21 Responses

1. The people who disregarded the warnings most probably thought:

   1) What does the government know?
   2) It won’t happen to us. The power of ______ (insert your favorite segula here) will protect us during performance of a mitzvah!
   3) Its a minhag in klal yisroel to light the fires, the govn’t cant be mevatel it

   I hope that the fires started illegally are fully investigated and the parties involved charged with their crimes. Not only are they shotim, they have caused incredible amounts of hezek and bitul torah for the yeshivos who cannot operate while the conflagrations are ongoing

2. What idiots! Couldn’t they do without their bonfires for one year? It’s not a mitzvah, and the big balagan isn’t even a serious minhag, just a modern shtick. Is it worth it to have even one family’s life ruined, much less so many, and so many precious acres of forest destroyed? And just because some people don’t believe that they don’t have to pay attention to the hiloni government.

3. where are all the anti israel people? should the fire department just wait for the tefilos of people or should the zionist fire department act?
   im really confused as to where in the shulchan aruch it says you are allowed to intentionally light a fire and not put it out when you are done. Those who lit the fire should be held criminally responsible and should pay fines for damages and pay for the fire department’s salary and gear for saving their behinds.
   sickening. blatant intentional destruction of other peoples properties.

4. Your hatred of whole groups of Am Yisrael is heart braking, and instead of saying Thillim you are looking to be mekatraig .Instead of deciding in advance that those who you don’t like are responsible for the fires , feel pity and ask for rachamin. The fires caused by hatred are much more dangerous than any other fire.

   Anyway, I’m happy to be able to disappoint you but the frum listened to the rabbonim who said not to light and most of the bonfires where lit by chilonim. But the MAIN fire in each individual community was lit and supervised very carefully. And nobody said not to light those.

5. agutyar – There is nothing in anyone’s statements including mine that say it was done by religious Jews. It’s a global statement against **anyone who did this***. Unfortunately that is YOUR spin and YOUR being mekatraig. Perhaps I associate with the wrong chilonim that have no Jewish spark in them.

   Nor did anyone say we should not be saying tehilim for those who are affected.

   I am not sure why you would put brakes on your heart to slow it down, it’s a matter of pikuach nefesh. The lack of spelling and gramatical ability IS heartBREAKING while you are “Anyway I happy to be able to disappoint you but” which makes no sense.

   Have a good shabbos and Memorial Day weekend

6. please dont show youtub videos

7. Qsman: Agree with your initial comment. I don’t believe agutyar was talking to you, by the way. He should have specified, but that might have been a bit of a disproportionate response to someone who didn’t explicitly say they were referring to you.

8. @agutyar – what chilonim? On this very website and another “whatisnews” site they have photos of rabonim and chassidim lighting massive bonfires. its not just chilonim and its not just chareidim. its everyone and anyone. All people who lit bonfires that spread should be forced to pay for their crimes. ALL PEOPLE!

9. Qsman it was pretty obvious from the above remarks that they were pointing their fingers at frum people. And, may I say from your remarks too.
   1) Certainly people should not have been careless, whoever they are.
   2) Who said it wasn’t arson?
   That sounds like the most likely answer, with cousins living all round those areas!

10. We recently read פרשת אמור אל הכהנים, where we are taught the important lesson, להזהיר גדולים על הקטנים, that not only gedolim/adults are obligated in the mitzvoh, but that also youngsters who have not reached the age of majority (adulthood) are to be under the guidance of their elders in it. The years of minority, before bar mitzvoh, are not a free for all, of anything goes.

11. concern regarding dancing around a bonfire, due to similarity with ancient practice of
    It is a teshuvah of Rav Shmuel Wosner z”l, stemming from a תוספתא that states המרקד לשלהבת הרי זה מדרכי אמורי

12. qsman, you certainly did blame religious Jews. You speculated:
    
    The people who disregarded the warnings most probably thought:
    […]
    2) It won’t happen to us. The power of ______ (insert your favorite segula here) will protect us during performance of a mitzvah!
    3) Its a minhag in klal yisroel to light the fires, the govn’t cant be mevatel it
    

    Only religious people could possibly think these things, so you were clearly blaming the religious, when you have no reason to suppose any of the fires were in fact caused by religious people. Most lag b’omer fires are lit by secular people, for whom it’s just a pyromania festival.

    Sammy, the rabbonim photographed lighting did so with permits. There are no photos on this site, nor have I seen any anywhere else, of rabbonim lighting illegally.

13. Midwest also blames the religious, with no evidence at all.

14. Sorry if i missed something , but where does it say anything in the news piece about how these fires were caused?

    I am actually more concerned about the fact warning that The Gedolim (including Rav Chaim Kanievsky shlita) gave last week about the Eurovision contest and the Chilul Shabbos.

    Scary!

15. Yes Rabbonim have light bonfires but in permitted and controlled areas the fires that spread if they came from bonfires were done illegally and uncontrolled and thoughtless. Hashem Yerachem.

16. unfortunately the israeli fire dept. (is to stuck up to getting training from the usa) and have no idea how to deal with forest fires or even any fire in a wooden structure all they know is if its wood spray water … they never even heard of most of the techniques we use in the usa for forest fires. a lot of these fires are to some extent the fire dept. fault, I saw with my own eyes how the FD came and sprayed out supervised controlled bon fires but only did a half a job (and laughed when I told them if its still red it will be back on in no time) thru out thurs night all over israel there were hundreds of fires back up and raging UNSUPERVISED …..

17. Why is it so easy to criticize Lag Ba’Omer bonfires and not criticize the fires intentionally set by the Palestinians day after day?

18. Fires in Harel, Karmiya, caused by electrical issues, fire in ‘Carlebach town’ still being investigated.
    Doesn’t that teach you all to be don lecaf zechus our holy brothers!

19. I’m posting a headline from ywn: Rav Chaim Kanievsky Warns of “Sakona” Due to Massive Chillul Shabbos For The Eurovision Song Contest.
    The gemora warns that the punishment for chilul Shabbos is fire!
    One cannot ignore this!!!

20. etzhar, the article said “Some of these fires are believed to have been started from Lag B’Omer bonfires”. This is, of course, pure speculation. The article doesn’t say who believes it, let alone why, or how many of the fires. But it is there, and that sparked the usual anti-frum commenters into blaming the frumme, for absolutely no reason at all.

21. R’ Shlomo just just wanted it in the shamayim