[Avodah] Who First Said It? 7 - Mourning during Sefirah

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 05:29:03PM +0000, rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com wrote:
: What is the earliest source for observing Mourning during Sefira?

See the first se'ifim on the subject in the AhS -- 493:1-3. In our
chaver R Dovi Jacob's critical edition, it's at
http://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%9A_%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%9F_%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%97_%D7%97%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%AA%D7%A6%D7%92
or http://bit.ly/daTKRm

Leshitaso, the ban on getting married during omer bgecause of the death
of R Aqiva's talmidim is a minhag kol yisrael miymos hage'onim. A more
full aveilus he said is "bemedinos eilu".

I would suggest they grew out of the Crusades, which took such a toll
during the late omer, which is why the growth of the minhag is later
and more limited in population. The AhS's "medinos eilu" includes the
people who fled the Crusades and went east; in contrast to "kol Yisrael"
which goes well beyond Ashkenaz. (I don't know which part of the omer
the 2nd Crusades reached Ashkenaz, but that was during the omer as well.)

And, while I'm conjecturing, I think this is also the reason for diverse
minhagim about which part of the omer to mourn -- R' Aqiva's talimidim
stopped dying for Lag baOmer, but the Crusades hit Shair, Worms and
Magenca later in the omer.


Aside from both of the above, there is another reason to mourn during
omer. It's the only special time WRT avodah in the beis hamiqdash on
which aveilus is mutar. We lost that chagiga and the pesach, but we
are not permitted to mourn then. However, we also lost the qorban omer,
and being able to be maqdish our grain before eating any chadash...

And then what happened? We lost the BHMQ to sin'as chinam. Things improved
when many of us saw hope in Bar Kochva. Meanwhile, the next generation of
the religious elite were marked with the same flaw -- shelo nahagu kavod
zeh lazeh! This is while survivors of churban bayis, including their
rebbe, still walked the earth. And because we didn't learn, we nearly
lose the entire chain of mesorah; the rebuilding of Torah falls to 5
men. And we lose the hope of yet again returning to the qorban ha'omer...

The loss of the omer and the loss of talmidei Rabbi Aqiva are indivisible
parts of a single tragedy.

Again and again, we start rebuilding the world, and Hashem found our
foundations faulty and forced us to begin again.

Kol dor shelo nivneh beyamav ma'alin alav ke'ilu hu hecherivo.
			    - Y-mi Yuma 1:1, 5a

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 9th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            most appropriate?