Online class in honor of Lag B'omer 5778

good evening and welcome to tonight's class brought to you by Jeanette the subject is lock by Omar which we'll be celebrating this year this coming Wednesday night and Thursday the 18th of the month of ER we will explore some of the history and significance of this day and how it applies to us on what we can learn from it to live our lives in a fuller deeper or spiritual way starting with the name Lag Ba'Omer Locke is actually two letters lammott and Gimbel which had the value in American value of 33 and being that this day is the 33rd day of the omer the counting of the owner which begins on the second day of Pesach and continues on set throughout seven weeks after which we celebrate the holiday Lewis which actually means weeks because it comes seven weeks after paisa the first day of paisa the Omer is a measurement a biblical measurement and we had to bring as an offering on the second day of of Peyser the an offering of an omer of barley which was offered back in the temple and beginning from that day we would start counting the seven weeks until we would reach the 49th day the day after which would be the fiftieth the day of short now the period between the the seven week period is commemorated as seven weeks of semi mourning because of the following reason during a period of 33 days the students of Rabbi Akiva 24,000 students 12,000 pairs of students dined in the min plague some say that it started and ended on the 33rd day of the Homer some say it started later and ended at the end of the seven week period so some have the custom of mourning in the first 33 days I'm at the custom of warning those second 33 days some have the custom of mourning the whole seven week period after Pesach beginning after Pesach beaker in order to respect both opinions when each community has their customs which needs to be respected by the members of their respective communities but the point there is why did the 24,000 students rabbi Akiba dari and what does I have to do with us to the point that thousands of years later we still commemorate the seven weeks between pays attention work as weeks of 70 morning when we do not make weddings when we do not listen to music we do not cut her hair why so our sages explained the Talmud tells us that why did the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva die and this period is because they did not respect one another Shalom local Covanta wasn't they did not respect one another and that is why this plague killed them and that is why we commemorate this episode in order for us to learn the importance of respecting one another so here we need to understand two things first of all how is it that the students of Rabbi Akiva did not respect one another Rabbi Akiva is the one that taught that the principle the precept the biblical precepts of love your neighbor as yourself love your fellow as yourself the half dollar Erica maja rabbi akiva says zelkova go butter on this is a great rule in the Torah which can also mean it's a general rule which encompasses a lot of the true Commandments are inspired by them based on this concept of loving your fellow yourself so how was it the traveler came as students did not respect one another it wasn't their teacher who taught the importance of loving a fellow Jew how was it that they his disciples did not respect their teachers teaching so another question is does that deserve the death penalty not respecting another person is not nice and it's not the way we should behave but it's the punishment for that death so the Rebbe explains the following it does not say that they did not love one another it says they did not respect one another and the point here is the following they loved one another greatly and because they loved one another that is why when one would see that his friend his colleague is doing something that does not reflect the teachings of their teacher of yeshiva he would impose on him what he understood to be the true teaching of Rabbi Akiva now if you wouldn't love him wouldn't care for him he wouldn't care what he does he wouldn't impose anything he couldn't care what he does right like this famous story of the boy that was introduced to a girl they went out on a date and he comes back from his first date and the shots on that set the mob asks a boy what do you think of the girl says weren't since you think she's great one tooth in her mouth doesn't matter she has bad breath doesn't matter she doesn't have the hair on her head doesn't matter where IQ is -20 doesn't matter she's ugly doesn't matter none of this bothers you this of course not I don't have to admit most minimal intention of marrying her why should I care about any of this so the point is that when do you care about somebody's behavior is when they are important to you and when you love them and if you couldn't tell us what they do unless it interferes with you direct so since the students are objective a loved one another what is why they cared about the well-being of their colleagues and when they saw them behaving the way that was wrong in their opinion they wouldn't just ignore it they were trying to correct their friends behavior by imposing their point of view on the other person now that is okay if it's done properly what happened was that together with that being that they were also very honest they could not respect their colleagues when they saw them behaving the way that did not reflect rebbi akiva stitching's so they lost a respectful and that was their mistake because a person should criticize what somebody else does if he thinks it merits criticism but that does not mean that he should criticize the person criticizing their behavior is not synonymous with disqualifying the person yesterday as a matter of fact that lunch with some people someone at the