Tag Archives: Number 24

The Kabbalah of Shavuot

With Shavuot coming tomorrow night, let us delve into some of its deeper cosmic mysteries, as relayed in a most profound passage in the Zohar (III, 97b-98b, together with Ra’aya Mehemna). It begins by describing Shavuot night as a “wedding” between Hashem and His people. It is well-known that Mount Sinai served as the “chuppah”, the Torah as the “ketubah”, Hashem as the groom, and Israel as the bride. As explored in depth previously, in ancient times an Israelite bride was adorned with 24 different ornaments, and the corresponding “ornaments” of the Jewish people are the 24 books of Tanakh.

The Zohar says that there are those who, on Shavuot, learn the Oral Torah at night and the Written Torah during the day. But it also says that, just as a bride is excited the whole night before her wedding and doesn’t sleep, and prepares for her wedding with her 24 adornments, so too the Jewish people should stay up all night and not sleep, and “adorn” ourselves with the 24 books of Tanakh. This is why the Arizal laid out his tikkun text for Torah study on the night of Shavuot to be entirely from Tanakh, the Written Torah, and not the Oral Torah. The Arizal says that together with the Tanakh, one should study mystical commentaries on it. (This was the impetus behind my tikkun for Shavuot, to lay out the correct sections of study from Tanakh, and provide a concise and fitting mystical commentary on each section.) Why Tanakh and its encoded secrets should be the sole focus on Shavuot needs further elucidation. Continue reading →

A New Perspective on Rabbi Akiva, Rachel, and the 24,000

An illustration of Rabbi Akiva from the Mantua Haggadah of 1568

Now that Lag b’Omer is behind us and the mourning customs have been lifted, it may be a good time to reflect more deeply on the whole story of Rabbi Akiva and his 24,000 students. This story is very well-known, of course, and deeply ingrained in our psyches. But for me, like for many people, multiple aspects of the story never really made sense. So many questions emerge, each more troubling than the next.

First, how it is possible that 24,000 Torah giants—talmidei chakhamim and presumably very righteous people—were slaughtered in the span of just a few weeks? The students of the great and saintly Rabbi Akiva, no less? Why did he have to suffer such a horrendous loss? And all because the students “didn’t honour each other properly”? Since when does lack of honour incur mass execution? And what does it even mean, anyway, that they didn’t “honour” each other? How so?

Another question: why specifically 24,000 disciples? How did Rabbi Akiva even get such an astronomical number of students in the first place, at a time following the Great Revolt when the Jewish community in the Holy Land was decimated? And why does the number 24 keep coming up in the story? Recall that Rabbi Akiva left his home and was away from him wife for 24 years, returning with 24,000 students. Surely this is not coincidental. I believe it might actually hold the key to answering all of the perplexing questions above, as well as another big mystery:

Why is it that the mourning period for the 24,000 students specifically requires abstaining from weddings. As explored in the past, the earliest mention of “mourning” during the Omer is from the times of the Geonim, and suggests to only avoid weddings. (The first halakhic code to officially speak about it, the Arba Turim, notes a universal custom to avoid weddings, and only a local custom among some communities to avoid haircuts.) Why is the essence of mourning for the 24,000 specifically observed by prohibiting weddings? Continue reading →