לג בעומר a la venezolana

Lag ba'Omer falls on the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer, as counted from the second day of Passover until Shavuot. The day is also the Yortsayt, the anniversary of the death, of the Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai who wrote the Zohar, which is the landmark text of Jewish mysticism. It's strange to "celebrate" the anniversary of the death of such a great Rabbi with music and joy, but anyway..

My friend Shomron, who is always inviting me to attend Shurim (like informal workshops related to judaism topics, guided by rabbis or talmidei chachamim, mostly directed to young people of both sexes) and for many different reasons I have let him down, invited many people in my synagogue (young people) tho celebrate Lag ba'Omer in a place in Los Chorros, the same place where they have their shiurim. This time, since my friend Dani is leaving next Saturday for Spain to study and get ready for his masters course, I decided to attend - I dunno, it just felt it was right to attend and celebrate in the right way, with the right people. Besides, Shomron and his band were going to play. In Lag ba'Omer and I wanted to see them playing. The prohibitions of the Omer period may be suspended for the day, or cease, according to one's custom. It is a time of dancing and singing. Especially in Israel, where it is a school holiday and families go on picnics with bonfires, BBQs and stuff, and kids go out to the fields with their teachers with bows and rubber arrows, and bats and balls, because another of the origins of Lag ba'Omer is that 24,000 students were killed in the Bar Kokhba revolt (in which Rabbi Akiva was a major figure) and some others say that they were killed by a plague, and others say that the plague was indeed the Roman occupation. In such context, the lighting of bonfires on Lag ba'Omer seems logical to me because in the past bonfires were used as signals in wartime. Tachanun, the prayer for special Divine Mercy on one's behalf is not said, because when G'd is showing one a "smiling face," so to speak, as He does especially on the Holidays, there is no need to ask for special mercy.

This celebration was very interesting, because even since at the beginning it seemed like just another Shirech in which you are like "induced" to meet people of both genders in a "controlled" environment, this time was very informal, an argentinian rabbi (the one that guides the Shiurim and teaches at Hebraica and seemed to know many of the guys & gals) did some very interesting magic tricks that left us with our eyes and mouths wide open and even I just knew 4 guys and one girl out of 50-something people, I really had a good time, and had even the chance of you know, tharing with young jews like me and especially apart from the fact that it seems that I accidentally marketed myself (I really never expected to have someone lay my eyes on me last night!) and there are quite a few potential customers, hehehe. Oh and the music, despite the sound system's quality was kinda poor, was good itself, really good I have to admit. I'm starting to like pop-rock in hebrew, and maybe I'll find a percussionist in the kehilla to help me excel at playing the darbouka ;-)