Derasha
This week is Lag B’Omer. The week devoted to Hod begins tonight and Lag B’Omer is Hod she’behod, or the fifth day of the fifth week.
In the long list of Chagim we read today you will not find Lag B’Omer. And just as it is hidden on that list, so is any explanation for it. R’ Moshe Shapiro used to say that anyone who says that they know the explanation surely does not. In this, he was hinting at the fact that its essence lies deep in Kabbala, and about those subjects we say that those who know usually do not say. R' Chaim Yosef David Azulai, whose family name is hinted to in this week's Parasha, wrote a Sefer full of biographies of great Talmudic figures. He wrote about figures from the Talmud itself and about scholars right up to his own day in the 18th century. He says that Lag B'Omer is NOT the Yahrzeit of Shimon bar Yochai, nor was it his birthday. Nevertheless, even according to the Chida, It is connected to him because it is connected to the Kabbala and R' Shimon is the heart of the Kabbala.
But even if we cannot but skim its meaning, I think it is important to speak about it. There are hints about it which suggest if not the meaning of the day then still a modeling of what we should be.
In the attempts to understand the day, it is always good to look for something in the Chumash. I have mentioned in the past the opinion of the Ch’sam Sofer, R’ Moshe Sofer, who says that Lag B’Omer, the 18th of Iyar, was the first day on which the Mahn fell. The Jewish people ate Matza for a month, then they worried about what would come next, and then the Mahn fell. The Mahn certainly has a special connection to the Omer. The dry measure of Omer only appears in the Torah in the measurement of the Mahn and in the actual bringing of the offering called the Omer.
But there is another episode in the Chumash that is suggestive. The Omer corresponds to the period from when the Jews left Egypt until they received the Torah. We know that that period was not a cakewalk. The Egyptians pursued them them, and Amalek attacked then.
We also know that there was a precursor to the Exodus itself. Even during the days of the Avot, there was an escape and a pursuer. Lavan, like Paro, pursued the Jews as they left Aram. Like Paro, he caught up to them. After some discussion, Yaakov Avinu made a deal with Lavan. You have your space, he said, and we have ours. In between the two spaces, they erected a mound of stone. It is called a Gal-Ed, a mound which served as a witness to their separation. Neither of them was supposed to cross that space to harm the other.
A Gal is something that stands out. When you have a Gimmel and a Lamed, it means something that stands out. A mound sticks out of a landscape. You have a vista of flat land and the mound juts out. In the marine world, a wave (Galgal) breaks the placid surface of the water. A Gilui, a revelation, breaks out of the opacity of the normal routine. Lag B’Omer, which has those same letters as Gal, is that day that arises out of the order of the Omer; it announces that here is the border. The mundane -- or even more sinister forces than that -- lasts until there but gets no further.
We are told that the students of R’ Akiva died durng this time period but not on this day. According to Ashenazic tradition, it was up until but not including this day. This strikes many as strange. Why celebrate the day that they stopped dying? They were not saved on that day; nobody seems to have survived. But there is an important symbolism in the fact that the pace of their deaths did not cross over the 33rd day. It was confined to that period and no further. It did not cross over.
That allowed R’ Akiva -- his name is like Yaakov -- to move on. He raised five students in the South -- R’ Yosi, R’ Yehuda, R’ Shimon, R’ Meir and R’ Nechemia, They are the core of all of the Oral Law. The Gemora in Sanhedrin in 86a says:
דאמר ר׳ יוחנן סתם מתני׳ ר׳ מאיר סתם תוספתא ר׳ נחמיה סתם ספרא רבי יהודה סתם ספרי ר״ש וכולהו אליבא דר״ע.
For R' Yochanan says: an unnamed Mishna is R' Meir, an unnamed Tosefta is R' Nechemia, an unnamed Sefra is R' Yehuda and an unnamed R' Sifri is R' Shimon, and all of them are accroding to R' Akiva.
We learn from R' Akiva about moving on beyond the marker. His steadfastness is our model. But we also learn that no matter the menace, it ends with Lag B'Omer in the same way that it ended with that Gal, the mound on the ground. Lavan still pursues us, but only until this point.
