I'll be at YU for Yom Ha'atzmaut tonight. Yay! Anyone wants to join me, please do. Same for the Life of Brian re-release this weekend. Double Yay! I hope I can find time.

Back to Inyana D'Yoma, a very nice piece by R. Eliezer Melamed of Beit El at their site. Translating freely from the Hebrew:

"I've heard that the 'plague' that killed the [24,000] students of Rabbi Akiva [for whom we mourn during the period of Sefirah] took place during the Bar Kokhba revolt [135 C.E.], and there were students who went to fight the Romans, and those who continued to study. And the soldiers and students insulted one another, each saying, 'I am greater than my companion, for what I am doing is more important, and his actions have no purpose.' And because of this senseless hatred they fell before their enemies, and at one time they all died. And it's no accident that this occurred between Pesach, the holiday of national redemption, and Shavuot, the spiritual holiday of receiving the Torah. And these students who did not honor one another split 'between Pesach and Shavuot;' that is, between nationalism and Torah [i.e., each only adhering to one, none both, as they should have], and so they all died in this period."

OK, it's a bit cute, especially as trying to draw an analogy to today. But I like it.