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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>From: Yitzchok Levine <A
href="mailto:Larry.Levine@stevens.edu">Larry.Levine@stevens.edu</A><BR><BR><BR><BR>>>
In this post Rabbi Mandel begins by discussing the origin of the term
<BR>bonfire. It comes from the terminology bone fire. Such fires using <BR>bones
were made by Christians and this is where the term bonfire comes
from....<BR><BR>In a message to me today, Rabbi Mandel added:<BR><BR>"....What I
did not put in the article, because <BR>it was too long already, is that there
is historical evidence that in <BR>the years after the Ari, this celebration
became a bone of <BR>contention...." <<</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT color=#000000>>>>>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000>Make no bones about it, it is unfortunate that the Lag
B'Omer bonfire should be a bone of contention between Jews. [To be serious
for a moment:] Can we not agree that once a minhag has become so accepted and
its origins largely forgotten, that we can forget about how it started and not
object to it anymore? That is the etzem davar.
(Sorry.....)</FONT></DIV></FONT>
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<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff><BR><BR></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=========</B><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>_____________________</FONT><BR><BR></DIV>
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