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Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #169 – MERON

RABBINICAL REFLECTION #169 – Meron

(https://davesgoneby.net/?p=26212. on youtube: https://youtu.be/JANamY6kZZs)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for April 30, 2021. 

Happy Lag B’Omer everybody! And if you’ve ever had your Omer logged, you know just how delightful that can be. 

Lag B’Omer is a relatively minor holiday on the Jewish calendar, but our people appreciate it because it is a happy one. Well, not completely happy. God won’t let a Jewish holiday be completely happy. And this festival, in particular, is about putting a bookend on a time of gloom.

Some say Lag B’Omer is celebrated because that day marked the end of a terrible plague in the Jewish community. No, not bad drivers. Rabbi Akiva, who was a great sage — and a mediocre parsley — had a lot of disciples who started dropping dead between Passover and Shavuoth. Somehow, on this date, they stopped dying. Maybe it was Pfizer, maybe Moderna — whatever. Suddenly it was time to rejoice. 

Now, a completely different explanation for Lag B’Omer involves one of Ravi Akiva’s disciples, Shimon bar Yochai. Lag B’Omer is the day he kicked the b’ucket. So who celebrates a death? Well, this Yochai guy was something of a mystic. By writing the Zohar, he started the Kabbalah ball rolling. He told his followers, now that I’m leaving my body, all my teachings and good deeds belong to the universe. So don’t mourn; go have a wedding, do a dance, get a fun haircut, light a bonfire because of all the light I’ve brought into the world. And marshmallows.

So that’s what Jews have been doing — taking a break during a somber time on the calendar, when everyone’s worried about the harvest, and having a party. And if you happen to be in Israel, you can go visit the tomb of Shimon bar Yochai, which happens to be in a town called Meron. I think you know where I’m going with this. 

Year after year, hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Jews make a pilgrimage to Meron for feasting and fun. It’s like Woodstock — only Jews don’t take acid; we get acid reflux. The Yidlach gather for this festival — sometimes 400,000 people show up for this Lag B’orgy.

April 2021, because of COVID, only 100,000 came. Easy-peasy, right? Except, a few people slipped, folks behind them couldn’t go backwards — voila! Stampede. 45 people crushed to death like grapes in a Manischewitz pulper. 150 more wounded. It’s the worst peacetime disaster in the history of Eretz Yisroel. I know you’re waiting for a joke but no…that’s the emmes. 

Who’s to blame? Everybody, of course. First of all, you have the insular Orthodox, who don’t think the greater community’s rules apply to them. We saw this with the Haredis in Brooklyn, who were holding massive, unmasked weddings and funerals when the governor was begging everyone: don’t even hold small unmasked weddings and funerals. Were Cuomo’s restrictions draconian? Did the Orthodox exacerbate a health crisis? Or vice versa: by disregarding protocols, did they prove that, at least for people under 60, we’ve all been going overboard with a punishment that’s worse than the disease?

Even if that were true, and Governor Cuomo was erring on the side of caution — well, not with his schmeckel but with everything else — what the Haredi were doing was unbelievably selfish and thoughtless. “We follow American laws to the letter…up until the moment we don’t happen to agree with them. Who needs police? We police ourselves.” So elected officials who crave the Orthodox vote look the other way when rules are bent. 

Sometimes that’s fine — sometimes it enables catastrophe. Wifebeaters and child molesters keep on beating wifes and molesting childs while the Rabbis try to fix things behind the scenes. Ask the Catholic church how well that works. And it’s this entitled arrogance of the Haredi attitude that tells Bibi Netanyahu, “We’re gonna put a hundred thousand people on a road meant for 30,000. HaShem will be our crowd control.” But they forget: God likes crushing things. Look what He did to Samson.

Jews have good reason for being wary of outsiders. From Roman soldiers to Spanish inquisitors to Cossacks — if a goy was on your doorstep, he wasn’t holding a check from Publishers Clearing House. However, when it comes to legitimate concerns about public safety — whether you’re spitting corona droplets on your cousin or getting pushed so close to a stranger your quarter shoes land on his forehead — it would be nice if my brethren would show a little consideration for the bigger picture.

Besides, what’s so wrong with a few more weeks of distancing? We’re Jewish. We shouldn’t be going to mass.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.