... and therefore it is perfectly logical that, on my drive to Yerushalaim this morning, I saw full-grown (balding) adults stopping their cars on the side of the road to collect sticks and cut down branches.
Lag Ba'Omer is a funny concept. All we seem to know is that Rabbi Akiva's students didn't die that day - either the plague took a break for a day so no one died, or Bar Kochva's militia won a battle. Either way, it's nice and all that, but is it unique? As my father once pointed out, the Establishment of Jewish Sovereignty in Israel 64 years ago is certainly a larger-scale miracle AND has brought more long-term benefit to Am Yisrael than Rabbi Akiva's students' one day salvation.
(And the bonfires are something entirely unrelated to Rabbi Akiva's'students.)
-->So WHY did this "minhag" of enriching the atmosphere's air pollution and risking forest fires, why did this custom take off so well?
It would be an interesting study, which I am not doing right now.
What I DO want to share is my feeling that Lag Ba'Omer has earned the right to be a day of no mourning because of the bonfires. Lag Ba'Omer is the ONE DAY that EVERY JEW IN ISRAEL does the EXACT SAME THING! Every Israeli Jewish child will be setting fire to something tomorrow night. No one has gotten up and announced that, "if THOSE kids do this, we won't." For one long night, we are actually united in deed.
And the government supports this unity, by giving the children the next day off school. (It is a big pain for working parents, but it is part of the reality of every Jewish student being up too late the night before.) And with a little initiative from the Rabbanut Rashit, the Ministry of Education has made a policy decision that if Lag comes out on a Sunday, then Lamed-Dalet becomes the day off - so that kids don't prepare their bonfires on Shabbat for Motzaei Shabbat.
An exciting addition to the Lag BaOmer festivities this year (and in future years?) is Israel marking International Museum Day on teh day off from school - check out this link on the Education Monistry website http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/AgafA/Mozeon/ShuraRaza/museumday.htm for a list of 76 museums that will be open to the public free of charge this Lag Ba'Omer. It is a chance to learn new things, strengthen our bond to our ancient and recent history and heritage AND see "other types of Jews" and discover that we really have more in common than differences.
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