Friends ? It's Lag B'Omer, a time to light enormous bonfires, eat obscenely disproportionate quantities of barbecued meat (if, of course, that's your thing), dance like a lunatic at the beautifully waning moon, and contemplate the lives and deaths of our favorite and beloved Sages of Israel, in particular Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. It's said that R. Shimon hid away for 12 years in a cave to avoid persecution by the Romans, buried to the hilt in sand with only carob seeds and water to sustain himself and his young son Eliezer. Upon his emergence from the cave after 12 years of deep mystical contemplation, his first human encounter was with a simple farmer plowing for the next year's harvest. R. Shimon, now quite defamiliarized with the vicissitudes of human self-sustenance, exclaimed wildly: "How can anyone postpone working towards the interests of the Next World in favor of working in the interests of This World?" And with a searing glance, R. Shimon reduced the farmer, the field, and all of his surroundings to smoldering ashes and rubble! With that, God returned him to his cave for another 12 months, within which he learned the humility and empathy for which he is famed - for, as he learned, someone with such great powers must utilize them for affection, connectivity and ahavat Yisrael (love of other Jews), and not for criticism, judgementalism and self-righteousness.
It seems that R. Shimon, in his continued mystical quest for truth and purity of spirit, learned the true significance of self-nullification - to become more sensitive-to and loving-of others, no matter how different their lifestyles or interests. Through the ardent stoicism of his self-enforced hermitage, he also came to realize, as the Kovriner Rebbe z"l said, "There is a world of sweetness and light? and which world is this? It is our very world itself, for whosoever will not be entrenched within it." In other words, our capacity for simcha (joy) in this world is only limited by our inability to relinquish any material attachment to it, no matter how small or large? So, your favorite TV show got cancelled? so, your check got lost in the mail? so, the government is hunting you down and all you can do to avoid them is to bury yourself in a deep, dark cave for a decade? The less that things go our way, the more we need to forgo any expectations that we know exactly how things need to be, and learn to trust in the knowledge of our inability to fully know the entire picture. That, says the Kovriner Rebbe, is the true beginning of simcha.
"Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth, for Your love is better than wine (Song of Songs, 1:2)." True love, affection and connectivity, says the Malbim z"l, comes less from physical arousal (symbolized by wine, which causes the blood-vessels to dilate and thus causes a person's "spirit" to flow more freely) than from "the kisses of His mouth," in which spiritual communion between our souls and that of our Creator flows from above to below, from the intangible, infinite world of spiritual potential into the physical, finite world of concrete action. Our doings in this world, when animated from an inner communion with the Oneness of all the Worlds and the "Bigger Picture" that only He/She/It can fully comprehend, can create a "sweetness and light" that cannot be created or accessed simply through the mundane gateways of physicality itself. We should be blessed this and every Lag B'Omer/Shabbes to yearn for Hashem's love and kisses, to call out for His communion and intimacy, and to make every move from within the fire of that endearment -
Jerry Silverman
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Jerry Silverman is a former student of Yeshivat Bat Ayin. He is working in new media, designing and managing media projects. He lives in Riverdale, NY with his wife Sarah and their two children. |