On Monday, the main headlines of the ultra-Orthodox and the secular were once again divided - Mount Meron versus Rabin Square. Peak excitement at two different huge celebrations in two different locations in Israel. The comparison seems unnecessary, mainly because of each side's tendency to dwarf the other and claim - with the same level of passion and conviction - that this is "idolatry, vanity, blown out of proportion." However, there is at least one area where a disturbing similarity develops between the two areas, between sports and holiness.
One night, between Shabbat and Sunday, Mount Meron. The gap between the bottom of the mountain and its top is unfathomable. Up there, near the grave, are thousands of the traditional lit fires of the Rebbes. They stand in a quiet and serious atmosphere, solemnly singing ancient and mournful melodies that the Rebbe begins each time anew, song after song. Then comes the climax. The Rebbe approaches to light the fire and the atmosphere changes in an instant. The sad songs of the soul alternate with Lag BaOmer psalms and the crowd jumps together while singing the words "And you said to me, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai." Verse after verse, the crowds sing profound kabbalistic piyyutim about the life of Rabbi Shimon, one of the most powerful figures in our sources. Men, women and children, from all walks of life, are drawn to this magic, who are either curiously peering from the outside at the events or participating and getting excited themselves.
But to get there, up the mountain, you have to climb. And the steep climb is not the hard part of the climb, but dealing with the "trafficking." Dozens of loud, noisy booths stand there, with each loudspeaker competing with the other in an attempt to attract attention. This year, it seems that records have been broken. This time, it was not only famous associations that asked for donations there, and not just associations that seemed to have been established for this night alone. This time, the branding also stood out. A number of commercial entities bought up space and set up sales promotion areas. The first tent I came across was Pelephone's, which offered the public cell phone charging areas with a giant sign: "Have you charged? Congratulations!" Then came a huge booth from the "Clalit" health insurance fund that invited "all the dear children of the Halaka" to come, take a picture, relax from the long trip, and receive a picture of themselves as a souvenir on a magnet. Further down the route, a "Smoking and Rest" area awaited, with a giant logo of the Royal cigarette company.
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There is no trace of such sights at the Western Wall, and the police fight even individual beggars there. How delusional to imagine Cellcom trying to take over the entrance to the Western Wall, with loud amplification. So what did Meron sin? Why should someone who comes to pray and experience have to arrive at their destination with a headache, after refusing dozens of commercial and begging offers? An advisory committee recently decided to transfer responsibility for Meron to a new government company. This is an opportunity to do a favor for the more than a million visitors who come to this site every year.
Otherwise, soon, we will reach the celebration of Rabbi Shimon Electra bar Yochai.
This week's Torah, "Bemidbar," also addresses the connection between Torah and money, or rather the lack of connection that should exist between the two. The Torah was given in the Sinai Desert, very far from any human or urban concentration, and this did not happen by chance.
Many commentators have dealt over the years with this extraordinary location where the people of Israel received their identity – not in the Temple, not even just in Jerusalem, but in a neutral, identityless area.
One of the midrashim asks and answers this way: "Why in the Sinai Desert? Just as the desert is free for all the inhabitants of the world, so the words of the Torah are free." In other words, the Torah and its study are not owned by anyone and are not registered in the land registry. They do not belong to a particular city or a particular group of people, but are the common property of all. They do not cost money, and anyone who wants can come and take their share. In addition, many commentators explain that the desert teaches humility, detachment from materialism, and humility of spirit, which are the characteristics of the correct attitude toward the Torah.
On the surface, these things sound wonderful and present the Torah as a universal treasure. There is only one thing missing: the desire to engage in the Torah. Several generations after the giving of the Torah, the Sages were not ashamed to declare: "Every day a voice comes out of Mount Sinai and proclaims and says: Woe to the creatures for the insult of the Torah. Anyone who does not engage in the Torah is called a rebuke... and anyone who engages in the study of the Torah is exalted." In other words, they discerned a tendency among their contemporaries to love the Torah, but from a distance, and to leave it in the desert without actually engaging in it.
In the renewed State of Israel, there are at least two prominent expressions of the "desertification" described in the parsha:
On the one hand, the phrase "to follow me in the wilderness, in a land not sown with mines" has become a familiar idiom. The loyalty of the people of Israel throughout 40 years of wandering in the wilderness has become a language coin that has already described many arduous routes in our time. Menachem Begin even thanked his wife Aliza in his victory speech in 1977 for "following me in the wilderness, in a land strewn with mines.".
On the other hand, our Declaration of Independence opens with a statement that completely contradicts everything described above: "In the Land of Israel the Jewish people arose, where their spiritual, religious and political character was shaped." Oops. Our forefather Abraham set out from the city of Haran in the region of Iraq, the Israelites went down to Egypt and were strengthened there, and they received the Torah in the Sinai Desert. There is even a subversive midrash according to which the Torah was deliberately given outside the Land of Israel, so that all nations and peoples would feel that they had a part in it, and so that it would not be a purely Jewish-national matter. The people of Israel, in any case, arrived in the Land of Israel as a cohesive people with a shared past and a clear identity. Forgive me, Ben-Gurion and the other signatories of the Declaration, but the correct wording is: In the desert the Jewish people arose.
On holidays, various symbolic dates, and occasions, there is a public-media tendency to talk not about the good that happened but about what was bad that day. On Passover, for example, people complain about excess calories and a lack of leaven. On Lag BaOmer, they complain about the smoke and air pollution from bonfires. On Tu B'Av and/or Valentine's Day, they publish the percentage of divorces, and on the Tishrei holidays, they simply complain about the holiday load. The forecast for this coming Wednesday, therefore, the day of the liberation of Jerusalem, is a flurry of lamentations about the state of the city.
Jewish status: ""Jerusalem. A place where everyone remembers that they forgot something, but they don't remember what they forgot" (Yehuda Amichai)
Sivan Rahav Meir's column is published in Yedioth Ahronoth