table mentioned about somebody public figure that everybody knows about but that person was proven to be a liar and a thief so I stopped him and I said I think you're making a mistake that person was proven in court to have lied and to have stolen that does not make him a liar in a thief but simply means a person who slipped and stole and lied on one or many occasions but does not turn him into a liar and a thief if he regretted his actions and paid the price that the court imposed on him so the point I'm trying to say is that yes they loved one another but they forgot to also respect one another and because they did not respect one another that is why they they were open to the play that kill them now it wasn't the punishment for their not respecting as you mentioned before the punishment for not respecting a fellow Jew is not death but what happened was that there was a plague going on and had they been united and had they had the respect for one another and that they should have had that would have protected them against the plague but being that they did not respect one another and there wasn't that unity that should have been there they became vulnerable to the plague that was able to kill them there's an interesting story that father who had many children who are always hard with amongst each amongst themselves and the father wanted to impress them with the importance of living harmoniously so he brought a pack of twigs and asked then call them all to his bed and asked them which of them could break the packet of twigs each one of them tried and none of them could do son the father took the pack of twigs untied it and one by one and broke the whole packet one twig at a time and this is what he showed them that by being together there was a strength that protects everybody whereas by being separate each one becomes vulnerable and this is what happens in rabbi Akiba it wasn't they were punished for their behavior but their behavior made them vulnerable to something that they would not have been drawn up well had they behaved in a different way this is similar to what the Rebbe explained about the power and protection that mitzvahs especially the midst of mezuzah and Filan had in protecting those in danger that when the mezuzahs are kosher and it's film are kosher then the soldiers have a special protection whereas if not then not and their ever said this is not a punishment but it gave the example of a helmet that a soldier wears when going into battle he wears the helmet in order to protect from any bullets that might come his way but and if it takes off the helmet and the bullet hits him god forbid that is not the punishment for taking off the helmet the bullet was flying anyway had he had his helmet on they would have deflected the bullet since he did not have the protection of the helmet he was vulnerable to the bullet so the same Theory explains regarding having kosher reserves is that happening the question is does it gives you that protection against dangerous elements that threaten one not having the kosher merciless makes you vulnerable to those threats that are there for whatever other reason they're there so the lesson we have from from well Omer from the story of the twenty four thousand students that Rabbi Akiva had who died in this period between patient and shot was because they did not respect one another we need to learn from their the importance of not just loving one another and caring for one another but respecting one another respecting what the other person needs in order for them to behave the way they need to in other words it's not enough for you to tell somebody who is doing something wrong that he's doing something wrong and to criticize that because what will the reaction be what will you accomplish you'll just make yourself feel better that you criticize somebody for doing something wrong is that your goal then okay and that is not the goal the true true goal is to help that other person modify his behavior and the way to do that is by encouraging the other person and and pointing out his misbehavior in a way that will bring about a better behavior in that person so TRADOC have to respect the other person have to respect his way of thinking doesn't mean to respect what he does if he's doing something wrong but respect the way he will be able to overcome his own challenges and help them through that in order for him to be able to accomplish that was you believe to be the right way assuming that you were right so that is one lesson from the story of vlog bottom another thing that happen like wailmer was that is when rabbi Shimon bar Yohai one of the one of the if not the outstanding student of Rabbi Akiva after those twenty four thousand students passed away every qibla rebuilt the whole institution through new students the most pretty left of them was rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and as a matter of fact we find in the Talmud Tom has over 2,000 pages and as far as I remember Lauren he will never read more than three pages in the time when we start coming across an opinion about the Shema which says a lot because there many sages whose opinions appear in the Talmud but not with the same frequency and so robbery you should a machine verify is not in fact the Talmud tells us that when the rabbi akiva ordained his students he put Rabbi Meir in the front row and rabbi Shimon bar Yohai behind him and they're sure if I felt felt silent I mean why was Rabbi Meir the student worry mayor why was he sat in the front of rabbi Shimon bar Yochai so I keep it told them listen Robbie mayor is a great sage people appreciate his greatness you were great this is something that only I and your creator can appreciate in other words I'm sure what if I was so great that most people weren't even able to appreciate his