Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Two Faces of Lag B'Omer

Well, hi everybody. I uh I just came back uh around uh 3 hours ago, so I'm a little uh out of it, but hopefully I I will be able to talk. Uh but uh the other thing that's a little unusual is I do want to talk about an event that already happened. It happened last week, but I wasn't here. And I would have spoken about it last week, but I'll speak about it this week. And I want to talk about Lag Ba'omer a little bit, even though it was last Thursday. But we are still in the period of Sefirah, and I think that the fundamental lessons of Lag Ba'omer really carry through for the entire period of Sefirat Ha'omer uh coming to Shavuot as well. Uh all of us know that it is virtually universal in Klal Yisrael that the 33rd day of the Omer is a day of celebration. And it represents either a break, a hiatus, in the observance of mourning rituals. Uh some resume it afterwards, or some say Lag Ba'omer is simply a stop. So, first of all, I do want to point out that as eminent in authority as Rav Yosef Karo in the Shulchan Aruch does not seem to recognize any special significance in Lag Ba'omer. The Shulchan Aruch actually paskens a person is obligated to observe 33 days of mourning during the Omer period to commemorate the deaths of the students of Rabbi Akiva, and on the 34th day of the Omer they are permitted to listen to music and to get married, etc. Meaning Lag B'Omer had no particular uh significance. And there are some Sephardim that still follow uh that idea that 33 full days of Aveilut and then after that everything is okay. Uh but as I say, anyone that's been to Meron sees plenty of Sephardim in Meron, maybe more Sephardim than Ashkenazim. So, the predominant custom for both Ashkenazim and Sephardim is that we make a very big deal about the 33rd day of the Omer. Now, if you ask why that is so, what is is you actually get two different reasons which almost are contradictory. One is that the 33rd day of the Omer is said to be the Yahrtzeit, the Petirah of the great Tanna, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was a student of Rabbi Akiva, and uh he is buried, as you know, in Meron, and every year uh hundreds of thousands of people, really close to half a million people, uh go to Meron for the Lag B'Omer uh festivities. Uh it's been said that every person should go to Meron at least once in their life, but no more than once. Uh Meron is a wonderful Chavaya for Lag B'Omer. Interestingly enough, if you go uh off-season, you know, it's a small uh kind of village, and you can actually have Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai almost to yourself. Like, you know, a lot of times people are not there, and that might be a more deeper spiritual experience than kind of the fun and games of half a million people uh at Meron. In fact, it's been said that Meron is so crowded that even Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai gets out of town uh that uh that day, goes somewhere else. Now, I will admit to you that historically, if you study the historical record and the different sources about when Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai died, the truth of the matter is a very strong case can be made that the whole assumption that he died on Lag BaOmer was based on a mistake, a mistaken interpretation of a passage in the Ari Zal's writings, and in point of fact, the Ari Zal never said that the petirah was on Lag BaOmer. It was a misinterpretation, and I'm very well aware of that. If you look go on the web, particularly in the in the very fine blog called the Seforim blog, which is really one of my favorite uh places to go on the web, in which there are many interesting essays about uh Jewish history and about the history of Seforim and the like, you will see a very erudite discussion whether Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai died on Lag BaOmer or not. But whether that happened or didn't happen, it was certainly mekubaal among many many segments of Am Yisrael that this was a celebration of his yahrzeit. Now, why would you celebrate a yahrzeit? The day that somebody dies one would assume would be a tragedy. Why would it be a day of simcha? Because we are then told that on the day of his petirah, he revealed great secrets of mystical understandings of the Torah, uh and these later became written down in the Sefer HaZohar. Now again, every single every single thing I say is full of contentions. Uh once again, the standard assumption uh among the religious world is that the Zohar represents the teachings of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. They were not written down in his lifetime. They were written down after his death, but they do represent Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and he is said to be the author of the Zohar. Now as you know, there are many many problems with that particular understanding. First, one issue is that there are many rabbis who are mentioned in the Zohar who are after the time of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The Zohar mentions Amoraim, Rav and Shmuel, people who are clearly after. Now, that alone, however, would not be such a major concern because when we say the Zohar is the product of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, that does not automatically mean every word of the Zohar. Rather, kind of the foundational part of the Zohar is him, and then there were different things that were added. An analogy from Tanakh would be the book of Tehillim. Chazal tell us that Tehillim were written by David Hamelech. And yet, in Tehillim, we have things from Tfilat Moshe, we have Bnei Korach, etc. And