Emor

The Parasha today outlines the details the Jewish Calendar. It describes Shabbat, Pesach, Rosh Hashana, Shavuot, Sukkot and the counting of the Omer. These are all recognizable occasions that add shape to the Jewish year. It’s amazing to me that there it is written in the Torah and it is also in my brain and my body. The Torah portion today describes the foundations of how my days, my weeks and my year takes shape. I eat matzah on Pesach or I fast on Yom Kippur or I light candles on Friday night. We are the people who do these things. We’ve been doing these things for thousands of years. They call us Jews. But things move on and there are now festivals that aren’t mentioned in the bible. Like Lag Ba Omer which is only mentioned in the 12th century. The earliest reference to Lag Ba Omer is by Isaac ben Dorbolo (12th century, northern France), so it’s quite a modern innovation. As a child, I have vague memories of lag ba omer, spent climbing on the mountain where we lived. We melted marshmallows over a fire, and we made bows and arrows. But that was in South Africa in the 60’s, and lag ba omer is not part of my calendar anymore. In Israel, for many Charedi Jews, Lag B'Omer has become a day of pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochei in the Galilee town of Meiron. Apparently, they visit Meiron in their thousands where they dance, pray and celebrate Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochei who revealed the secrets of the Zohar, the book of the kabbalah. Yesterday, there was a stampede in Meiron, and 45 men and boys died there while trying to emerge from the Marquee where they were celebrating. Although I am not like the people who were there, I am in mourning for the part of my family that was. Being a woman, it wasn’t my party, and being a Litvak from South Africa, I’m not a follower of kabbalah, but I do love the story of Shimon Bar Yochei from the Talmud. This is it: Rabbi Shimon and his son were hiding from the Romans. They went and they hid in a cave. A miracle occurred and a carob tree was created for them as well as a spring of water. They would remove their clothes and sit covered in sand up to their necks. They would study Torah all day in that manner. At the time of prayer, they would dress, cover themselves, and pray, and they would again remove their clothes afterward so that they would not become tattered. They sat in the cave for twelve years. Then they emerged from the cave and saw ordinary people who were plowing and sowing. Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai said: These people abandon eternal life of Torah study and engage in temporal life for their own sustenance. The Gemara says that every person to whom Rabbi Shimon and his son directed their eyes was immediately burned. A Divine Voice said to them: Did you emerge from the cave in order to destroy My world? Return to your cave. They again went and sat there in the cave for another twelve months. This time the father had learned his lesson. Although the son had not. Everywhere that the son would burn with his judgy fiery laser beam stare, the father would heal. I love this story because says we can’t live in a cave forever. We need to leave it at some stage and start engaging in the real world with all its imperfections. But it also describes a situation where not everyone is up to that generosity of spirit. The father can, but the son cannot, but that’s the real world too. And for those of us that can, our job for ever and ever will be to heal the damage done by those who cannot show that generosity of spirit.