Though there are different customs for the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities, everyone agrees that for much of the Jewish month of Iyar the Jewish community observes a mourning period. This mourning period is connected to the Talmud’s discussion of the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akivah, who all passed away during this time (Yevamot 62b). Such a special time, the countdown from Pesach to the giving of the Torah on Shavuot and such sad circumstances. Therefore, like a mourner, we do not take haircuts, listen to music, and refrain from making weddings (except for Lag BaOmer). The reason they passed away is they did not show respect for each other.
This is not so easy to understand. Rabbi Akivah was known for teaching that loving your fellow Jew is one of the great principles of the Torah. How could it be that his students were disrespectful of each other?
The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that the students loved their colleagues so much, they were relentless in trying to convince their fellows that when there was a disagreement, the colleague should change their opinion. I love you so much, it hurts me that you are mistaken! This is what it means by teaching that they did not respect each other [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. Likutei Sichot (“Collected Talks”): An Anthology of Talks. Kehot Publication Society. Volume 32, page 49 as brought in Sha’arei Mo’adim, page 158].
Here is an important lesson in how to fulfill the commandment of loving your fellow Jew. Respect their opinions and behaviors even if they are different from ours.
So easy to say, yet so hard to fulfill. It is so stress-free to judge others. The truth is, often we are just seeing a reflection of our own negative traits. How different life would be if when I perceive something unlikable in my fellow Jew, I realize it is not them, but really it is me. Then love them and use the perception as an exercise in learning about myself!
Let me take it a step farther. What if I told you that sometimes loving your fellow Jew could not just be an opportunity to work on ourselves, but to save your life? Let me tell you one of my favorite stories.
Reb Mordechai Dubin was a well know Chabad chasid who lived in Russia during the Stalin years and was able to escape. He was famous for his ahavat Yisrael, his limitless love of other Jews. He was once sitting in a group and someone asked him how he acquired such a level of ahavat Yisrael? He answered that this mitzvah (precept) saved his life!
When he was a young man in Russia, he was sentenced to ten years hard labor in a Siberian Gulag work camp for teaching Jewish children Torah. They did not only have proper food or clothing, they did not have any calendars. The work camps were not like western prisons. When your day came to leave, there was no warning. They just told you goodbye and put you outside in your prison rags. It is documented that more than half of the prisoners in the Gulags died trying to get from the prison to the nearest community, sometimes days of walking in the bitter cold without proper clothing, shoes, food or water.
So it was with Reb Mordechai – he was pushed out with nothing. No choice but to walk. Arriving late at night at the closest town, almost dead from cold and hunger, and then he has to find a house with a mezuzah. When he finally finds a Jewish home and knocks on the door, the resident sees a prisoner’s uniform and quickly slams the door, thinking he was an escapee.
Now what? Reb Mordechai hasn’t the strength to find another house and decides to sit down and die.
Then he starts to think. When the Jew inside opens the door, what will he find? A dead and frozen Jew on his doorstep. He is going to think he killed me. He is going to feel terrible. I can’t do that to him.
So, with his very last ounce of strength he knocks again. When the door opens, Reb Mordechai falls on the threshold. The householder doesn’t know what to do. Reb Mordechai says, “Please, just give me a cup of tea.” And that how his life was saved.
His life was saved by his own love for another Jew.
Chodesh Tov!