the Meforshim all say that this doesn't mean that David had some Ruach Hakodesh about what Moshe said or or even Shir Hamalos, B'shuv Hashem Et Shivat Tzion, the famous Shir Hamalos we say every Shabbos uh before benching. When we returned to Zion after the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, it was like a dream. David Hamelech died before there even was a Beis Hamikdash. How could there be a Shir Hamalos, B'shuv Hashem Et Shivat Tzion? So, many Meforshim say, and this is not considered heresy, that although Tehillim is the core of Tehillim is David Hamelech, but there were things that were added later as well. The book of Mishlei is clearly that way as well. The book of Mishlei is ascribed to Hamelech, and yet we have other kings who are actually mentioned in Mishlei as contributing. So, the mere fact that the Zohar has teachings that are later than Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai does not negate the fact that Shimon bar Yochai may have been the foundational author. But, uh the major problem is that the Zohar as a book was totally unknown until the 13th century, until the 1200s, when it was revealed by a great Kabbalist, Moshe de Leon, who claimed that he had found in a cave the long-lost teachings of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. And there is a debate to this very day, both in the academic world and to a lesser degree, but still prevalent still present rather in the religious world, whether the true author of the Zohar is Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai or the author is actually the Kabbalist Moshe de Leon, who himself was a very great Kabbalist. As I say, the both the Vilna Gaon and the Arizal accept the Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai authorship of the Zohar, but Rabbi Yaakov Emden actually accepted the Moshe de Leon authorship of the Zohar, and that's kind of the approach of most most academics. But again, as I say, we don't necessarily tonight is not the purpose of verifying actual history, but simply what was Lag BaOmer Mekubal as celebrated. And we do have a long-standing tradition that Lag BaOmer was a celebration of the Yahrzeit, the Yomah Petirah, of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and that was a Simcha because of the revelation of the mystical teachings of the Zohar that lit up the world. By the way, although in later generations we have this rule that one is not allowed to even study Kabbalah until you're 40 years old and you've mastered the Talmud and you're married and you're emotionally stable and all sorts of rules, but the Vilna Gaon writes that as we approach the coming of Mashiach, we need to bring in the light of Kabbalah into the world in order to accelerate the Geulah Shleimah. So, even the Vilna Gaon, who certainly was no uh uh he didn't shrink away from Shas and Poskim and all traditional learning, did say that as we approach the coming of Messiah in the days of Geulah there will be a stronger emphasis on Kabbalah that may have existed uh previously. Okay. So, that's reason number one that is given. Uh the Hilula, the great celebration of the death of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. So, in that way Lag BaOmer celebrates a death, uh so to speak, albeit not the death itself, but the revelation of the Sod HaSod HaTorah, the secrets of the Torah. But then we have another tradition. And here I have to go back to the story of Rabbi Akiva. Now, the Talmud is by and large not a very romantic book, but uh perhaps the most romantic story in the Talmud and one of the most inspirational stories is the story of Rabbi Akiva. Who is Rabbi Akiva? Rabbi Akiva, a man who was descended from Gerim, he himself was born Jewish, but his uh parents uh were Gerim, uh was an ignorant man, he was an Am Ha'aretz, he did not even know how to read Hebrew, and he was employed as a shepherd by one of the wealthiest landowners in Yerushalayim. And the name of this landowner, at least his nickname, was Kalba Savua. Now, Kalba Savua is Aramaic for a stuffed or a satiated dog. Now, that's an odd expression, but those of you that have dogs know that a dog is never full. A dog will always eat as much as long as there's food in front of the dog, the dog is going to eat. And Kalba Savua though was such a hospitable Machnis Orech that even a dog would have been stuffed had a dog been in his house. So, he was called Kalba Savua. And he was wealthy, he was righteous, he was religious, and he employed this Akiva to simply be a shepherd managing his flocks. Well, lo and behold, the boss's daughter, her name was Rachel, fell in love with Rabbi Akiva. She saw in this man qualities of character, of intelligence, of honesty, of integrity, of goodness, that even Rabbi Akiva did not realize he had himself. And she saw in him greatness. And she wanted to be his partner in life. But her father was absolutely shocked. How could she marry so beneath her? To marry a person who was poor, who was ignorant, who did not come from a prestigious family. And he was so infuriated at her decision that he made a vow to excommunicate her from all of his property. In other words, she would not get any of his property at all. And as a result, she married Rabbi Akiva, and they lived in great poverty. And not only did they live in great poverty, but she decided that Rabbi Akiva needed to go to Yeshiva, and she sent him to learn in Yerushalayim in the Yeshiva of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and Rabbi Yehoshua. And she initially sent him there for 12 years. Initially, he didn't want to go because he said, "What's the purpose? I'm going to I'm you know, I'm 40 years old or older. I'm going