Bonfires (Article# 85) 6/5/08

Lag B’omer is a big deal here in Israel. The entire country becomes a huge bonfire with almost everyone participating, religious and non-religious alike. That is part of the thrill of living here, knowing that almost the entire country has a similar heritage and, believers or not, they identify with that heritage in significant ways.

Wood, a precious commodity even during the year, becomes a highly sought after item in the weeks following Pesach. Since the teens and pre-teens all want their own Medura (bonfire) for their group of twelve to thirty (sometimes more) participants, they all go rampaging for any scrap of wood that they can find. Piles of wood begin to appear in backyards and driveways (in some houses more than one pile appears – depending on how many kids they have and how they split the booty).

Unfortunately, they are sometimes a little too zealous in their search and take things like succa panels or tabletops that had been stored outside without realizing that those items were actually someone’s property. The mall and supermarket garbage areas are also regularly raided for the wooden pallets that are used in the shipping of goods. A quick fourteen year old can reduce a wooden pallet to a nice pile of firewood in about 5 minutes with a sharp hatchet. Some people go to the woods (which surround Bet Shemesh on all sides) looking for fallen trees or deadwood to use.

Two or three days before Lag B’omer the chareidim begin to build their bonfires. This is one area in which they are expert. Most of our bonfires are pretty small, with an occasional group looking to show how “cool” they are by making a larger tepee style bonfire. Not for the chareidim.

They make HUGE bonfires. They use logs and set up very impressive wood tepees that are placed in very open areas. They need to be in open areas, since the resulting fire is incredible. I am talking about flames shooting higher than the roof of five story apartment buildings, fire so hot and intense that anyone closer than twenty or twenty five feet away can get burned by the heat. They also have special tefillot that they say at the bonfires – for them Lag B’omer is a major event.

Although we did not go to Meiron, the celebrations at Meiron are a top attraction, with over 200,000 people attending this year. This year, with Lag B’omer coming on Friday, the celebration stretched through Shabbat as Meiron and neighboring Tzfat were filled with people taking advantage of the long weekend. It was (reportedly) a highly uplifting experience, one that I know many of our students truly enjoyed.

Our personal Lag B’omer celebration was also a lot of fun. Last year, Lag B’omer came out on Saturday night – the week before Goldie’s surgery. Having not seen the kids for three weeks, and knowing that it would be another few weeks before I had the opportunity to see them again, I decided to fly to Israel for the weekend to visit them and thus had the chance to experience Lag B’omer personally and enjoy the kids. I sent Goldie pictures of them – but it wasn’t the same and she was very excited to be here in person this year.

Our block has a special kids’ medura which is organized by Yossi Bienenstock and Jon Duker, a couple of our neighbors. This year, with the completion of the construction across the block from us and the removal of all the building materials from the street in front of our house, we were asked if it could be held at the dead end right in front of our house and we readily agreed.

The bonfire (as always) was a huge hit. Having the kids enjoy it together as a group really enhanced the experience for them. With over 100 kids joining in, it was an active, cheerful, excited and awestruck group. There were marshmallows on skewers to be toasted on the fire, hot dogs for grilling, s’mores being made – one family even brought and baked their own potatoes! It was heartwarming to see so many mothers and fathers bring and share the treats so freely with all the kids. Batya, Mordechai and Moshe were enthralled, and it was more special to them because they were with their friends. Of course the marshmallows and hot dogs helped (Moshe must have eaten 50 marshmallows).

The demographics of our block are very interesting. Most of the families are very young, with a bunch of little kids. I would say that 70% of the children who live on our block are grade 4 or lower. There is also, like us, a group of middle aged parents with older kids and teens – but we are definitely the significant minority. At times, and this was one of them, we feel like we (the minority group) could be the grandparents of these kids (in one case this actually applies). I guess we all grow up some time.

Our older kids each did their own thing. Chaim decided (for some unknown reason) that Efrat was the place to be and went with a friend to Yerushalayim and then Efrat for an all night medura there. He came home early the next morning, tired but telling us he had a great time.

Chaya has Bargruyot exams coming up. These are similar to regents exams and she needs to pass them in order to qualify for a diploma. She has worked very hard this year, focusing all her efforts to being successful within the Israeli educational system in her school so that she can stay in the school she is currently attending rather than have to go to a GED school. She really loves the school and her friends there.

With the exams only a couple weeks away, she decided to skip the bonfires altogether in favor of studying and spent the night babysitting one of our neighbor’s children and studying. We tried to push her to go to a bonfire for the sake of the experience, but she stuck to her decision and we appreciated the maturity it took for her to remain so committed to her academics, coming out to the little kids’ bonfire for only 5 minutes just to say hi – and help roast a couple marshmallows.

Aliza was invited to join a group a couple of blocks from our house. I’m not sure just how many kids were there, but what made our minds rest easier was that several parents rotated supervision of the group, making sure things did not get out of hand (a group of twelve and thirteen year olds with fire – scary).

The firetrucks are out in full force all night, putting out the fires that were set in the middle of dry grass and spread too far or had just simply gotten out of hand. I am sure that the firemen are the one group who aren’t really thrilled on Lag B’omer here, having to run around all night, but I haven’t heard of any major incidents which is a good thing.

By Friday, the whole country smells like smoke. In fact, all the community email lists were filled (pre Lag B’omer) with reminders to KEEP YOUR WINDOWS CLOSED. I can tell you first hand that an open window makes for a smelly house. Last year, we missed one bathroom window and the fire smell lasted for a week or so. We were therefore very careful this year to make sure all the windows were closed.

As a child, Lag B’omer was always the bow and arrow holiday; I am not sure why. Here, I didn’t notice even the slightest allusion to them. Yet another difference from our old culture to our new one.