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The Jewish Home | MAY 19, 2022
Sparks of Light
Lag B’Omer Teaches Us the Power of Today by rabbi benny berlin
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OctOber 29, 2015 | the Jewish Home
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very year, as Lag B’Omer approaches, I reflect on what the great joy of Lag B’Omer is all about. Since we were children, we were taught that the period of Omer is a time of mourning. The Gemara teaches us that a plague ravaged the students of Rabbi Akiva during that time and that his students stopped dying on Lag B’Omer; therefore, we celebrate the day. This is enigmatic. When Jewish people stop dying, we should feel relieved, not joyful. After all, 24,000 Jews had already died by the time Lag B’Omer took place. Why now do we celebrate and why do we do so with bonfires? Perhaps a seudas hodaa, a meal of thanks to Hashem that people survived, would have been appropriate on Lag B’Omer, but to make parties seems callous in light of the victims. Rabbi Akiva was a great talmid chacham who left his wife for 24 years to learn and teach 24,000 students. And then, in 32 days, it was all gone. In just over four short weeks, everything he worked for was ripped away. How did he respond on the 33rd day, the day the danger left? We know that Rabbi Akiva gathered five illustrious students and began to teach again. He began to rebuild. He did not sulk in despair and ask, “What is the point? Why should I restart?” One would imagine for Rabbi Akiva it would have been a legitimate time to retire. He had 24,000 reasons to go home and claim, “I did what I could. I am finished.” But after those students died, Rabbi Akiva began from Bereshis, from the beginning. It was one of the most inspiring stories in the Talmud. The main corpus of the Mishnah comes from Rabbi Meir, while the Tosefta comes from Rabbi Nehemiah, the Sifra from Rabbi
Yehuda, and the Sifre from Rabbi Shimon – and all are based on the work of Rabbi Akiva teaching it to them (Sanhedrin 86a). And so, the answer to our question is very simple: the great simcha of Lag
The Pasuk says in Tehillim 95: “You should listen to my voice today.” On a simple level, this means that you should listen to the Torah as if it was given today. But Rabbi Nachman offers a different explanation.
He had 24,000 reasons to go home and claim, “I did what I could. I am finished.”
B’Omer is not that the students stopped dying but how Rabbi Akiva responded. The first day he could, he started to rebuild and heeded Hashem’s call to action. How did Rabbi Akiva do it? I would like to connect the answer to one of the famous pieces of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov in Likutei Maran: Reish Ayin Beis.
There is a great rule in serving Hashem that you must focus on what you have to do today to hear Hashem’s voice. In other words, focusing on the present is key. Rabbi Nachman gives several examples: For instance, this is true of parnasah, and when it comes to business you can’t let the fact that you lost money in
the past stop you from doing business now. You can’t allow your previous failures to stop you from doing what you need to do today. The only thing that exists is this moment and someone cannot serve Hashem with previous failures and question, “What is the point now?” If the only thing that exists is this moment, then previous failures are irrelevant. We should not push off mitzvos or other things in our lives, claiming that we can’t do them because we are already too far behind or have failed in the past. Saying, “I’m already behind on daf Yomi, so why should I start?” or “I’m not someone who is on time to Shacharis, so how can I push myself out of bed on time today?” are all statements from past storylines. All that matters is the current storyline, the “now.” Tomorrow is a different world that does not exist, and yesterday is old news. If you want to hear G-d’s voice, focus on hayom, on this day. That is the crux of Rabbi Nachman’s comment and that is Rabbi Akiva’s inyan on Lag B’Omer’s cause for simcha. Every morning, you should wake up and ask, “What does G-d want from me right now, today?” There is no future or past; there is only right now. That is the chizuk of Rabbi Akiva, of serving G-d in the moment. If we serve Hashem in the moment, over time you will b’ezras Hashem develop a whole life of meaning. That, indeed, is a reason worth celebrating.
Rabbi Benny Berlin is the rabbi of BACH Jewish Center located in Long Beach, New York. For more information, visit: https://www. bachlongbeach.com/