to sit with ignorant with little children." But then one day, as he was grazing with his sheep, he noticed water dripping on a rock. And over time, the water made a hole in the rock. And Rabbi Akiva said, "Well, maybe my head is like a rock, but the Torah is like water. And if physical water can make a hole in a physical rock, then maybe God's Torah can enter my brain and my heart as well. So, he went to Yeshiva. And he learned with the first graders. And he was there for 12 years, apparently without ever ever visiting his wife. We're not really clear about that. At the end of the 12 years, he comes to pay her a visit. And he over-heard overhears her having a conversation with the neighbor in which the neighbor says, "Look at the type of life you have. You live in poverty. Your father doesn't help you. And what type of husband do you have that has abandoned you for all of these years?" And she said, "If my husband would listen to me, I would send him away for another 12 years." And the story goes, Rabbi Akiva went back without even saying hello. Now, one could raise a whole bunch of questions on this story. I mean, the whole story itself, although it's tremendously inspirational on many levels, it is also very problematical. Is a man allowed or supposed to leave his wife for 12 years? And if he did so, does he not pay a visit occasionally? And when he pays a visit, he doesn't even say hello because she said, you know, he can go back and learn. Let him say hello. Again, there are different answers. One answer that I think is is powerful is that if he would have allowed himself to spend even 5 minutes in the kitchen, he never would have gone back. His heart would have broken over the suffering that she was going through. And yet, he knew that it was her greatest desire that he go back. So, he didn't allow himself to experience that emotion. But, whatever the case, he was gone for a total of 24 years. When he came back at the end of those 24 years, he was no longer a Yeshiva student. He was the greatest rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Akiva. And he came back, according to Hazal, with 24,000 students. 24,000 students, that's unbelievable. The largest Yeshiva in the world is the said to be either Lakewood, in Lakewood, New Jersey, or Mir. And depending how you count, different people are counted in different ways, but you're dealing with a number that's certainly under 10,000. It's approximately maybe 7,500 to 8,000 students. That's the largest Yeshiva in the world. Rabbi Akiva, one rabbi, had 24,000 students. Unbelievable. Without a public address system, you know, how do you teach them? You know, how do you give your share? It's not even clear logistically how any of that works. But, he's coming back with 24,000 students. And this woman that is dressed in rags runs forward to greet this great rabbi. That's his wife. And the students push her away because they think she's some crazy woman who's going to attack him or something. And Rabbi Akiva said the famous words that are uh at his cover to this very day, if you go to Tiberia, She'li v'shelachem sheli, all that I am, and all that you are, my students, is only because of her. So, at this point, you can imagine the joy that Rachel feels. All of the years of sacrifice, all of the poverty, all of the suffering, all of the deprivation, all of the loneliness, she now sees what it was for. She sees what it produced. And one can imagine the joy that filled his heart. Her heart. Now, in the meantime, Kalba Savua hears this great rabbi is coming to town with all of these students. He He know it's his son-in-law. The father says, "So, he felt bad that he had punished his daughter for all of these years. So, he went to this great Rabbi and asked, "Can I be released from my vow?" Now, halakhically, when you make a vow, one of the ways we release you from a vow or a base to release you from a vow is if you identify a certain circumstance which if you would have known this circumstance, you never would have made the vow. I'll give you a very simple example. Let's say a person started a diet where he's not eating chocolate. And he didn't just start a diet, he made a vow. He says, "I am making a vow that all chocolate in the world is forbidden to me." Right? He might I'm not supposed to make a vow like that, but he made such a vow. It's an issue of the right to eat the chocolate. And then, that very day his mother or his mother-in-law baked him a chocolate cake for his birthday. And she spent a lot of time and she's going to be hurt. Now, although this may sound trivial, but in point of fact, he can go to a base then he can't do it on his own and he could say, "If I would have known that my mother-in-law would have been would be baking a chocolate cake today, I wouldn't have made the vow till tomorrow." And the base then matters the vow. That's that is what hataras nedarim I mean, on Rosh Hashanah we uh on Rosh Hashanah we do it in a formalistic way, but the one-to-one hataras nedarim is you identify a circumstance which if you would have known this at the time of the vow, you never would have made the vow. So, Rabbi Akiva asked Kalba Savua, "If you would have known that your son-in-law would become a learned person, would you have made a vow excommunicating your daughter?" And Kalba Savua said, "A learned person? If I would have known he would know how to read Hebrew, I wouldn't have made the vow. So, Rabbi Akiva said, "Okay, your vow was annulled." At this point at that then he revealed his He revealed his identity. Now, this is such a wonderful triumph. Number one, it's a triumph of Torah. It's an inspirational story. I mean, this is the story of all stories. People