselves one step farther from the oppression of Egypt, and one day nearer to Shavuot, and our receiving Torah at Mt. Sinai.
Yet, there is more: during this special period there also is a unique history. Our tradition teaches that early in the second century, CE, there was a terrible plague in which 12,000 students of the great Rabbi Akiva perished. Fascinatingly, the Talmud recorded:
With regard to the twelve thousand pairs of Rabbi Akiva’s students, the Gemara adds: It is taught that all of them died in the period from Passover until Shavuot. Rav Ḥama bar Abba said, and some say it was Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Avin: They all died a bad death. The Gemara inquires: What is it that is called a bad death? Rav Naḥman said: Diphtheria. (Yevamot 62b)
But, their plague, which occurred at the same season as our COVID plague, abated on the 33rd day of the Omer – or this very week, nearly 2000 years ago. The similarities are stunning. This is the same week when, for better or for worse, parts of America began to reopen – hopefully to abate from our current virus. And, in antiquity, the rabbis struggled to describe the illness and death, itself, as our doctors and scientists are doing, today. 2000 years ago, it was determined to be diphtheria.
How fascinating to find this description from a text written fifteen centuries before today’s modern medical world, and to find the frightening illness, diphtheria, referenced. Of course, presently, children are routinely vaccinated with the DPT vaccines, effectively removing the fear of diphtheria. Yet, it took half a century – from the 1880’s to the 1920’s – from when the diphtheria bacterium was discovered until vaccinations were routinized. Fortunately, today, we are anticipating – or hoping for – a vastly swifter process.
Though advances in science have improved our lives dramatically, there are no advances in the psycho-spiritual response to plague. The Talmud records fear and intensity – amid the festival season – when so many perished, and it records a horrible death, with gasping for air as the airways closed. How and why did that plague cease? We do not know. But we are learning how best to control today’s pandemic.
Thus, this Shabbat when we gather during the Counting of the Omer, we pause to recognize the common moments in our history, and to be inspired to endure and support, to care and to hope.
Stay safe, and Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
