Day 230.
We are counting days.
This count is horrifying.
As the days pass by, we know that our brothers and sisters continue to languish in a hell which we cannot fathom. The hostages are trapped in the darkest of places, a situation which will require a miracle of epic proportions to extract them from their captivity.
The number grows higher as the days pass by, and we are saddened, sickened, fighting to hold onto hope against insurmountable odds.
This is the season of counting days.
We also count the days between Passover, the holiday of redemption, the festival which commemorates our extraction from a horrific and very dark place and Shavuot, the time we received the Torah.
The Jewish nation was enslaved in Egypt for an interminable 210 years. Leaving Egypt was an impossibility. No one ever escaped from there.
Yet, after being held hostage for centuries, the entire nation of Israel was redeemed.
They stepped out of the darkness into the light.
49 days later, the Jews stood at the foot of Mount Sinai to accept the Torah.
Despite the fact we were saved from Egypt, the Jewish people were not in a great place.
Their spiritual level had sunk so low they were just one step away from being irredeemable.
Yet only 49 days later they were so spiritually elevated they were ready to receive the Torah.
This 49 days are therefore primed for personal growth.
As the Rebbe from Kotz teaches, every holiday and time has a spiritual energy which is available to us. This time period has an extra dose of accessibility to spiritual greatness and growth.
We count each day, knowing that each day brings us one day closer to the giving of the Torah.
These are days we rise in sanctity.
This Sunday will be day 33 of the count.
In Hebrew we call that day Lag BaOmer, Lag =33.
Lag BaOmer is a special day in the count, a celebratory day.
Historically it is the day the students of Rabbi Akiva stopped dying.
Shortly after the destruction of the second Temple some 1900 years ago, the Sage, Rabbi Akiva, had 24,000 illustrious students who were the future teachers of the Jewish people. Their presence was critical because the Jewish people had suffered a terrible loss with the destruction of the Temple. These young teachers would have supplied much needed support and inspiration.
But they all died.
All 24,000 of them.

Why would we celebrate a day when people stopped dying, especially as they all died and there was simply no one left to die?
One of the answers given is that we celebrate Rabbi Akiva’s response.
He should have become totally despondent over the loss of his life’s work and the future they represented.
No one would have blamed him if he had given up. But Rabbi Akiva did not view giving up as an option. He identified five new students and started all over.
Lag BaOmer celebrates the Jewish commitment to not give up in the face of adversity, and instead go forward and light up the world.
On Lag BaOmer there is a custom to light bonfires.
(In Israel any piece of wood that is not nailed down is dragged around the neighborhood by very intrepid children who build massive bonfires.)
Why this custom of creating massive sources of light?
It is a celebration of the life of one of those five students of Rabbi Akiva.
His name was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.
He died on Lag BaOmer, and on the day of his death, in a room that somehow emanated a mystical intense light, he revealed deep Kabbalastic Torah secrets which are known as the Zohar.
There is a custom on Lag BaOmer for people to visit Mount Meron, the site of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s burial place.
Masses of people go to Meron to pray at the tomb of this holy Sage.
This pilgrimage has become so wide spread and popular it has become a challenge to manage.
Unfortunately a few years ago a group of people were trampled to death due to overcrowding. The following year extreme measures were taken to ensure safety which severely limited access to the site, and this year, the site is totally closed down by the authorities as the security situation in the North precludes civilians visiting.
It is another source of prayer and inspiration which has been denied us.
We have lost access to the light of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai!
Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi sees the situation in a different light and provides a different perspective.
She says that we go to the mountain, the place of light, to be inspired and to be blessed.
We can’t do that this year.
But just as Rabbi Shimon was a source of light, so too we are surrounded by sources of light, bonfires if you will.
Those are the people who are undergoing incredible challenges, yet they continue to show up and keep their faith and fulfill their responsibilities.
She pointed to the young mothers who have recently lost their husbands in battle, who continue to raise their families. Or the young men and women who go to fight for all of us and come home with injuries, yet they are getting married-missing limbs, or begging to return to their units to continue to fight, shoulder to shoulder with their comrades in arms.
There are people who are lights in our lives, we know who have overcome challenge or are in the midst of overcoming obstacles, and they can be the source of light and blessing we can turn to for inspiration.
Zohar in Hebrew is the light, or as she puts it, Zo-that one, is the light.
Lessons from the war:
This week a commander was ready his troops for battle.
He said:
we can only prevail because we learn the lessons of Rabbi Akiva that were taught at this time. The 24,000 students perished because they were of such a high caliber, but they did not treat each other with respect. In our platoon we stand shoulder to shoulder, the differences between of us of religion or region erased by our common mission to defeat the enemy and protect our people.
We respect each other, rely on each other and stand in unity because the nation is counting on us.
We are indeed counting.
Counting on our brave soldiers to soldier on, counting on each other to hold one another up in these challenging times, and counting to the day when our hostages will come home.
Till then we count on each other to be a source of light and blessing.
Be a bonfire!
Shabbat Shalom and so much love!