start late, right? Now, again, I can't promise anybody and probably that you start learning, you'll be Rabbi Akiva. You know, that that's we can't really say. But, the concept that a person could start even at the age of 40 or older and achieve greatness and achieve command and knowledge of Torah and become a teacher of Torah. That's a story that continues to inspire us. The love that a wife had in her husband seeing the greatness in him and encouraging him to become the person that he's able to become. What an inspiration of shalom bayit that is. Yeah, a wife should do it for a husband, a husband should do it for a wife. You You show the person that you see their specialness, you see their goodness. You see something great in them. And when you show them that, that greatness become real becomes realized or at least potentially it becomes realized. So, there's so much beautiful about this story. And yet, and yet, and yet, just a few years later, there was a plague in the period between Pesach and Shavuot in which virtually all of these 24,000 students died. Ashes. All that Rachel had suffered for 24 years and she finally saw the fruition of all of her efforts. All was not. Now, once again, there's a machlokes. The Gemara itself says the students of Rabbi Akiva died in a plague, implying it was some type of illness. Some say that's a euphemism, that they actually died by the hands of the Romans as casualties in the Bar Kochba revolt. As you know, Rabbi Akiva himself was a great supporter of Bar Kochba. Rabbi Akiva was quite militant. Rabbi Akiva thought Bar Kochba was Mashiach, and one could imagine Rabbi Akiva got many of his students involved in fighting against the Romans. And some say that the deaths of the students of Rabbi Akiva came through their participation in Bar Kochba, and Chazal, who always spoke about that period in a pretty coded way, used plague as a reference to to that. But be it as it may, whether it's plague, whether it's Bar Kochba, virtually all the 24,000 students died. There were only five students who were left. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was one of them, and he died a year later. Only Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was one of the five. Now, because of this idea that the students of Rabbi Akiva died between Pesach and of the idea that in the Omer period, we observe certain mourning restrictions, not getting married, not getting haircuts, not listening to music, and the like. This is not from Talmudic times, meaning in the time of the Talmud, the Omer period was joyous. But in the time of the Gaonim, various customs began to spread based on the fact that the talmidim of Rabbi died. Now, here is the thing. We are told, however, that they did not die on the 33rd day of the Omer. Now, either that means they stopped dying on that day and it was permanent, that was the end of it, or it was a hiatus, it was a break. That depends on the various customs whether you observe a veil less. Nevertheless, the celebration of Lag BaOmer is linked to the fact that that was the day that the students of Rabbi Akiva ceased dying. So, it's paradoxical. Lag BaOmer has two celebrations. One is it celebrates and commemorates the death of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The other is it commemorates and celebrates the cessation of the death of the balance of the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva. So, both celebrates a death and it celebrates the stopping of death. By the way, Rabbi Akiva himself shortly thereafter died as a martyr. Again, because of teaching Torah and because of his involvement in the Bar Kokhba revolt. If you remember, the Romans were scraping his flesh with iron combs. And he was dying a horrible, excruciating, protracted death. And some of his students are surrounding him and they say, "Is this the reward that God gives to the righteous?" And Rabbi Akiva's response was, in his last words, "All of my life, the Torah says, you shall love Hashem your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your might. With all of your soul means that there are times in which you have to be willing to serve Hashem even by giving up your life. And my whole life I was waiting for the opportunity of giving my soul to God. And now he's given me the opportunity. I leave this world with joy that I could give God my soul. And this was the great great Rabbi Akiva. So, the point I want to make is this. Lag Baomer represents what you might call a dialectic. It represents almost two contradictory themes because if you look at the Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and you look at the cessation of the students of Rabbi Akiva, you see two opposite ideas, both of which have to be integrated into our harmonious whole. Let's first take Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. And of course, that's the main thing that people celebrate today. They go to Meron. Uh they go to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's kever. