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<font size=3>Transferring my comments to Avodah<br><br>
At 04:00 PM 5/6/2015, R Saul Newman wrote on Areivim:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<a href="http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html">
http://www.sharelive.tv/sharlive_Heb/SL27948.html</a><br>
</blockquote><br>
I have to admit that I simply do not understand the goings on shown which
I looked at last night, and am now looking at a bit.<br><br>
The Sefardim hold one is not allowed to take a haircut the entire 33rd
day, and they wait until the 34th day to take a haircut. Does this
not imply that the entire 33rd day is part of Sefirah and the
restrictions hold the entire 33rd day?<br><br>
Ashkenazim hold "micktzas ha Yom K'kulo," when it comes to the
last day of aveilus for someone sitting shiva. However, the
micktzas starts in the morning of the 7th day, not on the
night of the 7th day. Thus, even according to Ashkenazim the night
of Lag B'Omer is bound by the restrictions of Sefirah. So how can they
make such gatherings on the night of the 33rd day?<br><br>
And, of course there is this post that I made on from Fri, 26 Apr 2013
based on comments by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel.<br><br>
According to RSRH there is a major difference between the way the uses
the terminology un-Jewish and non-Jewish. Un-Jewish things are
things that are incompatible with Yahadus, whereas non-Jewish things are
things of non-Jewish origin that are compatible with Yahadus.
YL<br><br>
The following is from
<a href="http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17" eudora="autourl">
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol11/v11n014.shtml#17<br><br>
</a><b><a name="17"></a>Date:</b><a name="17"></a> Wed, 21 May 2003
11:37:58 -0400<br>
<b>From:</b> "Seth Mandel" <s...@aishdas.org><br>
<b><a name="17"></a>Subject:</b>
<a href="http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BONFIRES%20ON%20LAG%20BAOMER">
Re: bonfires on Lag
</a>
<a href="http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BONFIRES%20ON%20LAG%20BAOMER">
Ba'Omer</a><a name="17"></a><br>
<br><br>
<br>
</font><pre>From: Phyllos...@aol.com
<The fact that fires on lag ba'Omer have been more of a communal
event as opposed to more individual fires on erev Pesach, have limited
the
problem then - however that may be in danger of changing...
P.S. On a language note, according to Merriam Webster, the word bonfire
comes from bone fire (not bon-fire = good fire). R. SM ? Can you
elaborate
on what kind of bones were burned, etc. ?>
Obviously, the bones of people who believe that there is a s'gullo
in making fires <grin>. As I have had fun telling people, the
_only_ bonfire that was an ancient Jewish tradition was the Simchas
Torah
bonfire in Ashk'naz, which is attested from the 14th century up until
the 19th century, but has gone out of style. The Lag Ba'omer bonfire is
a very recent phenomenon among most Jews.
Indeed, the word bonfire is from "fire of bones." The term was
used
primarily in various pagan ceremonies which then were transferred to
christianity, for a funeral pyre, and in burning infidels or books
(like The Gaon of Vilna or MOAG). The bones used, if 'twere not a pyre,
were primarily animal bones.
Here's an early quotation (1493): "in worshyppe of saynte John the
people waked at home and made all maner of fyres. One was clene bones
and no woode, and that is called a bone fyre." From Marlowe in
1586:
"Making bonfires for my overthrow. But, ere I die, those foul
idolators
Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones." (Think that would
get
by the moderators on Areivim, R. SBA?)
1689: "The dead corps is buried. They of old made a bone-fire and
therein
burnt it."
1622: "Their holy Bibles cast into Bone-fires."
The term became used for any large fires used for celebrations, although
the practice and term continued to be used especially for those
associated
with various christian saints, particularly John and Peter. From a 1570
history: "Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his
turne,
When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne."
