Counting of The Omer - As A Period of Semi-mourning

As A Period of Semi-mourning

The period of counting the Omer is also a time of semi-mourning, during which the Halakha forbids haircuts, shaving, listening to instrumental music, or conducting weddings, parties, and dinners with dancing. Traditionally, the reason cited is that this is in memory of a plague that killed the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva. According to the Talmud, 12,000 chavruta (pairs of study partners) were divinely killed during the days of the Omer-counting for not honoring one another properly.

Lag Ba'omer, the thirty-third day of the Counting of the Omer, is considered to be the day in which the plague was lifted, (and/or: the day in which the rebellion saw a victory,) so on that day, all the rules of mourning are lifted (some Sephardim, however, continue the mourning period up until the 34th day of the Omer, which is considered by them to be the day of joy and celebration). Spanish and Portuguese Jews do not observe these customs. Some religious Jews shave each Friday afternoon during the mourning period of the Omer in order to be neat in honor of the Shabbat.

In practice, different Jewish communities observe different periods of mourning. Some families listen to music during the week of Passover and then commence the period of mourning until Lag Ba'omer. Some Sephardic Jewish families begin the period of mourning from the first day of the Hebrew month of Iyar and continue for thirty-three days until the third of Sivan. The custom among Jerusalemites (minhag Yerushalmi) is to follow the mourning practices during the entire Counting of the Omer, save for the day of Lag Ba'omer and the last three days of the counting (sheloshet yemei hagbalah). The extent of mourning is also based heavily on family custom, and therefore Jews will mourn to different degrees.

Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, author of Aruch Hashulchan, postulates that the mourning period also memorializes Jews who were murdered during the Crusades, pogroms and blood libels that occurred in Europe 1,000 years after the period of Rabbi Akiva .

The Jewish calendar is largely agricultural, and the period of Omer falls between Passover and Shavuot. On Passover there is a shift from praying for rain to praying for dew and this begins the growth period for the fruit of the season. Shavuot is the day of the giving of the first fruits. The outcome of the season's crop and fruit was still vulnerable during this period. Over these seven weeks, daily reflection, work on one's middot (characteristics) and potential inner growth from this work on self was one way to pray for and invite the possibility of affecting one's external fate and potential - the growth of the crop and the fruit of that season.

Although the period of the Omer is traditionally a mourning one, Jews can do actions that are not allowed during mourning on Lag Ba'Omer and a day of extreme happiness. Many Religious Zionists shave their beards and do other actions that are typically not allowed during the mourning period on Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day).