[Avodah] ALL 24000 died

[Isaac Balbin]

You aren't considering that they died as soldiers in War as per R' Sherira
Gaon and others with the Gemara's description being that had they been
united perhaps they would have not been slaughtered by the Romans. In
this reading, Askera is a euphemism (see Lev Ivri from Rav Henkin)

Rav Schachter, explained that Rav Henkin wrote in that essay that the
Rabbis in the Gemara were afraid to write the truth, so they wrote a
ridiculous version of the story that everybody knew was just a code --
that they died in the Bar Kochba Revolt