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To the best of my knowledge we celebrate on Lag B'Omer as this is the day the students of Rabbi Akiva stopped dying. This reason seems incomprehensible. The reason they stopped dying was because there was no one left.
Imagine someone has eleven children. One by one they pass away. Finally the father buries his last child, would he celebrate???
Then how are we supposed to understand Lag B'Omer?
Sourced answers please.
This exact question was asked by R. Hezekiah Silva in his commentary to the Shulchan Aruch where it says that the students stopped dying.
ומיהו יש לדקדק בשמחה זו למה ואי משום שפסקו מלמות מה בכך הרי לא נשארו אחד מהם וכולם מתו ומה טיבה של שמחה זו
However, there is [a need] to clarify why we have this joy. If it's because they stopped dying, who cares? Not one of them was left and they all died! So what is the nature of this joy?
He suggests the following answer:
ואפשר שהשמחה היא על אותם תלמידים שהוסיף אח"כ רבי עקיבא שלא מתו כאלו
Perhaps the joy is for those students that R. Akiva added afterwards who did not die like these.
There is in fact little reason to believe that this reason for celebrating the 18th of Iyar is true. The "students" of Rabbi Akiva most likely refer to those followers who fought in the Bar Kochva revolt, which lasted a full 4 years, and ended in late summer with the defeat of Beitar according to the Talmud as well as contemporary Roman historians.
The only source for the belief that his students suddenly stopped dying on the 18th is a 12th century rabbi who reported another rabbi reading so in an unknown old book. To quote the Chatam Sofer on this topic:
אמנם ידעתי כי שמעתי שעכשיו אכשיר דרי וממרחק יבואו ידרושו את ה' בע"הק צפת ביום ל"ג בעומר בהלולא דרשב"י ז"ל ... אבל לקבוע מועד שלא נעשה בו נס ולא הוזכר בש"ס ופוסקים בשום מקום ורמז ורמיזה רק מניעת הספד ותענית מנהגא הוא וטעמי' גופא לא ידענא
שו״ת חתם סופר יורה דעה, רל״ג
So, "What are we celebrating on Lag B'Omer?" It seems no one really knows, but we do know that this was not originally related to Rashbi's death, as can be seen here: https://seforimblog.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins/
