Lag Ba'omer

It is hard to find the energy to write today, the somber mood that has gripped the nation. With the rabbi absent from shul this morning, I approached two different people asking them to speak; both declined (I spoke in the end), but shortly after declining, one came up to me and said, "Shouldn't we say tehillim?" 

"For what?" I asked. 

"Didn't you see what happened in Meron?" to which I answered, "No. Were people burnt, was there a terrorist attack?"

"44 dead, many more injured." 

Only then, did I ask around in shul, and within seconds I heard that tens of people had been crushed to death. A stampede one said, scaffolding fell, said another. With all the details still opaque, all we could do was pray, say tehillim, and hope that no more succumbed to their wounds. 

On a national level, this is a tragedy we have not known in thank God, many years. And yet, unfortunately, there really seems to be no easy solution for preventing stampedes; on the one hand, those who watched, saw the beautiful rhythmic dancing of thousands of people, of sheer joy, almost ecstasy; on the other, upon exiting the huge auditorium, through a bottleneck passageway, when those in the first row slipped and lost their balance, there was no way for those behind them to know that those ahead of them had gone down under, only to be trampled to death, parents and children alike. 

I have so many thoughts swirling in my head - and it's hard to make sense of these dreadful tragic events. The country is draped in black today; the average funeral is attended by hundreds, and sometimes, thousands of people, which means that perhaps a hundred thousand people, and maybe more, will know somebody who attended a funeral today, Erev Shabbat, a day most Israelis have off to prepare to sanctify the Shabbat, or to spend with their families, and enjoy the time together. 

Ever so shocking are the words the Chatam Sofer wrote in a letter, when he was asked to try to explain the earthquake that hit Safed in 1837. I cannot look for the letter now but he posited that the devastating earthquake may have been caused because of Jews' celebration of Lag Ba'omer, a holiday that was not written in the Torah. The Chatam Sofer took umbrage at the mass pilgrimage to Meron, and the precedence given to it over more fundamental parts of Torah observance. 

We are certainly a people who have known tragedy, and yet Hashem's hand is and remains inscrutable. Yesterday evening, I brought my grandfather, 95 years of age, may he live and be well, to a Lag Ba'omer gathering arranged by my shul. It was important for him to see the kids, get out, and I hoped, enjoy a hot dog, or baked potato or two. The event took place in a lot called the Warburg Compound where many different groups, Chabad, Bnei Akiva etc. had set up large bonfires. When they finally lit the pyres, some of which were 5 meters high, the flames danced majestically, illuminating the night. The fires raged, taking on a life of their own, in a way that was quintessentially and hauntingly beautiful. 

My grandfather, Moshe Barth, quietly started singing:

Our Town is Burning!
It’s burning! Brothers, it’s burning! 

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By Mordechai Gebirtig, the song put chills down my spine. And then my grandfather said, "You know what - pointing to the bonfire - this reminds me of? Of Jedwabne, the Jews burnt to death in a barn."

More than anything, one of the reasons we are told to seek the counsel of our elders is the perspective they bring to life, the scope of understanding from start to finish. Like it says in Ha'azinu: 

Remember the days of old, Consider the years of ages past; Ask your father, he will inform you, Your elders, they will tell you:

When the Most High gave nations their homes And set the divisions of man, He fixed the boundaries of peoples In relation to Israel’s numbers. (Devarim (Deuteronomy) 32:7-8).

Though perhaps not the most positive of articles/divrei Torah I wrote, I think that one of the lessons of life is that our job as people is to strive to understand why things happen, but in the face of a lack of understanding, to remember that the Jewish people will always go on, will always keep on living, and that when we seek the wisdom of those who came before us, we can bridge our understanding of the events we are experiencing with the perspectives of those who preceded us, on events that we ourselves did not experience. This conceptualization of the larger picture of our people can be a great source of strength at times of sorrow, and also joy.