Lag Ba’Omer On Fire - What Exactly Are We Celebrating? - Hillel Eisenberg

[Music] the time period between pesak and shuis for a thousand years was an extremely joyous time it was the time of year that we were excitedly and joyously preparing ing ourselves for re accepting the teror it was a time of springing forward and renewal and optimism and fusing the renewed spiritual energy we got from pesak with the upcoming Tyra we were going to get on Shu in fact the MS amongst others says that the reason why the counting of the is found in the tah in the middle of the par of the mayad is because f is really one big giant between PES and and like it should be filled with happiness and joy and song and yet nowadays it's not it's a time of mourning we don't listen to music we don't shave we're filled with sadness we are mourning because 1,800 years ago 24,000 of rebas tomed died and we haven't forgotten till today now let's ask some pretty obvious questions there have been many horrible almost Unthinkable things that have happened to the Jewish people throughout our history and yet they don't get even more than one day of mour there was the destruction of theik the breaking of the after Theo there was the Spanish Inquisition which had far more deaths than the t of rebika did as did the Crusades as did Kiki massacres as did the Holocaust in the year 1298 in Franconia and Bavaria places we've never even heard of there were a 100,000 Jews killed in 1915 the Russian army killed 100,000 Jews in 1917 Ukraine Ians killed 200,000 Jews in 1918 and 1919 120,000 Jews were killed in close to 500 pums yet we don't even give these tragedies their own day we just lump them together with Tisha and many of us don't even know that they happened so why do the deaths of rebas tell me to not only get their own day but to get 33 days and not any 33 days but 33 days which area days which are festive days which we would have otherwise been celebrating with happiness and joy why don't we mourn for the tum of raka on Tish like we do every other one of the hundreds of our horrible things that happened to the Jewish people and another glaring obvious question to any thinking person needs to ask is what exactly are we celebrating on ler what that the tum stopped dying the only reason the tum OFA stopped dying was because there was no one left to die we shouldn't celebrate that day we should turn that day in into a very sad day of remembrance for those that died so why are we celebrating so the only way to properly understand the power and significance and meaning of LBA is to understand the history surrounding the talum of RBA in the year 70 CE the Romans destroyed the B mikesh and the Jewish people were decimated thousands were killed and thousands more died in Starvation yam was a wasteland thousands were sold into slavery ran for our lives so crushing was the blow to the Jewish people as a whole both physically and in morale that Titus erected his now famous Victory arch in Rome which on it he proudly wrote judia capitao or in English ju Judaism is kaput the Jews are finished and at least he thought so he thought the annoying Jews who were one of the only groups on Earth that refused to give into to the Roman society the only group that refused to be subsumed much like almost the entirety of the Civilized world at the time was subsumed he thought those Jews who were now running literally for their lives would be gone forever crushed and subsequently absorbed by the countries they fled to and vanished into the pages of history and he proudly thought to himself that although many have tried before him it was I Titus who succeeded and finally ridding the world of its Jews and quite honestly he was pretty close to being right far too close to being right but he was wrong he was dead wrong because the Jews never give up the Jews never give in they slowly but surely kept on building back a sh here a safer Tyra there a Mika here AIS there and before long in the year 135 CE a man named Bara came along and he aroused and he aspired yid and wherever he went he organized an army that was determined to rid the land of the Romans and to recommit to living a life of and and rebuilt theik once and for all and at first he got tens of follow that got hundreds of followers then thousands and tens and tens of thousands of followers who were so inspired and encouraged to keep holding up the torch of Rus and Tyra that they galvanized themselves to take on the notorious Roman army arguably the most effective and strongest army in world history bar was so inspired that even Reba the greatest Sage at the time rallied behind him he encouraged by K and he was deeply impressed and captivated by the dedication of him and his soldiers and although the Tam of raka were hesitant this was going to lead to a Bloodshed they said this would ultimately lose rebaka assured them that if they kept on learning and daving as they kept on holding up the torch of tyel would succeed bar was so passionate to rid the land of the Romans and rebuild ER so that he accumulated in AR Army of 200,000 people and these people weren't just going along for the ride the garami Tinus peric doid says that to physically take part in Bar's Army Bara required he