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai represents the height of a passionate devotion to spirituality and service of God. You know, there's a machlokes in Brachos between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai regarding a verse in Krias Shema. In the second part of Shema, it says, "If you keep Hashem's mitzvos, he will give you rain. Ve'asafte diganecha and you will gather your grain." So, Rabbi Yishmael makes the what we would think is the common sensical proposition, "Mhm, if the Torah says if you do mitzvos, you will be rewarded by being able to gather your grain, the Torah is legitimating economic activity. You're allowed to farm, you're allowed to make money, you're allowed to make a crop. Right? Parnassa. It's a good thing. Okay, now that sounds logical to us. Maybe more so in America, but even even here in Eretz Yisrael, uh par- there's such a thing as parnassa. Surprisingly enough, Rebbi Shimon bar Yochai rejects that sensible interpretation. Rebbi Shimon bar Yochai says, "Parnassa? Parnassa? Gathering grain? A person is going to plant when it's time to plant and harvest when it's time to harvest and thresh when it's time to thresh, when is he going to do Torah?" Al am I, Rebbi Shimon bar Yochai says, "Your job is to learn Torah, daven, do mitzvahs, serve Hashem. And Hashem will take care of your parnassa. And when the Torah says vesata degonacha, surprisingly he says that's talking about when the Jewish people are not doing the will of God at its highest level." But if they do the will of God at its highest level, you can and you should be menutak legamrei from economic activity. Now, Reb Shimon bar Yochai knows of what he's speaking because it did work for him. For 12 years he was hiding out in a cave, running away from the Romans, he and his son, Elazar bar Rebbi Shimon. And during those 12 years there were springs of water that broke through the ground at their cave. There were fruit trees that sprang up, giving them fruit. And there were ravens that brought them meat. I don't know what hashgacha it had, it must have had the right plumber, whatever it would be. Yeah. Well, you know, we're talking about God's Hashgacha. Some people don't trust God's Hashgacha. That's the That's the famous joke. You know, it's brought down that the Leviathan Lavoe there going to be two two animals that God is going to kill and serve to the Tzadikim. One is going to be the wild ox, the Shor Habar, it's a gigantic ox. And the other is the Leviathan, which is an aquatic creature. That the Tzadikim will eat the Shor Habar and the Leviathan. So, someone asked the question, you know, why do you need two courses? It's because some people are only going to trust fish. They're not going to eat the meat. They're going to have to Chef's Hashgacha on the Shor Habar is not going to be is not going to be good enough. Uh so, basically what happened So, for 12 years his parnossa is legamre bederech nes. After 12 years, he goes out and he sees a farmer plowing and harvesting and he couldn't believe it. How can people waste Chayei Olam, eternal life, with things which are ephemeral and transient? And he looks at the person and some of the person burns up with that gaze. And Hashem says to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, "Go back into the cave." A year later, he comes out on Erev Shabbos and he sees another farmer who's carrying an Erev Shabbos two bundles of Hadassim, two bundles of myrtle. And he's about to give him his x-ray vision there, too. I guess heat vision, whatever. It's super runs like heat heat vision. But then he hears the farmer say that the two bundles of Hadassim are in honor of Shabbos. One in honor of Shamor, observing the Shabbos, and the other is Zachor, remembering the Shabbos. And Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai then realized that even gashmiut, even material activity can be used in a holy sacred way to glorify Hashem. Now, the Gemara's maskana, the Gemara's conclusion is that many people followed the path of Rabbi Yishmael. They combined parnassa and Torah learning and Hashem blessed them with success. And many people followed the path of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in which they said, "God will take care of me. I don't need to be involved in hishtadlus." And they were not successful. They were starving. So, the Gemara does indicate that for most people, l'chol hapachot, the proper derech is the derech of Rabbi Yishmael. You take parnassa. You learn Torah. You do mitzvahs. And you have a parnassa to support your family. And you don't have the attitude, "God will take care of me." I mean, of course God takes care of you. I mean, even if you have a job, it's God that's taking care of you. But, you are much chuyav, you're obligated to utilize hishtadlus. When we're sick, we have to either go to doctors or or take the appropriate medication, even though Hashem is the rofeh choleh amo Yisrael. When we need to support our families, we need to have parnassa, even though it's Hashem, of course, that is the source of everything. It's not a contradiction. The notion of human endeavor as a condition for God helping you is a very, very well-established idea in Judaism. It does not show a lack of emunah. L'heipech, not to do not to do hishtadlus is a is a lack of responsibility in terms of what you have to do in the world that we live in. That's why there was an interesting um uh joke on the web. You know, people are always interested in segulas. We're always looking for some like magical thing uh that gets us parnassa or gets us a shidduch, whatever it is. So, somebody wrote, "I have the greatest segulah for parnassa. It's a segulah that's much older than the Baal Shem Tov and much older than the Arizal and much older than the Ramban. It's a segulah that goes all the way back to Adam Harishon." Can't beat that. A segulah that came into being at the very creation of the world. For parnassa. So, the person says, "What is it? Is it a string? Is it water? Is it a special thing that you eat?" It's a da'as. He says, "No, it's the pasuk, get a job." Hashem said to Adam, "B'zei'as apecha tochal lechem." By the sweat of your brow, you'll eat bread. That is what the Torah says is the segulah for parnassa. That's the bigger segulah. Okay. But, be it as it may though, what does Reb Shimon bar Yochai represent as a