Our Parsha, Emor, continues with the theme of holiness from last week’s Parsha.  This week we read about the holiness of the Kohanim and of the holidays and Shabbat which are called mikraey kodesh, “times of holiness”.   We are also in the midst of the counting of the Omer, a period that in Mishnaic times became one of mourning for the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akivah who died during this period and about whom the Talmud states: “Rabbi Akiva had twelve thousand pairs of students in an area of land that stretched from Gevat to Antipatris in Judea, and they all died in one period of time, because they did not treat each other with respect…It is taught that all of them died in the period from Passover until Shavuot. Rav Ḥama bar Abba said, and some say it was Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Avin: They all died a bad death. The Gemara inquires: What is it that is called a bad death? Rav Naḥman said: Askera.”

Perhaps it is no coincidence that they died during the Omer count.  The Omer links Pesach and Shavuot and in a sense creates one long mikra kodesh, one holy holiday time.   Holiness, we usually imagine, is about something special to God, sometimes in space like the Temple, in an object like a sacrifice, or in time as with Shabbat.  But there is another manifestation of holiness that in fact it is more powerful than the others -the human being.  Humans are made in the image of the Divine, the ultimate source of holiness.   So perhaps because Rabbi Akiva’s students knew how to treat holidays and holy foods with respect, but did not know how to treat people with respect , it is during this time that they died, pointing an arrow of irony at themselves and their inverted  values.   If we cannot recognize the holiness in the highest of places, the human being, then we do not deserve to partake of it in its lower forms such as in time, space or objects.   The commentaries say that the disease they died from, Askera, was a disease of the throat.   How we talk about people is a big part of how we respect  or disrespect them.

We still have mikraey kodesh, the holiness of time, even as we are isolated in our homes, but we are seperated from holy space, our shul, and from the highest holiness, each other.  Much tragedy has come from this virus but perhaps there are lessons to be learned in some way.  Perhaps the isolation may prompt us to place greater value on the holiness we find in our shul, and most of all in each other.  To be careful how we treat  and speak about each other, and to judge each other favorably.  Shabbat Shalom.