demanded that each Soldier cut off a finger to prove that he really believed in the cause and eventually he switched the test to requiring each Soldier to uproot a young tree with one hand while riding on a horse now there were people who disagree with rika's stance with bar but Rea pointed to the crumbling Roman society in which hundreds of thousands of Romans were moving off of Roman paganism and finding alternative Lifestyles thousands converted to yish and many more thousands proudly joined forces with Fara to rid the land of the evil Romans there were even members of the Roman senate that converted to to Judaism schools open shs open Ty was being learned from North to the South and R believed that if his T would learn and Dav and Inspire the yiden spread out all throughout the Empire to stay strong and to join in with Bara Hashem would ensure that they would be successful and re even knew that if the Revolt were in fact successful yeden from all over the world would return and a great chuo would occur and the thir could be rebuilt and would live in peace the ra says that Rea believed so deeply in bar and the spiritual Mission he was on that he publicly made known that bar was Mah the says that Rea switched Bar's name froma to Bar alluding to the which says a star Will Rise Up from yov and believing that Bara was that star proclaimed him to be the long AIT Messiah and he would lead the Army while rebika in his 24,000 T would be the sort of spiritual ammunition fueling the war that rebika knew would bring the ultimate Redemption and quite frankly at the beginning everything seemed to be on tra trajectory towards Messiah Bara and his army managed to unite and Inspire the Jews scattered around the Roman Empire hundreds of thousands of yeen were doing shua tens of thousands of non-jews were rallying behind the Jewish cause the time was certainly ripe to Usher Messiah and initially Bar's Army was massively successful many many non-jews Who Saw The Light joined in with baraka's army and brought the total number of soldiers in his army to 350,000 which at the time was even larger than the Roman army Bara was so successful that hyrien was forced to call in his best troops were in England and Gaul at the time and even those troops failed the Jewish Army was Unstoppable the two Roman Legions in AR Israel at the time there was one in yam and there was one in megido were both decimated by Baraka and even the reinforcements that came in from trans Jordan and Syria and Egypt destroyed Baraka and his army had so much momentum and strength that hadrien had to send in his best commander Julius seus who at the time was in battle in the hills of Wales and seus was told to import Legions from Britain and Switzerland and Austria and Hungary and Bulgaria yet Bara just kept on winning Victory after Victory Bara seemed to be on his way to bringing the final mhia that the Jewish people desperately needed the pain of the two Mikes the two bikes that were destroyed seemed to be at its end the final light seemed to be arriving but it didn't suddenly the victory stopped something happened the spiritual energy protecting by ARA and his army suddenly left and Maus began to break out betrayal suspicion murder took place within the Army and the soldiers were left in utter confusion what happened what was going on what changed well now the gamar famous words carry a lot more weight 24,000 tum of Rea died shall I N covered Ze of course it's sad when people die of course there have been many people who died throughout history but these these weren't any old people these tell me they were the ones supporting the Army these tell me they were the spiritual ammunition to Bar K's miraculous War these tell me that were supposed to Galvanize the Jews of the world and Usher in Messiah that was inches away of coming in yet they died they were killed in a plague Sent From Heaven why how how could such a tragedy happen how could they have possibly what could they possibly have done at one of the most auspicious times in all of Jewish history to have stopped Mia from coming because they weren't one another because they didn't respect one another because their interpersonal relationships were flawed and because of their lack of respect for one another Hashem determined that they no longer were fit to be the spiritual Protectors of CLA and their deaths brought about the end of the spiritual fuel to baraka's Army and with baraka's army missing its spiritual ammunition the single greatest tragedy in Jewish history other than took place and that is what happened in the city of betar betar was The Fortress in which Bara and his army were stationed baar was the epicenter of the Jewish chuva movement a city that the gamar says at the time had 500 Jewish schools in it and the smallest of those schools had 500 kids in it and Bara was sure that this would be the last battle and the knockout punch that would crush the Romans once and for all but it wasn't the yiden didn't just lose the battle they were incinerated they were dismantled they were decimated in ways almost too gruesome to mention 580,000 Jews died 580,000 Jews the says there was so much blood coming out of the city of bitar that despite being 40 mil from the ocean it