Life Cycles and Lag B’Omer
By, Nalini Ibragimov
Disappointment is a sign of unconscious expectations. We expect our lives to unfold in a particular way. Get up, go to work, send the kids off, come home, supper, relax, bedtime. Repeat. Or some variation of this. We expect to marry and have children. We expect to make the train. We expect everyone to be healthy. We expect life to be smooth, without drama. Maybe just a small hiccup here and there. We expect, expect and expect. And when those things don’t pan out in the way which we planned, we are left disappointed, may be confused at best. The other possibility is far worse – our lives turned upside down – broken, shattered, and devastated. Last night we expected to celebrate Lag B’Omer in the way that we missed last year. The music, the dancing, the energy of everyone coming together. We expected to feel achdut. We wanted to draw light from above so we could feel and see the radiance below. Lag B’Omer is the 33rd day of the Omer. When you flip the lamed and gimmel which spells lag, we have the word gal. A gal in Hebrew is a wave. A galgal is a wheel. There are waves in life. There are cycles in life. Life, by definition, is up and down. Waves of celebration and waves of mourning. Waves of light and waves of darkness. If there are no peaks and valleys, then we are flatlined, which is far worse. A couple of weeks ago we read of the celebration that was expected to take place in the inauguration of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle in the desert. Aharon’s two sons, Nadav and Avihu, tragically died and the day which was supposed to inaugurate a time and place where God’s glory would be drawn into the world was turned into a time of mourning. Aharon’s reaction was silence. In a place of deep pain, the only appropriate response is silence, the space to hold the wounds, the shock, and the trauma. Today I am silent. And from this valley I look heavenwards, holding the pain individually and collectively of everyone impacted by this overwhelming tragedy. May Hashem bring comfort to the mourners. May this wave pass and bring us to complete the cycle, the ultimate redemption. And may this Lag B’Omer bring merit to see the greatest permeation of light – the light of Torah and unity for the Jewish people and the world. Shabbat shalom.