Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron announced the nation’s public schools will have a day off on Monday and not Sunday, with the latter being Lag B’Omer this year. The reason he explains is to encourage people to make bonfires on Sunday night and not motzei Shabbos, to prevent chilul Shabbos. This is the position that has been adopted by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.
In his letter to the Chief Rabbinate the minister writes “To my surprise, I have learned the chareidi community and a small part of the religious community have decided to observe Lag B’Omer on motzei Shabbos amid a realization it will cause significant chilul Shabbos among police and many others. Is chilul Shabbos in one tzibur ignored? During sefiras haomer when we mourn the division and sinas chinam are we going to have one day for chareidim to observe and another for the others? This is absurd!”
The Chief Rabbinate has ruled in line with Piron, calling on the tzibur to push off Lag B’Omer by a day to avoid massive chilul Shabbos.
In a related matter, the Chief Rabbinate has released a letter calling on the tzibur to exercise safety and responsibility in Lag B’Omer celebrations.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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28 Responses
1. Since when is Lag Ba-Omer a yuntuf that they should close schools?
2. Since when are the bonfires a mitsvah? And if someone wants a big bonfire, why not set it up before Shabbos (it is unlikely to rain in Israel at this time of year).
3. Other than having to worry about large bonfires that might get out of control, how is it any of the government’s business?
he does have point somewhat
1) from his viewpoint how is lag baomer different from yom hazikaron where the chareidim were shouting about chillul shabbos
2) sfardim (which comprise a large segment of the israeli population) hold until lad baomer, not withstanding that the yahrtzeit is on lag baomer
How’s about he just tells his people to not be mechalel shabbos?
“During sefiras haomer when we mourn the division and sinas chinam are we going to have one day for chareidim to observe and another for the others? This is absurd!”
Hmmmm….. During sefiras haomer when we mourn the division and sinas chinam are we going to have a “rabbi” publicly denigrate an entire segment of the population due to bad blood he harbors toward them? This is absurd!
Let him be consistent and stop all unnecessary chilul shabbos in government agencies. How about his party head? Is he concerned for his chilul shabbos?
Mr. Piron is a fraud!
What do we care if there is chillul shabbos, as long as we can party!!!
That is what Rashbi would want.
Can someone help me understand why is it a yom tov, the talimidim stopped dying, because all 24,000 where dead? If some lived ala Tu Bav I would understand the yom tov, but all of them were nifter?
this is excellent news its a win win for the cheridim and the secular, apple’s and oranges don’t mix.
So they made up some holidays. Then they made them verrrry important. Then they said that those holidays have to be flexible cuz mechalelei Shabbos are Mechalel Shabbos. They have now established that very important days are flexible. The aveilus of sefira is now batel, not only to their made up holidays, but to all the days to which they are nidche.
So now, when a real holiday causes them a bit if difficulty, it is already established that we can be mevatel the takanas Chazal of aveilus during sefira. So lets celebrate and have music on 34 Omer/19 Iyar, even though there is no source in halacha for the change.
We thus see clearly what Chazal meant when they said that if you overemphasize the smaller things, you end up de-emphasizing the bigger ones.
They should just cancel the bonfires considering that it is 100% assur anyway.
akuperma:
Surely you are aware of the invented Zionist holiday shmad of “Lag BaOmer” where the Zionists celebrate that which Judaism mourns on Tisha BiAv: Bar Koziva (Kochi viOtzem Yadi) which, of course, resulted in over half a million Jews murdered by the Romans.
#2 says “from his viewpoint how is lag baomer different from yom hazikaron where the chareidim were shouting about chillul shabbos”
are you kidding me?? lag baomer was created by chazal and can not be moved yom hazikaron was created by a bunch of kofrim apikorsim reshaim and can be moved easily
#1 Are you reality based?
Many of the mosdos in NY area are having a trip day, half day or different schedule for Sunday, Lag Bomer. That is a norm for educational mosdos here, Israel and overseas.
Bonfires have started and increased under Chassidish auspices. A country should, could and is concerned about fires erupting, property and individual losses.
3) It is totally under the government control the transportation, security and infrastructure needs in Miron on Lag Bomer. Over 100,000 people are in attendance, should the government sleep through the event or supervise?.
3 & 4 You are totally clueless to how countries are run. Egged, Dan and school buses are all on duty to operate without stop to get over 100,000 to Meron safely.
Parking lots are opened with personnel there to direct and provide shuttles to the kever or as close as you can get. Tents are built, chairs & tables plus food is delivered for the people. Magan Dovid Adom, Igud Hatzala and other safety organizations are on full-time duty and you are wondering…HUH! WHAT chilul shabbos? What’s the big deal?
lbj, Lag Baomer was created by Chazal? They lit bonfires?
yes lag baomer was created by chazal and to move it you need a dictum from chazal. it is irrelevany whether chazal made bonfires they might of how would you or i know
Mr Piron,
Why don’t you push off each shabbos to Sunday, this way your fellow chiloinim will never be mechalel shabbos
I went through the entire Talmud Bavli in the last daf yomi cycle. I didn’t notice anything about bonfires. In fact, I didn’t even notice anything about lag b’omer even though there is a lot about Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai. Did I miss something?