greatness that's how great he was so that is ravishing modified to give me just an insight a little bit who he was and so he passed away mudwell over the 33rd day over and he asked his students before he passed away that his day of passing away should be remembered with great happiness and celebrated because that is the day that he felt his soul is being liberated from the confines of his body and reconnecting to a source to God so for him Oh was a happy day and he asked that for all posterity that they should be remembered with great joy and happiness as a matter of fact it is a day of great joy and happiness it is the only day in the period of the Omer where celebrations are babe were weddings take place were from listen to music and the main celebration isn't made run by rubbish and by the hi is buried and worst parallel places I'm just a thousands of Jews converged on me wrong for the day of longer and this line of singing and dancing going on through all hours of the night and day and there's much celebration going on another way of celebrating is by building great bonfires that is another way to celebrate for different reasons given for that one reason inspirational bar if I was a great luminaries one who illuminated the darkness of eggs are through his teachings and that is represented by the bonfires which are lit all throughout Israel throughout the world unlock well as a way to remember what Russian Wi-Fi his world was another way to celebrate like Ballmer which was introduced by the Rebbe the 1950s is by through trade public trades on the day Lag Ba'Omer which maybe is based on the custom problem is as far as I know based on the custom historical custom but on the day of our bomber children school children would be taken out of school and they would cover their teachers to the parks fields and play there typically with bows and arrows which we'll soon see why and the rabbit open it up another notch by having parades public parades beginning in New York and then eventually in countries all over the world the country the most parades is Israel where towns and cities all throughout Israel have parades where children demonstrate and their pride in being Jewish and in their Jewishness so what is the reason for the bows and arrows one reason is historically because the Russian word high lived in a time when the Romans forbade the teaching of Torah punishable by death Rabi Akiva was lunch teaching Torah and one of the students has to why do you teach terror affording to the Torah you're allowed to not teach tower if it's a matter of life and death according to the Torah itself one may transgress any of the commandments of the Torah in order to save your life with the exception of three transgressions which money must allow himself to be killed in order not to transgress which is to kill an innocent person if someone tells you kill an innocent person if not I would kill you then you have to value self to be killed I add a litter if someone forces you to bow down to an idol if not you will be killed you have to allow yourself to be killed and adultery or other transgressions of this nature you have to allow yourself to be killed rather than to transgress but to the exception of these three all other mitzvahs all other obligations and prohibitions of the Torah are to be transgressed in order to save your life if your life is at stake so the Aster really were worried the you talk insist on teaching Torah if the Romans decree that we should not and if they catch you they will kill you sir mokemo famously gave the example of a fox hungry Fox that was walking along the shores of the river when he saw a school of fish swimming very they asked the were you running to they say well we are escaping the Nets of the fishermen I want to catch us so the Fox said why do you why don't you come here and I'll protect you you know I'll protect you against the fishermen come here on land dry land together with me and I will protect you so they answered you foolish Fox are you not the wisest as well I was happiness is just stupid thing if in the water which is the source of our life we are in danger the minute we leave the water we have no chance of survival so to cetera be a keeper if by learning and teaching Torah we are in danger imagine what will happen to us if we stop learning a teaching tool returns the water of my life came if I hate America mean it is the oxygen of our spiritual life of our existence so if while breathing oxygen and drinking water we are in danger how much more so we will be in danger if we stop breathing oxygen to stop drinking water and the venturi of akima was caught and was killed but during that time people would teach Torah they would take the children and the students out into the fields teach them Torah and they would go with bows and arrows if I mean Roman inspectors we have to come by they would take out the bows and arrows and make believe they were learning or practicing archery so that is one of the reasons given for while we play with bows and arrows and I were to remember that situation and what the reason given is because during the lifetime of rubbish you know but if I there was never a rainbow to be seen in the Land of Israel and the significance of that is a rainbow in general is there as a symbol of God's promise never to destroy the world as we find the deterrent partial Noah after the flood I'm gonna store the world he made a promise with bow after he would never destroy the world and that is one we saw a rainbow for the first time which was to symbolize this fact that God promised not to bring any destruction to all of humanity again the Rebbe explains interestingly how can we explain the fact that this natural phenomenon is to be considered a symbol what is something that happens naturally the way the raindrops reflect the