From
a constitution of the association of the cooks of Newcastle, 1575:
"The said Felloship of Cookes shall yearelie. mainteigne and keep
the
Bone-fires. that is to say, one Bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of
the Nativitie of St. John Baptist. and the other on the Even of the
Feast of St. Peter the Apostle." These quotations start in the 15th
century, because that is as far back as the term bone-fire goes, but the
practice of making a bonfire in honor of Christian saints goes back to
ancient times in England (and in France as well). Another practice that
goes back to ancient times in Christian Europe is making pilgrimages to
"qivrei tzaddiqim" and donating alms at the qever; this
practice is well known from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Most Christian scholars attribute the association of the bonfires
with celebrations of the feast of a saint to pagan, pre-christian
practices which were later adopted by the local people to their new
religion. Indeed, the Celtics made bonfires to honor some of their
deities and spirits. No one would ever claim that these practices,
going back into old Anglo-Saxon England, are of Jewish origin.
The Arabs of EY, Syria, and Lebanon, as is well-known, honored the
Christian and Jewish "saints" (everyone knows that the qever
of
Sh'muel haNavi has been a "holy" site to the Arabs for hundreds
of
years, and they built a mosque there; the site is called "anNabi
Samwil").
They made pilgrimages to them, like the Christians did, and they made
large
celebrations to honor the festival of the saint. The Arab pilgrims
who came did various things to honor the saint. They gave alms (a big
mitzva in Islam), usually done by the practice of cutting the hair of
their children (which they had let grow from before the pilgrimage),
then weighing it and giving the same weight in gold or silver for
alms. They also made large bonfires to honor the saint. The custom
of making pilgrimages, giving alms, and making bonfires may have been
borrowed from the christians, since a) they originally appeared among
the Arabs of EY, Lebanon and Syria, AFAIK; b) they are first recorded
after the time of the Crusades (although the giving of gold or silver
in the weight of the hair seems to have been from the Middle East).
However there is no clear proof that they did not arise from another
source. But they are attested in Arabic sources going back to the 15th
century, and probably before.
Can the custom of bonfires on Lag Ba'omer have arisen among the Jews
separately and independently from the non-Jewish sources? Theoretically
it's possible. Books like Minhag Yisruel Toyre he brings all sorts
of reasons from various chasidic rebbes and from the book Ta'amei
haMinhogim for the origin of the bonfires on Lag Ba'omer. The problem
with all the explanations is that a) they are all of recent origin, and
b) they somehow ignore the fact that the custom was completely unknown
to any Jews up until the time when it is recorded in EY in the 16th
century. Furthermore, it was the custom there of only one group of Jews,
the Musta'ribim, about whom other Jews complained that they had adopted
a lot of Arab customs (the very name mean "Arabicized).
From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews)
cut the
hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit (28 of
Iyyar)
of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi. However, in the
1560s the Arab authorities forbad Jews to go there. Shortly afterwards,
we have the testimony of R. Chaim Vital that he was told by R. Yonatan
Sagiz that a year before he started learning by the Ari, in the Ari's
first year after he immigrated from his homeland of Egypt (also 1570),
that "Mori v'Rabbi Z'L took his small son and all of his family
there
[to the celebration on RaShBY 's yohtzeit in Meron] and there he cut
his hair in accordance with the custom." R. Chaim Vital is careful
to
note, however, that "I do not know whether at that time he was
expert
and knowledgable in this wondrous wisdom [Qabbolo] as he became after
that." IOW, R. Chaim Vital himself is cautioning the reader that he
has
doubts about whether the Ari did this in accordance with his views in
Qabbolo, or just because it was a popular celebration, and he might not
have participated had he already been an expert in Qabbolo.
