The time between Passover and Shavuot is known as the “Omer Counting Period”.Yet, there was a time when it meant mourning for the students of the eminent master Rabbi Akiva who were victims of a dreadful epidemic that decimated 24,000 of them: for 32 days without interruption, hundreds of children were buried at nightfall. From there, of course, the perpetuation throughout our history until today of this trauma – representing unspeakable suffering!

But beyond these dramatic factual events, this period is actually carrying a double message, including tremendous teaching…

Indeed, Rabbi Akiva was the great master of the oral law, so that with the serial death of his students, it was the whole of Torah She-be’al peh, which was threatened with extinction because it could no longer be transmitted. And then, Rabbi Akiva gave us extraordinary teaching… At that time, he was 64 years old, and even though he had just lost all his students, this great sage did not give up: he went to the south of Israel to establish a new yeshiva!

Six greatest masters will arise from this Talmudic institute of “rescue” of the oral Torah: Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, Rabbi Meir Baal Haness, Rabbi Yehuda Bar Ilai, Rabbi Yossi Ben Halafta, Rabbi Elazar Ben Shamua, and Rabbi Nechemia. Despite the extent of the catastrophe that had annihilated all his followers, Rabbi Akiva was never discouraged. His double message is crystal clear: never stop praying or hoping, but never forget what happened…

That is the reason why we do not celebrate Jewish marriages during this period, constituting an exceptionally rare decision in our tradition, as it is important for Judaism to continue to found homes. But beyond the dramatic aspect of this devastating epidemic, what our Sages want to transmit by this mourning is the fact that if the oral Torah happened – God forbid! – to be erased in the future, then the entire Torah would disappear as well! Indeed, the written Torah deprived of its oral dimension – given at Mount Sinai as well, together with the written Torah – literally doesn’t make sense.

A study that was carried on more than 25 years ago in the USA, has shown that some 1,785 religions around the world were all issued from Judaism and all relied on the writings of the Hebrew Bible, interpreting its text. This shows how much – without our oral law which protects the written law and transmits its spirit – it is possible to stray completely from the original and unique divine message they both contain while complementing each other!

The counting of the Omer is, therefore, an opportunity to pay homage to the sages of Israel who, all over history and with no interruption, have ensured the transmission of the Torah and the Hebrew language. Because if today in Israel, we speak modern day Ivrit, it is thanks to all these masters of Israel who, during two millennia since the destruction of the Temple, have never stopped, in thorough exile, to correspond, speak and write in Hebrew. This has maintained our venerable language, and – far beyond that – the entire message and spirit of the Torah.