person? He represents a person that is so elevated, that is so holy, that is so beyond the normal parameters of human existence, that he doesn't need to be involved in Olam Haze at all. He does get miracles done for him. His mistake was he wrongfully assumed that everybody could live on that level. That's not the case. But, for him, that's was exactly the level he lived on. So, as a result, when we think about Reb Shimon bar Yochai, we think about the highest level of kedusha that is separated from this world, and then we resolve in our own life on on a much smaller level to kind of aspire to his commitment, to his longings, to his shifah, to his values. In fact, we read in last week's parsha, or 2 weeks ago, it's a different parsha, different parshas, Behar, Bechukotai. shmita. Many muforshim say that the idea of shmita is once every 7 years we should live the life of Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai where we're not osake in agricultural parnassa. Now, let's look at the other side of Lag Baomer. Lag Baomer was the day that the students of Rabbi Akiva ceased to die. Now, number one, why did they die? Number one, and number two, why did they stop dying in Lag Baomer? Now, normally we can't give reasons for why these tragedies happened, but Chazal gave us a reason. Chazal said that the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva died because they did not show proper kavod for each other. They did not show proper respect for each other. God took them from the world because they didn't show proper kavod. Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch points out that the etymological root of kavod is kaved, heaviness. In other words, kavod is not about being polite. I could be polite to a person, but I consider them to be insubstantial. Having nothing meaningful that they contribute. In fact, I might consider them a lightweight. That's how we would describe it in English. Or even in Hebrew, kal. Although it's more of to use that way more in the Yiddish sense maybe than in Hebrew. When you call somebody a kal, I'm not sure if in modern Hebrew we have that usage. But in Yiddish you call somebody a kal, it means he's a kind of an insignificant uh relatively worthless type of a Even if I'm nice to him. But kavod is the opposite. Kavod is when you look at a person, you see their value. You see their worth. You see their significance. You give them what is called gravitas. In fact, in the mitzvah which uses the word kavod, kibbud av v'eim, honoring parents, Rav Chaim Shmulevitz used to say that one does not truly fulfill the mitzvah of kibbud av v'eim until you have identified qualities in your parents that are worthy of admiration and emulation. Meaning, we make a mistake when we think kibbud av v'eim is only about the behaviors that I have in which, ah, my parents are are are really a bunch of jerks, but I got to be nice to them. No. You have an obligation. Baruch Hashem, for most of us, it's a relatively easy thing to find those qualities. But sometimes they may be even challenging. But you got to think about the difficulties your parents went through. And if they are difficult people, maybe they are difficult because of those difficulties and the fact that they still stayed the course and raised a family. Something to admire. Was it uh Abraham Lincoln who once said, um "I just don't like that person. I guess I need to get to know him better." That That's a very That's a very profound remark. Lincoln was a pretty profound guy. Uh I di- Again, I disagree with Trump's position that he's a greater president than Abraham Lincoln. I think it's a little hyperbolic. Although he made he made that statement, too. Uh but uh Lincoln basically said that when you get to truly know a person, you will almost always see some quality. Some quality that you can really admire. Because you'll get to know the struggles of a person, the difficulties of a person. You know, there's a saying in the abuse community, people who hurt hurt. Meaning, even when people hurt other people, it's because they were hurt. And then you get to know them and you understand them, you can view people with compassion and even with respect and certain admiration for what they came through. Again, without condoning the bad stuff that people might have done. So, the first points out there for going back to Rabbi Akiva, when we say that the students of Rabbi Akiva didn't have kavod for each other, we don't mean they pushed each other out of line. We don't mean they called each other names. We can assume that these were talmidei chachamim, and we can assume that they kept all of the halachos that you have to keep bein adam lechavero. But internally, for whatever reason, maybe because they had such a great teacher in Rabbi Akiva, they felt they didn't need to learn from each other. They didn't look at each other seeing the dignity, seeing the goodness in each other. And they were taken from the world because to be a teacher of Torah and to be a leader of Torah, above all, you have to You can't be on the pedestal looking down at people saying, "I'm going to give you wisdom to redeem your worthless insignificant life." That doesn't work. The teacher of Torah has to have a sense of kavod for all the people he's interacting with. And without that kavod, go away. So, where does that take us to Lag B'Omer? So, this is a fascinating Kabbalistic idea. And I'm going to be very, very brief and I'm going to be very simplistic in this, but uh the basic idea, I think, should be clear. You know, every week of Sefirah corresponds to a particular personality who has a certain spiritual nature. So, week one of Sefirah corresponds to Abraham, who has