Rainbow Warrior

Or: What’s so special about today, anyway?

Sometimes biblical Hebrew gets translated into terms so wonderfully obscure as to be basically meaningless. Phylacteries, anyone? Bring them to the convocation!

Anyway, one of those wonderfully obscure English/Greek words is Pentecost, which is the non-Hebrew name for that most neglected of major holidays, Shavuot. Shavuot means weeks, Pentecost means fiftieth, and both refer to the number of days (49, or a week of weeks) counted after Passover, feast of liberation, before arriving at Shavuot / Weeks / Pentecost, on which we celebrate receiving the Torah. (Separately but not entirely coincidentally, Pentecost is also a Christian holiday, celebrating the revelation of the Holy Spirit 50 days after Easter).

For those tracking these 50 (or 49) days the Jewish way, there’s a special practice for this season, known as counting the Omer. Agricultural in origin, psycho-spiritual in contemporary application, you can read more about it on Rabbi Jericho Vincent’s Substack here.

Perhaps because it originally tracked the growing-in of that all important staple, the wheat crop, and perhaps because it is essentially a meditation on the liminal (and the liminal, according to our friends the anthropologists, is psychologically threatening), the Omer is a time of some seriousness and contraction. Classically, Jews abstain from parties, weddings, haircuts and even music during this time.

Until today, that is.

Because today is Lag ba’Omer, the 33rd day of the Omer, which forms a counterpoint within this powerful but ambiguous portal, a day out of time that acts as a hinge point in the progression of these seven weeks. It is like a ray of light, shifting the generally watchful, solemn tone of the Omer period. And indeed, Lag ba’Omer is frequently celebrated with bonfires and with bows, which allude to those other great light-bearers and signs of divine communion: rainbows.

With the arrival of Lag ba’Omer, the strictures on celebration are lifted. Beyond Lag ba’Omer parties featuring bonfires and live music, today is a popular day for weddings. It is also the day on which many young boys have their upsherin, or first haircut, marking a transition from their status as toddlers to that of being independent young children. Although some communities interrupt the quasi-mourning tone of the Omer just for this one day, many others consider it an inflection point; from now until Shavuot things lighten up.

Why?

Some point out that as the 33rd day of a 49 day process, Lag ba’Omer inherently marks a tipping point or super-majority. We are now definitively over the hill and free-wheeling towards Pentecost. (Check out my debut album, Freewheeling Towards Pentecost, on Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud and more. Sorry, just kidding. I wish). Maybe also worth noting, lots of people seem to like repeating numbers, and 33 is apparently an extra special example. I’m not sure of the source for this, but at least in the popular mind Jesus had his big transformation (death) at 33, and for mainstream Jews, too, 33 has special significance. The week in which Lag ba’Omer falls is the week in which we read the 33rd section of the Torah, Behar-Bechukotai (Leviticus 25-27), which features 33 prophetic blessings and 33 prophetic curses. And, because of the way gematria / Hebrew numerology works, you can put the letters that correspond to 30 and 3 in either order, and 3+30 produces the word gal, meaning wave. Relatedly, galgal means wheel, and gilgul means reincarnation. Something is turning.

If you consider this day, Lag ba’Omer, as the beginning of the final stretch of the count towards Shavuot, then you can also read the split between time periods as 32 + 17. That is, 32 days up to and including yesterday, and now 17 days starting today until we get to Shavuot. And guess what? That has some sweet numerology attached as well, because 32 = lev = heart, and 17 = tov = good. So here we are in the heart of goodness. But wait there’s more. The 33rd word of the Torah? Is also “tov,” good.

Now, I know some of you are thinking: So what?

And to be fair, I’m not exactly sure. Maybe it’s just some cool correspondences. If you are into the correspondences then maybe you’ll also appreciate noting that today is not only the 5th day of the 5th week of the Omer, but, by a very unusual coincidence, the 5th day of the 5th month of the secular year. That’s more or less only truly this year, but what is true every year is that in the Hebrew calendar, Lag ba’Omer falls on the 18th day of the month of Iyyar, and guess what? 18 is numerologically significant, too. In gematria, apparently influencing every American Jewish fundraising effort I’ve ever seen, 18 corresponds to the word chai, life.

As Rabbi Dovber Pinson writes in his Spiral of Time series,

Lag ba’Omer falls on chai Iyyar - the 18th day or ‘aliveness’ of Iyyar. This single day infuses the Omer, an extended period of collective mourning, with a necessary dose of life and hope. Aliveness is by nature sensitive, flexible, optimistic, and balanced. As these qualities begin to vivify the month of Iyyar, they also radiate into all the days of our lives.

And vivification in the midst of death is the other major Lag ba’Omer association that I would be remiss not to mention: for today is supposed to be the death-anniversary of one of the greatest Jewish mystics of all time, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Actually, as I learned last night from this piece courtesy of Torah v’Apikorsus’ Substack, the association is only about 300 years old, and probably based on a typo.

Nonetheless, let’s unpack the connection. R’ Shimon bar Yochai, or Rashbi as he’s often known, lived in second century Palestine. According to the Talmud (on page 33 of Tractate Shabbat, btw), Rashbi pissed the Romans off so much that he and his son had to hide in a cave for 12 years. When they came out, their spiritual power was so uncontained that it was dangerous to be around them, so God told them to get back in the cave for another year to cool off and integrate their gifts.

Rashbi is also the hero and putative author of the Zohar, one of the central texts of Jewish mysticism. In it, he specifically instructs his disciples to celebrate at his death, when he will attain reunion with his divine source. The Zohar, like the Sufis, sees death as a wedding of the soul with God. Indeed, a whole book of the Zohar, the Idra Zuta, is dedicated to describing Rashbi’s joyous deathbed teachings and the holy illumination that accompanies his passing. So intense and all-permeating is the light that fills the house that those around him can neither see nor move. In The Book of Our Heritage, Eliyahu Kitov writes: “The day — for both master and his disciples — was like the day on which a groom rejoices under the chuppah [marriage canopy], and it was longer than other days, for it is said that the sun did not set until he had revealed all that he had been permitted to reveal.”

This sense of illumination, and of a portal opening between dimensions, is associated both with the archetype of the teacher and with the death of an exceptionally righteous person. Rashbi was said to be both, and in fact “radiance” and “illumination” are both translations for the word Zohar. He’s also associated with the rainbow as a living embodiment of divine relationship, or covenant.

Whether or not it really happened on this date in history, perhaps the mere idea of Rashbi’s death is enough to open a portal to our own inner light, enabling us to contact the archetype of the Teacher within.

Interestingly, in Buddhist cultures this time is also celebrated as the Wesak Moon, on which the Buddha was reportedly born, died and attained enlightenment. Similarly, in Jewish mystical tradition, today is supposed to mark not only Rashbi’s death but also his birth and the day of his leaving his 13th year of meditation secluded within a cave. Both Rashbi and the Buddha are figures who themselves not only experienced a profoundly illuminated relationship with reality, but most importantly, through their presence, their teachings and their life stories, enabled that for countless others too.

As we celebrate Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s transition to another dimension, the way is opened for other transitions of status, like the weddings and first haircuts I mentioned before. In moments of transition between one status and another, there is, paradoxically, some opportunity for the unchanging inner essence to be more revealed. Whether we are witnessing love, or maturation, or even the glimmerings of cosmic awareness, today - in the Omer count identified as Hod sh’b’Hod, radiance-within-radiance - provides a chance to see the mysterious, gracious light that shines within all things.

So shine on, you crazy diamonds!