Our travels are accentuated by the arrival at our physical destination but also reaching Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. Lag Ba’omer is the pause to envision both our destinations. We actually are expected to first use the 33rd day of the Omer to evaluate where this journey will take us, and then address ourselves so that we will weave the gift of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai truly into our soul. As we approach Lag Ba’omer, let us race along capturing the “wins” and insert them into our daily activities.
To do this, as we count the Omer, we have to truly live in the here and now. Margaret Storm Jameson, a British novelist, suggests what approach we should take.
“I believe that only one person in a thousand knows the trick of really living in the present. Most of us,” she emphasizes, “spend 59 minutes an hour living in the past, with regret for lost joys, or shame for things badly done (both utterly useless and weakening). Then, of course, we focus on a future we either long for or dread.”
On Lag Ba’omer, as we sit around the fire fulfilling the 33rd day count, there is something important we can do.
“Remember as best you can that the past is gone beyond prayer. Recognize that every minute we spend in the vain effort to anticipate the future is a moment lost.”
This minor holiday in the calendar has the power to really make us think. The counting of the days and the blazing flames call to us, emphasizing, “There is only one world, the world pressing against you at this minute. There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute, here and now.” We must recognize that “the only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle, which is exactly what it is: a miracle and unrepeatable.”
Harvey Goldberg, emeritus professor of anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, offered an explanation about how various holidays, including Lag Ba’omer, have come to be.
“Some customs and celebrations in the Jewish yearly cycle,” he explained, “are linked to well-established sources in the Torah or the Talmud, while others have origins that historically are unclear. There is no ancient mandate for the term ‘Simchat Torah,’ nor for dancing with the Torah scrolls, which has been such a prominent and popular part of the holiday in recent times.”
Then he focused on the celebration being discussed.
“Lag Ba’omer also provides historical puzzles. Counting the days between Passover and Shavuot is dictated in the Torah, while treating these days as a period of semi-mourning appears only in the Gemara and is explained succinctly by a limited reference to the students of Rabbi Akiva. It is only from the 12th century in Europe that a text mentions the 33rd day of the Omer as a time when the mourning customs may be suspended.”
In the 19th century, the famous sage the Hatam Sofer emphasized, “Lag Ba’omer is a time that we identify and say ‘Thank You for all of the blessings that regularly descend into our lives.’ But unfortunately, like heavenly manna which fell in the desert, we take those blessings for granted.”
IN MY YOUTH I was a Lag Ba’omer groupie. I never attained any athletic excellence. Sometimes, my friends would allow me to play on a softball or volleyball team, and join in the wheelbarrow race. Lag Ba’omer at our Jewish Community Center was my day.
I was permitted to participate in any athletic event I chose. I ran as fast as I could in a 200-meter race. I was not last, I was on a softball team made up of veterans and novices. I enjoyed every moment. Those were the days.
Forty-five years ago, when we immigrated to Israel, I started collecting branches and used pieces of wood with my kids and then sitting around the fire roasting marshmallows.
Slowly, I began to recognize that the counting of the Omer, Lag Ba’omer in particular, was a way to capture the start of spring. We could still smell the early blossoms and we watched the leaves slowly breaking forth from the branches.
Here in our land, we could be free, as Passover points out to us so powerfully. We could also illuminate the sky and light up ourselves, making this 33rd day ever so joyful to experience.
How wonderful that when we turn the letters Lamed and Gimmel around we have “Gal” a wave. Hopefully, we will let this wave carry us and transform our lives as we choose.
How should we render our life significant? Albert Einstein wrote, “There are only two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle.” It can be summed up in this manner: “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift of God which is why we call it the present.”
A year ago, we were locked in on Lag Ba’omer. This year we are throwing the doors open.
We can create flames jumping up to the heavens. We will be using wood, waiting for us, having taken the time to mature so it can fire up with intensity. As we watch, we also know we can hit the target perfectly with our own personally crafted bow and arrow.
The “wave” can carry us along this year. Calling upon our inner strength, we will be ready to “march forward, march forward” with a dream in our imagination and a song in our hearts.
No, we cannot prove why the celebration falls the day it does. In a very nice fashion, Prof. Goldberg offers his personal answer to why the holiday is enjoyed in the way it is: “The precise number of 33 days [which sets Lag Ba’omer as the 18th day of Iyyar – April 30 this year] remains a puzzle. But that more than a month of semi-mourning leads to exuberant dancing in Meron, or other expressions of ‘breaking out,’ should not surprise us.”
“Blessed art Thou Oh Lord, King of the Universe who has sanctified us with Your commandments and commanded us to count the Omer.” We will always mark this point in the count, 33, for what it means. Then as it said in one of the paeans of a poet, “Go out into the fields – the world is yours.”