The Bonfire

May 26, 2005 - 4:30 PM by Israelity

A little story for Lag ba’Omer

An old man appeared out of the darkness and approached us. At least, he seemed old to my twelve year old eyes. Thinking back he was probably only in his fifties. Small, and dark, with bright, lively eyes, he was wearing a checked flannel shirt covered by a blue doobon coat, like everyone wore back in those days.

We were all girls, half a dozen or so twelve year olds and our fifteen year old scout leader. Most of us had sleeping bags draped around our shoulders. The boys had stayed behind to urinate on the embers of the fire. You didn’t waste good drinking water on a bonfire.

The old man went up to our leader who was noticeably taller and older than most of us, and obviously the boss. He said something to her that I couldn’t hear.

It was the eve of Lag ba’Omer, the thirty third day of the ancient tradition of counting the days of the omer, the harvest time, between the spring festivals of Passover and Shavuot.

During the Counting of the Omer, mourning traditions were practiced, with no celebrations allowed except for this one day, the thirty third – a celebration commemorating Rabbi Akiva and his students, and Bar Kochva’s brave revolt against the mighty Roman Empire. It also marked the date of the death of one of Rabbi Akiva’s students, another great scholar – Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai.

Most of us were pretty secular and we lived in a city that was known for its socialist tendencies, but Lag ba’Omer meant bonfires, and we were all for bonfires.

When we were little, we used to plan our annual bonfires meticulously for weeks ahead, carefully collecting the wood, mostly pilfered from building sites, choosing our spot, and picking out games. For one night a year, the grown ups allowed us to play with fire. It was too good to be true.

Now that we were older, we saw it as a welcome opportunity to stay out all night with groups of friends that included members of the opposite sex. We would sit together around the fire, playing games like Spin the Bottle, singing the old pioneer songs, and eventually, just staring into the flames, as they died down, and then laying our heads on the soft stomach of a friend, dreamily staring up at the stars.

Living as we did, up in the newer neighborhoods of Haifa, we were always in walking distance of the natural abundance Mount Carmel had to offer us – wadis (1), forests, and, of course, rocky open spaces, perfect for Lag ba’Omer bonfires.

This particular night was one of those crisp, cloudless nights that can be bitterly cold. We had planned to maybe sleep by the fire, hence the sleeping bags, but by one o’clock it was so cold that we were already considering calling it a night.

One of the boys came over to say he could hear some rustling noises near some bushes. Seeing that a few of the girls were getting jittery, the leaders decided to pack up and go. It was when we girls started to make our way on the path towards the road, leaving the boys and their leader to put out the fire, that we encountered the old man.

At first, our leader looked taken aback by what he had said to her, but she soon collected herself, grinning at us knowingly, and said to him boldly, in a clear loud voice, mocking an accent you didn’t usually hear in our well-to-do neighborhood, “Not for money and not for love”.

For weeks later I was haunted by her words. I hadn’t really felt threatened by the old man, but still I had admired her for the strong, assured way she had dealt with the situation. Too embarrassed to talk about it with anyone, I gradually managed to work out what she had meant, what the old man had wanted, and what he had thought we were doing out there with sleeping bags in the middle of the night.