the attribute of chesed, loving kindness, and benevolence. Week two corresponds to Yitzchak, that represents gevurah, inner strength and containment, boundary setting. Week three is Yaakov, that's called tiferet, beauty, which is the synthesis of when do you give, when do you hold back, because the extremes can be damaging. Tiferet is the third step of synthesizing chesed and gevurah. When to give, when to hold back. When to get rid of boundaries, when to have boundaries. That's tiferet. Week four is motion, netzach. Netzach is eternity or victory, and that refers to the quality of perseverance over obstacles. Things need to be done, you get them done no matter what. Netzach. But netzach can be a dangerous trait. Just like too much chesed means your kids will lose their teeth with all the candy, too much netzach means you're a steamroller. So, that's counterbalanced by week five, which is Hod, glory. Glory is when you step back and you let other people shine. And you don't push your agenda on others. Now, too much Netzach, steamrolling. Too much Hod, you get the sin of the golden calf and various other problems. So, the sixth week, Yosef represents the also the synthesis, the same thing, same way Yakov is the synthesis of Chesed and Gevurah, Yosef is the synthesis of Netzach and Hod. And the seventh week is David HaMelech, Malchut, the kingship of God. That's when all of these attributes are combined and blended. Again, I'm I'm doing this maybe unconscionably quickly, but here's the connection to Lag BaOmer. Just as every week corresponds to a personality and a midah, since there are seven days in every week, every day also corresponds in a microcosmic way to that same midah. So, for example, the first day of the Omer, which is the second night of Pesach, is Chesed of Chesed, the day of Chesed in the week of Chesed. The second day of the Omer is the day of Gevurah in the week of Chesed, which is different than the first day of the second week, which is the day of Chesed in the week of Gevurah. Now, exactly what these different combinations mean can be quite complicated, but there's some very, very excellent books in Hebrew and even in English which go through what these combinations practically mean, and they actually give you a spiritual exercise for every day of Sefirah to correspond guy to combine these different attributes. Now, if we map out Lag Baomer on a graph, Lag Baomer, 33rd day 53, it is the fifth day of the fifth week. Cuz 28 is 4 weeks, it's fifth Now, day five is Aaron and week five is Aaron. Lag Baomer is a double dose of Aaron. The spiritual power in the air is the hold of hold, the receptivity of receptivity. So now, let's figure this out. What was Aaron's quality? Aaron's quality, Pirkei Avot tells us, was Ohev Shalom Verodef Shalom. Aaron was the lover of peace, was the pursuer of peace. If husband and wife were fighting, Aaron would bring them together. Aaron was the one who was even more beloved than Moshe. Moshe Rabbeinu was the Netzach person. Things have to be done, they'll get done. Aaron was the person who stepped back and let other people shine and get glory. He built people up. As a result, when Aaron died, the sadness in Am Yisrael was even greater than when Moshe died. Cuz more people had direct connection with Aaron than even with the greatest of all prophets, Moshe Rabbeinu. So now, you can figure this out. If the students of Rabbi Akiva are dropping like flies because spiritually they did not see the good and the worth in each other, precisely on the day of Lag Baomer, when the spiritual aura is a double dose of hod, a double dose of ahavah, that would lift them, albeit temporarily, that would lift them from the attitude of eekah vote, lack of kavod, to seeing the good. It's like their eyes were opened on that day. And the day that their eyes were opened, the deaths stopped. Maybe it resumed the next day, according to different opinions. So, now it turns out therefore that the simcha of Lag Baomer, which redeemed the students of Rabbi Akiva from their death, came because at least temporarily the middah of ahavah was embraced and internalized, and experienced. So, the conclusion of my dialectic is this. It turns out that Lag Baomer celebrates two different avodahs, the zealousness, the fire, the commitment, the otherworldly holiness of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and the receptivity to see the good in the other of Aaron HaCohen, that liberated the students of Rabbi Akiva from their death. Now, I think I've talked about this before, but it's worthy to mention again. In the polarized world that we live in, people who emphasize one of these goals tend to deemphasize the other goal. You'll often have a person who is passionate, fiery, committed to holiness. But in the course of their growth, they will look at other people with a sense of denigration, a sense of beetle, a sense of, you know, you're not really that worthwhile because you're not following the derech that brings you close to Hashem. I don't want anything to do with you. Conversely, people who are open and friendly and warm and big tent Jews might sometimes be a little wishy-washy in the intensity of their commitment to Avodas Hashem. I'm okay, you're okay. Sure, gay marriage, abortion, everything's everything is fine. You know, we live in a world of tolerance. We live in a world where everything goes because everything is a matter of what what what's the old saying? Al tam berech ain l'hitztarech. You don't argue over matters of opinion. I remember many years ago, before I was even a rav of a shul, I used to go to drashas. Um I went to two Shabbos Shuva drashas. One was in a modern Orthodox shul. Not