light and the way that creates a rainbow so since it's a natural phenomena how can we say that it is a sign of God's promise to law so drip explains very interestingly that it is true that a rainbow was created by natural conditions of the raindrops reflecting the Rays of the Sun but until then until after the flood to remember the conditions that allowed for a rainbow to be seen it was only after the flood that the first rainbow was seen because the conditions were researched that allowed for this natural phenomenon to take place so that is the sign of the pact in other words the change wasn't really a change in anything it was just the conditions were never such to allow the rainbow to be seen after the flood God creates the conditions for the rainbow to be seen according to the laws of nature so basically the idea here is that whenever there is a rainbow to be seen the custom is not to look at it for a long time because it is a symbol of the fact that God wants to destroy the world doesn't do so because he promised not to but it's not for that promised he would so therefore is not really a very good sign so during reveal she may verify his lifetime no rainbow was ever seen why because of his greatness maybe she might find himself said that he through his own merit is able to neutralize to outweigh any transgressions or any reason to destroy the world his merit and if necessary the merit of him and the son of eliezer would be enough to outweigh any reason to destroy the world so in other words in remembrance of that greatness of rachet by the high it was so great as to outweigh any evil that existed in that time so we playing with bows and arrows remember the rainbow symbolized by the bow the bow now another very interesting reason for the bone arrows the follow we find that there are generally two types of weapons and a person needs to defend themself what is the sword and what is the bow and arrow any other type of weapon is a variation of one of these two as well soon see the sword is a weapon that you use to defend yourself against an enemy that is visible and close to you bone marrow is used against an enemy that's far from you and might not even be visible to you really very clear so these are the - any other weapons are variations of these - either to defend yourself against the enemy that's close or to defend yourself against an enemy that is far for me so just as we have our physical enemies that we need to defend ourselves against there are also spiritual enemies that we need to defend ourselves against so we have close enemies close disable enemies against whom we defend ourselves through swords and then they are far invisible under music and soon we need to defend ourselves through bows and arrows who are these different enemies enemies are our own instincts so we have instincts that push us to do things that are visibly are clearly wrong so for that we have the sword so that we have the hollow heart that tells us do this don't do that to be the way that neutralizes the instinct that we have to behave in the wrong way right let's say we have an instinct to lie an instinct to speak badly about somebody so the shufflin are of the Jewish law tells us you are not allowed to speak badly about someone you're not allowed to lie so that is the weaponry that we use to defend ourselves against an enemy that is tangible and visible and close to us but then we have a battles on a different plane on the level of ideas and feelings right that's a whole different struggle of thinking the right way of feeling the right way not just behaving the right way for behaving the right way we have initial phone RF that tells us do this don't do that but how about thinking what's right and feeling what's right for that it is a it's much more subtle much more abstract it's not so visible not so close for that kidney the bone and the bone marrow would be in this sense the teachings of the deeper parts of the Torah the more spiritual mystical parts esoteric parts of the Torah which would be the Kabbalah and facility chings those are teachings that deal with thoughts and feelings and our struggles on the spiritual level so that is actually becoming America's greatest contribution was there are many sages that contributed a lot on the level of a lot on the practical level to this don't do that and Rabbi Shimon had many others who talked along with him how to behave practically when it comes to the hidden part of the Torah the Zohar is the is the book that was authored by rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and that contains the spiritual dimension of the Torah which allows us to deal with our struggles that take place on spiritual planes and dimensions of ideas and feelings so that is why another reason why we play with the close narrows on well were to remember this specific and special contribution or share may define which once the teachings that he transmitted to us that empowered us to face our challenges on the spiritual battle fuel of ideas and feelings through the teachings of the summer and other teachings of that nature there's a very interesting thought to be a very interesting teaching then we'll also find in the bone arrow and then it's two things first of all that when you want to shoot an arrow first you have to pull it back you'll just pull it back you pull it down other words cause if you want to shoot higher you have to pull the arrow or if you pull the arrow down and then you release it and it flies up or far so that is to teach us how we should approach the study of Torah but first we need to have the humility before we started Torah and then our Torah study will reach its target because if a person approaches the study of Torah with arrogance or with self-importance with his ego then he will very easily miss the mark because what