omer and dignity

There is little more dramatic then the life of Rabbi Akiva.  He is described as an unlearned shepherd until the age of 40 at which point he experienced a tremendous spiritual awakening.  He learned voraciously for 24 years straight and he became the leading sage of the Jewish people.  If that weren’t enough, he built a massive academy of 24,000 students, akin to a large state university in size.  Then, this incredible achievement all comes crashing down within a matter of months.  A massive plague hits his academy around this time of year and all the students die.  This is not taken to be a random stroke of ill fate, but a particular punishment for a spiritual malady. The cause was attributed to a lack of respect in the way the students treated each other.  The Talmud in Yebamot 62b explains: ‘They said 12 thousand pairs of students did Rabbi Akiva have from Gevet to Antripas and they all died in one period of time because they didn’t behave with honor, one to the other. And the world was desolate until Rabbi Akiva came by his Rabbis in the south and he taught them, and they reestablished Torah in that time’.

 I think most people would quit or have a mental breakdown after seeing one’s life work crumble, especially at that age.  But Rabbi Akiva, didn’t. Instead he travelled and found a new pair of students and began anew. Aside from the incredible perseverance on the side of Rabbi Akiva, we need to understand how it could be that a lack of respect among colleagues could prompt the severe response that ensued?

The answer lies in the following question- how do we express the value of holiness? Certainly, we can’t buy it monetarily so how do we know what its value is to us?  By the honor we bestow upon it- do we treat it honorably? It stands to reason, then, that if we believe that we are holy, then the honor with which we carry ourselves is a direct measure of how holy we think we are.  And we don’t mean holier than thou, but holy in the sense of important, dignified, and self-respecting.

                       What is the measure of such comportment? There are no set rules on the subject but one barometer we can use is sensitivity and refinement.  Do we watch the way we speak and what we speak about? How abrasive are we towards others? How quickly do we eat? Where do we eat? The Talmud in Kiddush 40b goes so far as to say that one who eats in the marketplace (constantly) is doglike (because he is unembarrassed to perform animal needs out in the open) and can't testify in court. The Torah is meant to enhance this sensitivity. And if the Torah scholars of the generation don’t respect each other, it is a sign that the Torah knowledge may be vast, but it is bereft of wisdom and sensitivity and that is something we can’t tolerate.