not it was in chutz l'aretz. Modern Orthodox shul, which was a very friendly, warm place. They always greeted you. And the rabbi gave a drasha about the importance of greeting people and going up to strangers and the like, which the shul was doing anyway. Then I went to more yeshivish shul that was a little cold and uh forbidding. And the rabbi gave a drasha about the importance of keeping Shabbos k'halacha. Now, both drashas were very important, and both drashas were very good. But in my youthful cynicism, I couldn't help but think how much better it would have been if the drashas were switched. That the shul that's already friendly needs to be machzik themselves in shmiras Shabbos. And the shul which every single person was keeping Shabbos k'halacha mamash, they needed to have a hisorerus in bein adam l'chaveiro. Right? So, you had two beautiful, perfect drashos, but each was given to the wrong audience. Each was given to the audience that's already doing that. So, what does a person hear? Yeah, I'm great. I'm fine. In other words, you're just confirming what's what your audience was got playing to the choir. And we do find this in life. Now, baruch Hashem, there are many exceptions. I don't mean to say there are no exceptions, but you often find that as a person gets more and more fiery and passionate, they have less patience for the simpler Jew that they might regard as their inferior. What does Lag BaOmer teach us? You got to combine both things at the same time. Remember Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, his kedusha, his fire, his passion. But remember the middah of Aaron, oheiv shalom u'rodeif shalom, to see the good in others. That this is not an either or situation. As you grow in your frumkeit, you grow in your religiosity, you grow in your limud haTorah, that's not at the expense of ahavas Yisrael or bein adam l'chaveiro. L'hafach, that should be folded into your passion. You're passionate about Torah? Beautiful. V'ahavta l'rei'acha kamocha is also in the Torah. Be passionate about that one, too. In other words, why is your passion limited to a particular segment of the Torah? And then, okay, I don't want to I don't want to be bashful because you know, I mean, that obviously any any words of musar criticism I I I include to myself as well. I I don't mean to but then people make big deals about things that aren't even matters of halakha. Whether somebody wears a black hat or what type of hat they wear, etc. I mean, these things become such fixations on some level that mamesh ik- ikarim mamesh mitzvot of the Torah themselves are relegated to subordinate inferior status. What they say a joke from the Shagas Arye that uh the Shagas Arye says, actually it's a truth that to a lot of people but I think the Shagas Arye was the first one who said it. That Hashem made a mistake when he gave the Aseres Hadibros at Mount Sinai. Because because people don't pay attention to what's in the Torah. If it would have been a Yesh Omrim Yesh Omrim that would be buried in a commentary to a commentary to a commentary to a commentary then for sure everybody would want to keep it because that would show that they're a tzaddik. But nebach, if it's only in the Chumash Oh, Chumash? What Chumash is for 5-year-olds? What I got I got to keep the Chumash? You know, so to speak. Like we we we we're looking to be strict strict strict strict strict strict strict and we ignore the basic fundamental principles. So, again, I do apologize that the Lag BaOmer is already passed but I think this lesson is an important lesson. That And you often find this in Judaism generally. Judaism teaches by uh in fact, maybe that's where Karl Marx got dialectical materialism. Judaism teaches by often offering contradictory ideas that you have to try to reconcile and work with at the same time and that is on the one hand be an uncomp- have an uncompromising commitment to truth no matter what. Live a life of integrity, live a life of truth, live a life of commitment. Don't give in to peer pressure. Don't compromise because other people are compromising. Do what is right. And at the same time be a person of love and compassion. And not uh just compassion, but respect, trying to strive to see the good. And I mentioned many times "No man loves a basket." K'mayim panim el panim as water reflects the face that you show it. The heart of a human being will reflect the respect that you show it. If you show a human being respect for who they are, they will respect what you stand for as well. And one of the great the tragedies here in Eretz Yisrael, why so many religious secular conflicts never really get resolved, is because the sides often refuse to see the good in the other. So, if I look at the other side and I call whoever the other side is and I call them Amalek or whatever it is, well, they're going to call me parasite or or whatever. If on the other hand uh the entire religious community, of course many of us do have great appreciation, but if everybody would have appreciation for for what the Chayal do, what the IDF does, what the government does, uh with the infrastructure that has been created that allows Judaism to flourish and if we would communicate in many ways that deep appreciation, then I think even those who are very far from Torah would also see the goodness of Torah as well. Right? When you live based on recrimination, then recrimination invites recrimination. When you live based on respect, respect will invite respect. So, be as it be, think this lesson of Reb Bal Meir is a lesson that we could take into us uh during Sefirah and really for the rest of the year as well. So, have a good week and nice nice to have you come. Thank you.