Dear Friends,
This Tuesday, to celebrate Lag B'Omer, we are hosting a big, beautiful community barbecue with fun for all ages.
But aside from an excuse to fire up the grill and crank the music, what is Lag B'Omer?
Well firstly, "lag" comes from the Hebrew letters lamed and gimmel, whose numeric value together add up to 33. Lag B'Omer is in fact the 33rd day of the Omer, which is the seven-week period of time between Passover and Shavuot — when we left Egypt to when we received the Torah.
But that's merely the technical answer! There were several major events that transpired on this date.
One involves Rabbi Akiva, who was a giant of Jewish history. He did not learn the Hebrew alphabet until he was 40 years old, and yet he became the teacher of thousands of illustrious Torah scholars. When a spiritual rift fractured the student body into two factions, a ravenous plague befell them. Lag B'Omer marks the day when the dying ceased.
He lost 24,000 students. 24,000 souls he had guided and nurtured, whose flames he had stoked, now extinguished! But Rabbi Akiva did not become hopeless. He did not give up or give in. When the last funeral concluded, when the last shiva was observed, on Lag Ba'Omer he found five new students and started again.
This is so significant for our own lives as well. We do feel the loss. We allow ourselves to grieve what was. But we are not meant to remain there. Like Rabbi Akiva, we carry the pain, and still choose to rise, to rebuild, to begin again. Not because the loss disappears, but because something within us refuses to let the story end there.
Says the Chida, a famous Torah commentator, Lag Ba'Omer is the celebration of never becoming hopeless or despondent. It is a day of tenacity and resilience. We are celebrating the strength and courage it takes to be true to our mission even after loss and tragedy.
Dr. Edith Eger, whose book The Choice I highly recommend if you haven't read it, returned her soul to its maker on Monday. We will remember her neshama and the light she brought into the world.
She survived Auschwitz and went on to become a therapist, author, and a source of strength to so many.
She carried unimaginable pain, but her message was always simple and powerful. We cannot choose what happens to us, but we can choose what we do next. Not “why me,” but “what now.” Not staying in what was broken, but slowly, courageously, choosing to rebuild and to move toward light.
We learn that joining in Lag B'Omer festivities brings protection and blessings to your family. So I can't wait to see you all on Tuesday! Sign up here.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Fishel and Ettie Zaklos