A corporate life decoded

Rabbi Mark Wm. Gross

Why are there so many June brides? It is because of a backlog in weddings prompted by an ancient Roman superstition that May is an ill-omened month for new beginnings. That conviction persisted in European culture for centuries: Sir Walter Scott records the Scots proverb “marry in May, rue the day.”

The source of the May constraint on celebrations is not evil spirits, but rather seasonal pragmatics. Throughout the northern hemisphere this is the time of year when every member of the community is completely involved in the arduous business of harvesting and storing away the ripened grain. That is why in the Jewish calendar we refer to the seven-week period between Passover (when the first stalks of grain ripen) and Shavuot (when a tenth of the finished grain harvest was brought to Jerusalem in thanks to God) is referred to as the season of Omer: “bringing in the sheaves.”

So, it is not surprising that in the Jewish tradition, we also forego weddings during the Omer season. However, what is noteworthy is that our reason for doing so is not superstitious concern over bad luck for the individual, but rather a solemn memorialization of a collective geopolitical misfortune that already befell our people long ago. As the rabbis of the Talmud explain it, our avoidance of weddings during the Omer season is a gesture of mourning for “the disciples of Rabbi ‘Aqiva,’ who died from Passover until Shavuot.”

We have often been forced to communicate in code, because our Jewish sacred writing continued to be subject to external review and censorship for many centuries.

The reference is to the highly influential second century teacher Aqiva ben-Joseph, who almost single-handedly shaped the Judaism we practice. It is because this rabbi lent his significant prestige to Shim’on bar-Kochba that the uprising against Rome in 133 C.E. was initially successful. But with tiny Judaea no match for the legions of the empire, this last desperate effort for national independence was quickly and brutally crushed by the soldiers of Hadrian. The last-stand fortress of Beitar fell in a savage and bloody campaign in the spring of 135, at which time our forebears trampled in that onslaught “died from Passover until Shavuot.”

Note that the sages of the Talmud are using circumlocution as a kind of code. Teaching and writing in an era when we were still under Roman domination, and after three ill-conceived uprisings against the Roman Empire, any nationalistic sentiment in rabbinic literature is going to have to be couched in terms of periphrasis. So, it is that the rebel leader Bar-Kochba is not mentioned by name, and the rebels who fought and died under him are referred to as “disciples of Rabbi ‘Aqiva.’”

We have often been forced to communicate in code, because our Jewish sacred writing continued to be subject to external review and censorship for many centuries. When we sing Aleinu l’Shabei’ach at the end of every service, few Ashkenazic Jews realize that they are missing two lines of that prayer, excised by church authorities in the 13th century.

From an early era, rabbinic literature in Midrash and Talmud employs semisecret code, as using the name “Eisav” (the inimical older twin brother of our patriarch Jacob) to denote first the Roman Empire, and in later years the church. We even self-censor, as when the rabbis writing moralistically about due punishment coming to us for some misdeed refer instead to it befalling “the enemies of Israel.”

What is marvelous about all this, is that Jewish tradition reflects both honesty and creativity in confronting the experiences of our fabulously ancient history. Ours is a resilient people, with a vibrant literary heritage that challenges the imagination even as it uplifts the soul — in May, or any other month.

Rabbi Mark Wm. Gross serves at Jewish Congregation of Marco Island.