Some historians believe that once the Musta'ribim were forbidden to go
to the qever of Sh'muel haNavi, they transferred their celebration to
Meron and the date to Lag Ba'Omer. Others claim that the custom at Meron
predated 1570. But both groups agree that both of these customs, cutting
the hair of the children and making bonfires, were practiced by the
Arabs
and the Musta 'ribim, but not by any of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews
in Israel. Of great interest is that the local rabbis in Tz'fat, who had
the practice of going to the all the known q'vorim of the Tano'im from
the middle of Iyyar until Shavu'os and having a seder in learning there,
opposed the celebrations of the Musta'ribim on Lag ba'Omer and tried
to forbid it. They made little headway, and once it became known that
the Ari participated one year, any opposition was swept away. We know
from travelers to EY in the 18th and 19th centuries that the
"hilula" at Meron on Lag Ba'Omer with bonfires and the cutting
of children's
hair had become an affair of the masses. A well known talmid chochom
from Europe, R. Avrohom Rozanes, writes that in his visit to EY in 1867
he saw an Ashk'nazi Jew who had taken his son to the "hilula"
and was giving him a haircut. R. Rozanes says that he could not restrain
himself, and went to that Jew and tried to dissuade him but was
unsuccessful, and
that most of the Ashk'nazi and S'faradi Jews of EY participate in this
"craziness," with "drinking and dancing and fires."
The custom of giving the son his first haircut at that celebration,
originally called
"halaqa" by the Jews of EY (apparently because there was an
established Arabic
term but no Jewish term for the custom) was later mixed with the custom
of
making a celebration when a son reached 3 and began learning Torah. The
two customs were combined by many, and resulted in the boy's haircut
being delayed until he was 3, and not specifically on Lag ba' Omer. A
chasidish rebbe, R. Yehudah Leibush Horenstein, who emigrated to EY in
the middle of the 19th century writes that "this haircut, called
halaqe, is done by the S'faradim in Yerushalayim at the qever of RaShB'Y
during
the summer, but during the winter they take the boy to the synagogue or
Bet Medrash and perform the haircut with great celebration and parties,
something _that is unknown to the Jews in Europe_. and at that point
they start him growing his pe'ot. it is incomprehensible why this is not
done
outside of EY [as well]" [emphasis mine]. Indeed, the custom was
adopted by shortly thereafter by chasidim in Europe to imitate the custom
of the
S'faradim in EY, and the custom of lighting bonfires on Lag Ba'Omer
also was adopted at that time by chasidic communities in Europe. The Jews
in
Europe, knowing no Arabic and having no Yiddish name for the custom of
the haircut, called it by a normal Yiddish word for cutting off the
hair: opsheren. Both customs are less than 150 years old among Ashk'naz
Jews,
including chasidim. Now we scarcely can expect to find a historical
document that says "we, the undersigned Jews, have decided that
there is nothing wrong with copying the Muslim celebrations in honor of
saints,
and we will participate in them." So you're never going to find
better historical evidence for Jewish borrowing of non-Jewish customs
than
this: that a custom that was previously unknown to any group of Jews
arose
among a group of Jews known to copy various Arab customs in a time and
place
that the custom is attested among the Arabs from independent evidence.
Is there anything osur about a bonfire on Lag Ba'Omer, or waiting to
give a son a haircut until he is 3 or until you go to Meron? Certainly
not. As I believe R. SBA has noted, the opsheren provides an excuse for
a party that is connected with the boy's beginning to learn; it could
be done without the haircut, but if people feel that it is important
to give a haircut as well, there is no issur. Certainly no one who
lights bonfires or celebrates opsheren has any idea that the source
of these customs is extremely questionable. And after 130 years most
Jews forget the origin of customs anyway and just assume they are old
Jewish customs.. However, those who studiously avoid eating turkey on
Thanksgiving should know that the origin of the customs of the bonfire
on Lag ba'Omer and halaqa/opsheren are much more suspect.
Seth Mandel
<hr>
So I really do not understand this entire affair at Meron. To add
to this see the pictures of Lag B'Omer from many years ago at
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4" eudora="autourl">
http://tinyurl.com/khmhcz4</a>
I do not see even one bonfire! YL
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