managed to flow into the ocean and colored the ocean red for 4 mil into the into the ocean we were butchered we were slaughtered we were burnt to a RIS and the survivors were all enslaved never to be heard from again Bara was killed and his army was dismantled and crushed but more importantly not only did bar die but the dream of msia died with him as Bara wasn't a false mesiah he was a Failed Messiah an unsuccessful Messiah the death of re brought the death of our hopes of our dreams of our Messianic as aspirations it it extend Ed the gas thousands of years and it's not because they didn't learn enough and it's not because they didn't do enough but because we were inches from the Finish Line perhaps closer to mashia than we've ever been and it was all stopped because it was stopped and we were forced to endure thousands of years of Exile of running for our lives of murder of inquisitions of pgrs of lials of ghettos of suicide bombers of car rings of dose after dose after dose of zeyon B all because shalov we weren't merely mourning the deaths of 24,000 T we were mourning the death of Messiah the death of our hopes to rebuild ofik the death of the utopian world we could have had if you think about the level of Despair after the B am mikas was destroyed if you think that was bad the Jews at the time of the defeat of Barako were crushed they were broken where do we go what do we do it was all over hadrien had a Vineyard that was 18 mil by 18 mil and he took the corpses from bayar and he tied their outstretched hands to form a fence surrounding his Vineyard hundreds of thousands of Jewish corpses strung together for miles and the surviving Jews could do nothing but just look at them we were crushed our spirit was crushed but not only broken but it was broken and span on and trampled on and embarassed to line the Jewish people should have been finished Jewish history should have been over with but it wasn't because there was one Man still alive there was one man who didn't die there was one man who saw it all and knew the secret to moving on and that man was ribika and he would never give up rip off his skin burn him alive it made no difference he would hold the torch of yr for all to see no matter what you do to him and he knew the secret he stood up and he screamed screamed it loud and he screamed it proud this is the only way forward this is the only way we can ever bring mashiah back so he got right back to work and a man accustomed to Leading 24,000 students began again from scratch and he taught five students the legacy of Tyra and one of those five was a man named rimai who wanted more than the raw Tyra in its outer sort of superficial casing he wanted the p he wanted the inner meaning the inner spark because he came to the realization that it's time for Claus to learn how to internalize the and to inject it into such a deep part of its that it affects your Every Soul it makes you an ises A on fire who is filled with nothing but cover Z and hasem took notice of his remarkable dedication to the panus of Tyra and therefore Hashem revealed what is now referred to as the zo the mystical underwork of Judaism and Tyra with the hopes that he would Infuse more people with Tyra depth and make them wholesome and make them pure and harmonious people who can carry on the torch of hem down the Twisted Road of history and this T that Rim got he began to teach one person at a time and he breathed New Hope into the Jewish people that although we were crushed and mashia didn't come but we don't Despair and we don't give up and therefore on we dance and we sing and we scream with all our might to the man who taught us to never give up and to never Despair and to let the toyra seep into our souls and make us the most loving group of people on Earth because that's the only way we're going to have another shot at mhia is what sent Mia away and is what's going to bring it back every every single month for thousands of years Jews go outside in the dark of the night and say KES and we look up at the moon and we hope that this will be the month we hope that this will be the time when Messiah will finally come and our sorrows will go away and hashem's name will finally get the glory it rightfully deserves and right at the end of K we say a little for mashia to arrive we say we declare that mhia bavid is on his way this should be the month when he finally arrives and what do we say immediately after we D him from mashiah what do we say immediately after we D from mhi's arrival we turn to our friend we turn to our neighbor we turn to our soulmate and we say sh shom shom shom shom shom because that's the only way because the only way we're going to have another sh mashia is is shom shom what send it way cover is that's what's going to bring it back because how ridiculous it would be to ask for msia while we're still entrenched to M inren and the only way to bring Mia is covered shom and when we turn back to our sitter we whisper under our breath for Mia is coming we can feel it and we say every single person in CL every boy every girl every mother every father every every litak every every ashkanazi every Jewish Backpacker in India every Jewish soul from the four corners of the globe yanu [Music]