Rabbi's Blog

Dear OZ family,

A festive day has turned to mourning in Israel. Originally, the observance of Lag B’omer as a day of celebration did the exact opposite. This day commemorates the end of the scourge that took so many students of Rabbi Akiva. The Talmud tells us that Rabbi Akiva’s most exceptional student was Shimon Bar Yochai. When he passed away, on Lag B’omer some years after the tragedy that took so many of his colleagues, the characteristic optimism of Rabbi Shimon, that he acquired from his rebbe, that is manifest all over the Talmud and Midrash, was turned into a day of festivity. This was in line with the end of the Purim story when Grief turned to festivity and mourning turned to joy (Esther 9:22).

But today, the joy of Lag B’omer is a day of national grief for Israel. I was asked last night how God could let happen such a tragedy as what took place yesterday in Meron. It was a similar question I remember when Chanukah candles on a Friday night caused a fire that killed almost an entire large Chassidic family a few years back. I was asked then too about the source that says that “More than the Jewish people keep Shabbos, Shabbos keeps the Jews.” If so, how could a Shabbos observant family die this way? I answered then that this source is not rabbinic at all. It’s a line from a Yiddish play. The Talmud makes no such guarantee. Even when performing Mitzvot, we must exercise unequivocal safety. When our sages pondered at the end of Masechet Chulin, why a child who had heeded his father’s instruction to take eggs after sending away the mother bird, combining two Mitzvot that guarantee long life,(Devarim 5:16, and 22:7), slipped on his way down and died. As a direct result of performing two life- extending Mitzvot, a child died.

After suggesting a number of reasons for this tragedy, the last lines of Masechet Chulin conclude that the child died because his father didn’t check the safety of the ladder. It was an unsafe ladder and the rungs on the ladder don’t differentiate between someone ascending them to do a Mitzva or to break into someone’s window. We should not pontificate upon things that are beyond our comprehension. Ours is to maintain safe measures in everything we do, especially in the performance of Mitzvot. Even as we joyfully ease Covid restrictions, we are still vigilant to follow the guidelines that assure everyone’s safety.

I conclude today’s sorrowful message with a Lag B’omer message in line with the day it originally signified. 80 years ago when the Germans set up the ghetto of my father’s hometown in Lutsk, Poland, they quickly took over various large buildings and established a large office in what was the Great Synagogue of Lutsk. They turned it into a fortress and many Jews were tortured and murdered there before the ghetto was liquidated on the 8^th of Elul, 1942, the day my father kept as the yahrzeit for his family. Over the years, the building was used as a sports school and sports club. This past week, the building was transferred for “Permanent free use” to Moshe Meir Matusovski, the head of Chabad in Lutsk.

Even as our ancestors were tortured in Roman arenas for the crowd’s entertainment, Resh Lakish had the faith to say that these very arenas would one day be places of Torah and prayer (Megilla 6A). Whenever I have traveled with groups to one of these arenas, such as, in Beit Shean, or Caeseria, I always have stopped to give a shiur or to Daven Mincha to fulfill Resh Lakish’s faith (according to some scholars, he was a gladiator in his youth). Let us invoke the words of Tehillim 30:12, “You turned my lamenting into dancing, you undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy, that my whole being might sing hymns to you endlessly.”   

May Israel be healed from this tragedy and may all the wounded have a quick refuah shlemah.

Be safe.   Be healthy.  Be excellent.

Rabbi Allen Schwartz

Rabbi Allen Schwartz

Congregation Ohab Zedek

118 West 95^th Street | New York, NY  10025-6604

Phone 212.749-5150, ext 200 | Fax 212.663-3635

E-mail ras@ozny.org

Website:  www.ozny.org