Lag BaOmer: Celebrating The Miracle of Jewish Eternity - Rabbi Shlomo Landau

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Shlomo Landau’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

I want you to picture for a moment this super disturbing scenario. It's 1939. There's a family living in a small shtetl in Poland. A father, a mother, and 10 children. The Nazis invade the town, ship the entire family off to Auschwitz. They arrive at Auschwitz and unfortunately, on the spot, the mother and five of the children are sent to the gas chamber and the crematoria. The father still has five of those children. At least he has something to hold on to, and he tries everything within his power to help them survive. But sadly, one dies. A few weeks later, the next. A few months later, the next. Until finally, his last and final child dies. He's got nothing left. But instead of mourning, he makes a celebration. And his friends tell him, "Are you out of your mind? Who celebrates in Auschwitz? And what are you celebrating?" He goes, "Thank God, no more dying in my family." We can't even

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1. 0:02I want you to picture for a moment this super disturbing scenario. It's 1939. There's a…
2. 0:32children. At least he has something to hold on to, and he tries everything within his…
3. 1:02understand such a thing. Yet, isn't that what we do on Lag B'Omer, when around the…
4. 1:32So, what's the celebration? Why are we lighting fires and doing outings and singing and music?…
5. 2:02change careers. But that's not what Rabbi Akiva did. On that very day, when he buried…
6. 2:33That a Jewish person never gives up. We pick ourselves up, we dust ourselves off, and…

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