Bundy Alto

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Lag B'Omer: 'Distance learning

It's that time of year. Children who have "borrowed" shopping carts full of wood per rush. The smell of bonfire smoke fills the air. Lag B'Omer is here.

I've grown accustomed of bonfires (and smoke) that accompany the start of Saturday night Lag B'Omer. I wonder how many revelers not even know that fires are in honor the great sage and author of the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (a disciple of Rabbi Akiva), which according to tradition died on Lag B'Omer. But it does me not really mind.

What intrigues me most is the main reason behind the celebrations on Lag B'Omer. According to the Talmud (and Wikipedia) at the time of Rabbi Akiva's 24,000 students died of a divinely sent plague during the counting of the Omer. The Talmud adds that it was because they did not show respect to each other, consistent with their level. They balked at the other spiritual levels attained by their peers. Jews celebrate Lag B'Omer, the 33rd day of counting, the traditional date that this plague ended.

But how these great scientists of their own, the students of Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Akiva who preached the same, "Veahavta le raiacha Kamocha" Love your neighbor as yourself "(Leviticus 19:18 (and proclaimed:" It an essential principle of "Torah, have fallen into the core tenets? How could they, of all people, have disrespected their colleagues university?

One possible answer came to me when I looked ahead a week on my calendar. You see, my meeting 20th high school is coming next week. Has it been that long? I used to think that meetings of the school Secondary only happened to people on television, people like Al Bundy (Polk High) or Fred Flintstone (High Rock). Inevitably, the characters sitcom reluctant to attend their meetings, but once they do, they discover that times have changed. Usually, the former high school The quarter is now balding and sports a beer gut, and the prom queen is now a mother of six chain-smoking. In an episode of the comedy success of NBC "30 Rock, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) is attending his reunion in a small town high school thinking that she will remain in remembered as the "nerdy", but to his horror discovered that she was perceived as a tyrant for his biting insults as a teenager.

A What has changed over the last two decades is that in the past you have received an invitation in the mail (if successful reunion committee find you) and you probably had not been in contact with most of your classmates since graduation. But now in the era of the internet (we had no internet when I was still in high school), the websites of the former already post photos and bios of your former classmates. It can also join groups on Facebook former (which is how I discovered my 20 years of meeting) and keep in touch with almost all of your classmates where you are in the world quite easily. Although it may be more easy to reconnect and keep in touch with old classmates today, part of the mystery behind these meetings is gone.

But I have the perfect excuse not to attend my high school reunion - distance. I simply live too far (And who can not afford) to travel all the way from Israel to Palo Alto, California to join the rest of the "Henry M. Gunn High School Class of 1990 "(I still remember the name of our sports teams:" The Titans ") at this special meeting.

But distance "The word" is not just an excuse, it also has a meaning, if you are a soldier in the Israeli army. Early in training base in the Israeli military, new recruits are taught how to respond to their commanders '(hamefaked' / 'hamefakedet'). In Hebrew, the word is the word 'Merchak Pikudi, but it is more commonly known by an English word, strongly accentuated by the Hebrew: "Distance".

"Maintaining the distance is important in the Israeli army as the most Senior officers are only slightly older, a year or two of their recruits. When I was inducted as a new immigrant in the army, I was older than the recruits and officers of several years, but always respected the "distance" the officers applied. Only the last night of basic training, after several weeks of "distance", officers broke out at a distance 'and eased restrictions, allowing soldiers to call them by their first names, etc.

It seems that Israeli society is not today, that the "distance". Most of us who grew up in the Diaspora have responded to our teachers by their name (Mr. or Ms. Smith Jones). No one would call a teacher by her first name that many students do in Israel today. Was the same thing for other people in authority. Teachers, rabbis, doctors, teachers, authority figures, and the elderly in general have always been handled in a respectable manner that "Sir" or "Ma'am" or by title. It was not the familiarity that exists today. Maybe that's why "distance" must be hammered so hard in the Israeli army. Many Israeli born recruits are simply unprepared to confront those in authority of a respectful manner.

The same is true at home. It is ironic that my high school reunion will fall on the feast mothers in the United States because mothers are among those who most deserve our respect. I have seen many cases where there is little or no "distance" between mother and child. In some cases the parent is at fault for the shooting of the child (daughter, in many cases) from a good friend (and shopping together in some cases, turning to the young person for advice on what to wear as if they were best friends). This never happened with my father. Whenever I got too silly or disrespectful about my father, he would strongly remind me, I'm not your friend! "I'd like to settle quickly my behavior. Many young people today should do the same.

So maybe it was the trap that students Rabbi Akiva fallen. Maybe they got too chummy with their classmates. Maybe in their study of the Torah they have become too closely each other and did not leave a "distance", which made them disrespect each other. Taking the analogy of a fire, which is entirely appropriate for Lag B'Omer, a fire can be wonderful, provide heat, light, heat, etc. But if one approaches too close, you get burned. Maybe the same thing happened to the students of Rabbi Akiva, they have become too friendly with one another and lost the respect they should have kept their colleagues - they do not maintain a "distance".

As for the class of 1990 from Gunn High, the academically excellent public high school with a high percentage of Jewish students (including many Israeli) the heart of Silicon Valley, I'll keep my distance but in the right direction.

Oh, and one more thing - GO TITANS!

.

About the Author

The writer has an MA in Creative Writing from Bar-Ilan Universy.

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