Following excerpts from “ The Heart of the Matter” by Rabbi Nosson Weisz, of Aish Jerusalem, concerning the Parsha Emor.
You shall count for yourselves — from the morrow of the rest day, from the day when you bring the omer of the waving — seven weeks, they shall be complete. Until the morrow of the seventh week you shall count fifty days; and you shall offer a new meal-offering to God. (Leviticus 23:15-16)
The custom among Jews is not to celebrate weddings between Passover and Shavuot. The reason: so as not to create an atmosphere of increased joy because the students of Rabbi Akiva died of a plague during this period. There is also the custom not to trim the head or facial hair [as a sign of mourning], but some allow this after Lag B’Omer — the 33rd day of the Omer — because they maintain that the plague abated at this time. (Tur, Orach chaim, 493,1)
It was said that Rabbi Akiva had 12,000 pairs of students and that they all died in a single period because they did not afford the proper respect to each other. The world was a wasteland until Rabbi Akiva taught our rabbis in the South: Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Yosi, Rabbi Shimon [that is, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar whose memorial day we celebrate on the 33rd day of the Omer] and Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua. And they reestablished the Torah. We learn that they all died between Passover and Shavuot. (Talmud, Yevomat, 62b)
