The Fires That Sustain Us

We closed out the Kadima@BJ school year on Tuesday with what is becoming an annual tradition: Our students learned and sang a number of Israeli songs, filling the Sanctuary with their voices and energy. Though we didn’t plan it this way, it occurred to me that each of the songs was a variation on the same theme: Life will always have ups and downs, but we will always keep looking forward. 

Today, Jews around the world celebrate Lag Ba-Omer, the 33rd day of the Omer. Traditionally, the holiday of Lag Ba-Omer is a celebratory day—we light bonfires and hold weddings and other celebrations otherwise not permitted during the Omer. Yet some believe that the holiday is linked with a failed rebellion, an undeniably low point in Jewish history.

In 587 BCE, King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were exiled to Babylonia. About 70 years later, the Jews returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the Temple. The Second Temple flourished for centuries, but was eventually destroyed in 70 CE. Thinking that 70(ish) years was the amount of time it took God to allow the Jews to rebuild the Temple, a man named Bar Kokhba, supported by Rabbi Akiva, led a revolt against the Romans. 

Bar Kokhba’s rebellion was crushed, and catastrophe ensued. Many Judeans were killed or displaced, and hopes for the rebuilding of the Temple were dashed as well. The idea of a rebuilt Temple became a source of messianic inspiration but there was not a concrete plan.

In the aftermath of Bar Kokhba’s loss, something new flourished: the rabbinic tradition of the Mishnah and Gemara that forms the basis of the Judaism we practice today. The rabbis of the Talmudic period took what they understood to be Jewish values and put them through the prism of their imagination, re-creating Judaism to exist in a Temple-less world. Our history follows this example. In every generation, we look at our tradition and question how it fits the world as it is and how it can shape the world we want to see.  

The Jewish spirit that emerged after the destruction of the Second Temple was one of a brilliant imagination and unstoppable optimism. When Bar Kokhba was defeated, the sages of the Mishnah did not give up on the Jewish project, but instead built something almost entirely new, inspired by the best pieces of what we had before. Rabbi Haim Yosef David Azulai, an 18th-century Sephardi scholar, writes, “Lag Ba-Omer is the celebration of never becoming hopeless or despondent. It is a day of tenacity, resilience and a commitment to carry on our magnificent heritage and sacred mission in the world. Just as the bonfires will burn out and Lag Ba-Omer will come to an end, there will be time to light the Shabbat candles, and we will keep the fire burning.”

We are the inheritors of a tradition that can hold a bonfire to commemorate what we lost, and dance among its ashes and embers. As the fires of Lag Ba-Omer fade and we light candles for another Shabbat in a broken world, may these little fires sustain us and keep our imagination alive. 

Shabbat shalom,

Deena