Chevre, this week’s parsha is אֱמֹר (Emor). I’m not going to talk about the parsha today.

I am dismayed about the news of the stampede in Meron last night. I personally have mixed feelings around Lab B’Omer in general. I like the idea of folks getting together (COVID safe) and having a spiritual uplifting event. On the other hand, I heard in the news this week that based on the 2018 (2019 the fires were cancelled because of a heat wave and 2020 was COVID), that the emissions in Israel from the fires were estimated to be that of 70k cars for a year. So from an environmental aspect, I think we as a people can do better. I am proud to work for AWS, who is working hard to make the data centers we run as efficient and environmentally sound/safe as possible and is committed to reducing our carbon footprint.

What is the reason that Lab B’Omer is such a big deal? Between Pesach and Shavuot, we count the Omer. The Omer is a unit of measure of grain. When the new grain is harvested on the 2nd night of Pesach, we start counting the Omer until Shavuot. From the end of Pesach to Lag B’Omer is a time of mourning or reduced joy because of the many national calamities that happened during this time. Perhaps the most famous of these is the destruction of the disciples of R. Akiva in Beitar. R Akiva backed the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans thinking that Bar Kochba was the Mashiach. The Romans killed his disciples and the killing stopped on the 33rd day (Lag) of the counting of Omer. So traditionally this should be a day of great joy.

This is also not the first calamity of this nature in Jewish History. There is a Mishnah/Gemara in Masechet Shabbat that discusses the Mesumar Sandal (סנדל המסומר). When the Jews were hiding from the Romans in caves (probably around the same time as Bar Kochba and the Masada story), there was an incident where there was a stampede (there are several versions of the story), but there were people wearing these kinds of sandals (explained to have nails or spikes, I think of them as early soccer shoes) that trampled and killed some of their fellows.  The result was a decree by the Sages to not wear these kinds of footwear on Shabbat and Yom Tov. 

I do not mean to reduce the tragedy that our country is facing, but I do hope that we can eventually reflect and try to come up with something good out of this. 

Author’s Note: I tried to figure out a way to connect this to the cloud, Amazon and AWS, but they all seemed to petty in light of what has happened here. I hope to return to our “regular” parsha bytes next week.

My sincere prayers go out to the families of those killed and a refuah shlemah (רפואה שלמה) to those injured. Shabbat Shalom.