Lag BaOmer - Loneliness and Community

This week's portion, Emor, gives the laws of the counting of the Omer.  From the night after the first day of Passover we count seven weeks, forty-nine days.  Each evening at nightfall, we say a blessing and then count: "today is ____ days, which is ____ weeks and ____ days of the Omer."  When we reach forty-nine days which is seven weeks, we prepare for the next evening, the festival of Shavuot.  Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah.  By counting, we link Passover, the festival of freedom, with Shavuot, the festival of revelation.  

Even though every night has its own unique number, not all nights are created equal.  One of those nights is Lag BaOmer, literally the 33rd night of the Omer.  Traditionally it is a day of celebration, a day for haircuts (especially little boys when they are three years old) and weddings.  There is also a tradition of campfires, which one sees all over Israel on Lag B'Omer.   Finally, Lag B'Omer is the anniversary of the death of one of the most fascinating sages of the Talmud - Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.  Here's a little original song about Shimon Bar Yochai by Cantor Hadash!

In Israel, thousands of religious Jews ascend to the cave in Meron where he is buried.  Who was Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai?  A mystic, Jewish tradition teaches that he wrote the great work of Jewish mysticism known as the Zohar.  (Today we follow the scholarly opinion that it was written by the thirteenth century Spanish mystic Moshe de Leon.)  The Talmud (Shabbat 33b) that Shimon bar Yochai hid from the Romans in a cave for years, burying themselves in the sand so they would not wear out their clothes.  They spent those years in mystical studies.  Finally, when they learned that the Romans had ceased searching for them, they came out of the cave.  They saw a man going to work, and became so angry that the man was not studying Torah, that their eyes caused everything to catch fire.  God was furious and says, "Are you trying to destroy my world?" God banished them back to the cave for 12 months.  When they came out of the cave a second time, it seems that they didn't learn their lesson.  Fire came forth from Rabbi Elazar's eyes and started destroying things, but this time, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai healed everything his son's eyes destroyed.  Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai told his son, ""My son, you and I are sufficient for the world."  But now came the true test - they see a man gathering myrtles, and they ask him what he is doing, perhaps thinking he is only engaged in matters of this world - work.  The man replies, "I'm gathering two myrtles for the Sabbath, "One for "Remember [the Sabbath]" (Exodus 20:8) and one for "Observe [the Sabbath]"
(Deut. 5:12)."  Finally, Rabbi Elazar's mind is set at ease.  There are many lessons one can glean from this story, and for those interested in some Shabbat learning, I highly recommend studying the text with these included guiding questions:  Click here for the source sheet.  But one of the lessons I find here is that to experience God, one cannot shut oneself in a cave, one must engage in community with others.  It turns out that maybe Shimon Bar Yochai and his son were not sufficient enough for the world.

There was a recent study that went viral this week that stated that, "Young Americans Are the Loneliest".  The study revealed that loneliness amongst 18 - 22 year olds.  American Psychologist, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, says social connection is associated with a 50 per cent reduced risk of early death, and loneliness exacts a grave toll.  "It's comparable to the risk of smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.  It exceeds the risk of alcohol consumption, it exceeds the risk of physical inactivity, obesity, and it exceeds the risk of air pollution."  I actually spoke about this issue over the high holidays :  The Antidote to the Epidemic of Loneliness: Chaverut - Partnership.  

This Shabbat, you will notice something different as you walk in to our sanctuary.  On the walls of the hallway, you will see three framed pictures gifted to us to by Harold Grinspoon Foundation's Voices and Visions Project.  

Each picture has a Jewish quote.  The first is from the Baal Shem Tov, "From every human being there arises a light."  There are echoes of this famous quote in our congregation's purpose statement, "Congregation Shaarei Kodesh exists to ignite the Jewish spark within each individual, journeying together as a holy, Jewish community."  Our purpose is a blend of the personal and the communal (you can learn more about our purpose and vision here).  The next quote takes a step out of the individual and connects one to others, "A human being is like a letter if the alphabet, to produce a word, it must combine with another."  To find our own voice, we must combine with the voice of others.  This is the true meaning of the term chevrutah, partnership. Finally, we read the third quote from the Midrashic work of Deuteronomy Rabbah, "A community is too heavy to carry alone."  Rabbi Daniel Gordis comments on this last quote:  "Alone, we may feel a special calm, but there will be no one to challenge us, to urge us to further exploration or commitment. Alone, we have no one to model for us genuine courage, deeper commitment, engagement with people we hadn't thought to include in our lives. It is when we build with others and learn from them, our tradition says, that the presence of God dwells in our midst. That has long been the secret to the magic of Jewish life."

As we Journey from Lag BaOmer to Shabbat Emor...

let us take the the lesson that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son Rabbi Elazar learned:  to truly transform oneself and the world, to truly reach spiritual heights, one must join in with others in sacred community.  And this is why we, our kehillah, is here:  to ignite the Jewish spark within each individual, journeying together as a holy, Jewish community.  I wish you all a Shabbat Shalom, and please know, as long as you are part of our community, you will never be alone.  

Rabbi David Baum