What makes Lag Ba’Omer, the 33rd day of the Omer, special? Why has this day become an oasis of relief, and even celebration, amidst the generally mournful period between Pesah and Shavuot? The Talmud tells us simply that one year, R. Akiva’s 24,000 students all died between Pesah and Shavuot; a post-talmudic tradition asserts that the plague that felled them came to an end specifically on the 33rd day of the Omer. Something about this day ended the catastrophe that befell these second-century sages.