My personal lag b’omer minhag is to relearn each year the narrative of Rabbi Shimon in Bavli Shabat 33b-34a.
Moderators response: We went through the entire Bavli, and Yerushalmi, and didn’t see it mentioned that a black church choir should be brought in front of an Aron Kodesh in a Shul either. With women singing, and dancing, with Rabbi Avi Weiss at the horn. But that is where you daven. So what is your point? http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/editorial/211402/op-ed-the-decision-of-the-chief-rabbinate-should-be-rescinded-avi-weiss-brings-baptist-choir-into-his-orthodox-synagogue.html
No one is suggesting celebrating lag ba-omer on lad ba-omer, they are saying start the fires on sunday during the day/at the beginning of the evening (before dark), during the day it’s still lag ba-omer and it will reduce the amount of Chillul Shabbos that is being forced severely.
And even if we want to say that it’s a takonas Chaza”l that “can’t” be postponed, since when was a takonas Chaza”l enough to be mevatel a D’oraita (שבת)?
“Ah, but am not mechallel Shabbos, just all those other people?!”
So what? You are the direct cause that all those “other people” had to be and additionally what happened to being responsible for each other…
In this case the Chief Rabbinate, Rabbi Ariel and R’ Piron definitely have a very good point and it’s saddening that the tzibbur won’t listen.
In my previous post it should have read:
“Ah but <I> am not mechallel Shabbos, just all those other people?!”
It seems some (all?) html code entered into the comment box is left as is… if that is the case that is a severe security issue in the site.
Lag baomer has no source in shas. The aveilus minhagim during sfira are a minhag hageonim. The bonfires celebrate the light of the zohar and are of much later custom,pobably from talmidei ho-ari. The zohar was unknown by the early rishonim, hence hat minhag could only originate much later.
Since many people mourn the 1st 33 days after which all mourning ceases, there is no issue about playing music on Lad b’Omer [Sunday nite] or for that matter on Yom Yerusholayim, but maybe a problem on Lag b’Omer nite [Saturday nite] until daybreak, as Miktzas haYom KeLulo, so excellent idea to push off celebrations to Sunday nite to protect Kedushas Shabbos.
Well, let’s see him mention the division caused by the celebration of Yom HaAtzmaut during the Omer period, when everyone is in a partial mourning.
Why not postpone that holiday at least until after Lag B’Omer…it’s postponed almost every year anyway. If you want to avoid machloches, avoid in all cases.
You could put off a rabbinically ordained holiday…how can you put off a yahrzeit? Maybe I’m just ignorant but I don’t see how. My suggestion is just to not observe the big celebration in Meron this year, to avoid chilul Shabbos but to postpone it, that’s just silly.
Charlie, is the Shulchan Aruch irrelevant to you?
The Geonim mention Lag Baomer and in the time of the Maharil it was celebrated with fire. The Rav Mibartenura described the Minhag in Meron that they celebrated Lag Baomer with bonfires. But, there is hardly an early Makor for it being the Yahrtzeit of Rebbi Shimon.
Having bonfires on motzai Shabbos would mean that there is a risk of people who are lax in their Shabbos observance making various preparations on Shabbos, as well as the emergency services having to get in place on Shabbos. As a result, it was proposed by various dati-leumi rabbanim that the bonfires should be delayed until Sunday night. As they pointed out, Chazal made a much more drastic move to safeguard Shabbos when they suspended the Torah commandment of blowing the Shofar on Rosh HaShanah due to the mere risk that someone would carry a shofar to an expert who will teach him how to blow it! Certainly a bonfire, which is not a mitzvah at all, should be delayed when it certainly causes chillul Shabbos. there is an extraordinary irony here. It is precisely the rabbanim who are condemned by the extreme right as being “too lax” who are the ones actually trying to prevent widespread chillul Shabbos that is caused by those on the right
lbj,
the critical words here are “from his viewpoint”
i hope that clears thing up
Divisiveness? reminds me of the story with the yid who didn’t put on tefilin. when asked why not, he replied that it was a machlokes rashi & rabbeinu tam, so he wanted to stay away from machlokes ☺
Chareidim scream and riot over chillul Shabbat in a Yerushalayim parking lot, and they scream and riot over chillul Shabbat in a Yerushalyim movie theatre . . . but when it involves transportation to their precious bonfires, and police being ready to protect the thousands of citizens descending on Meron, all of a sudden, the chillul Shabbat doesn’t matter anymore. How can anyone take them seriously?
This is one of the most vicious comments sections I’ve seen in a long time. Everyone calling everyone else idiots. Even the “moderator” is being insulting (again). I’m ashamed of my fellow Jews.
FYI, Bonfires were also lit for the hilulah of Nebi Shmuel at the site of his grave in Nebi Shmuel, outside Yerushalayim. The date is Iyar 28, which is today also Yom Yerushalayim. This custom, which was observed since Medieval times, also involved pilgrimage to the site and haircuts for 3 yr. old boys and was observed until the Muslims put a stop to it in 1730.