happens my person approaches Torah study and comes to certain realizations and conclusions and discover certain ideas in the Torah which he attributes to his own intelligence and creativity and he feels good about that look how created by a become intelligent there then if somebody else comes and disproves him he will resist it because he doesn't want to be disproven doesn't want to be diminished because we're talking here about his accomplishments we're talking here about his truth rather than a dead truth however person looked for the truth not history the person's not looking to be right but he's looking for what's right then if somebody else comes and shows that what he thought to be right is not so and there is something which is right then he'll be more than happy to have learned that what he thought was right is not and now you see something that is right but where does that come from that comes from humility which your approach to study Torah is to understand and uncover what is run it then if somebody comes and teaches you something you're more than happy usually when two people argue the one that wins the argument has happen the one that loses a son should be the other way around because the person who won the argument didn't win anything cause he knew already what he knows the one that lost the argument should be happy because he just learned something that he didn't know before but that doesn't usually happen why because people want to be right they're not looking so much for the truth they want their truth to prevail not the truth but their truth in order for a person to care more about the truth than his truth you need you Malati that is the idea of pulling the arrow down before releasing it if your preparation for Torah study is you're not really putting the arrow down that you will have a good chance of reaching the truth because you are open to be corrected you're open for other people's opinions however if your approach is your ego then it's very easy to make mistakes and you will not listen to anybody who is there to point out your mistakes and to correct you so that is another less important lesson we learned from this will actually say this every day several times a day when we ask God did not she cut off her luck olt here I should be as dust in front of everybody softly did miss earnest offer opened my heart in your Torah two-year tour and one thing leads to another when the person has the ability where he doesn't feel himself important then he is able to have to be sensitive to the truths of the Torah to bad store rather than to his own version of the Torah so this is an important thing to remember we find the freedom of explains that the preparation of the Torah study should be prettier giving charity going to the mikveh many things of a spiritual nature which one would ask what does this have to do with intellectual success and prowess but the point here is that it's true how can a human mind contain or comprehend God's Internet which is infinite so that can only be through the humility because when you put your own self inside then you are open to receive the infinite wisdom of God if your approach is your own understanding of things then you will be limited by your own understanding because you're missing the capacity to put your own understanding to the side or to put your understanding to the service of what needs to be understood not what you would like to understand and then one more or less than we find from the bow and arrow is that the objective of the arrow of the bone marrow is to pierce the heart of your opponent that is the objective of the arrow now how can you do that before you release that arrow to pull it towards your own heart then you release the arrow to try to pierce your opponent's heart now this can also be understood in a positive way if you want to influence somebody if you want to reach somebody's heart make sure your words come from your heart because words that come from the heart penetrate the heart third majority mean alertness mass email alert and operating pool awesome so if you really want to reach somebody's heart make sure that what you're saying comes from your own heart then you have a good chance of it having an impact on that person whose heart you want to reach this I conclude these thoughts on Lag Ba'Omer I wish you an inspiring like Welner that you should it should be a day in which we strengthen our our Torah study machine Mubarak I spent 13 years in the cave studying Torah machine verify his whole life was dedicated to Torah study to the point that he was exonerated exempt from prayer because his only occupation was Torah study and there actually tells us we need to learn from him that our only actual patient should be Torah study versus how's that possible most people cannot dedicate their whole lifetime they must work they have other applications and their episode two things here one is that when we do Torah study when we do study the Torah if it's 15 minutes a day an hour a day or however much time we dedicate the Torah study it must be as if that is our only occupation as if we are in the cave and there is nothing else there to distract us so it's not so much the quantity of time as the quality of the time that we dedicate and also that even though we do other things the question is what is the most central and important thing in our life so that should be the Torah study in other words even though we do other things that should all be corollary and there to support our Torah study which should be the central point of the day so maybe we all be inspired by these different thoughts on October and that should be a inspiration and motivation for us to increase and intensify our relationship with Torah relationship with Hashem and that will be merit to see the coming of Messiah speedily