The Knesset voted on Wednesday evening to enforce restrictions regarding Lag B’Omer which falls out this year on Monday, May 11, rejecting a National Security Council recommendation to impose a nationwide lockdown for the day.
Instead, the Knesset voted to ban virtually all bonfires, including private ones, and to close off the entire town of Meron to visitors from Thursday of this week until May 13, with the exception of residents of the town of Meron and workers and visitors to three “exclusive” bonfires on Lag B’Omer.
Three Lag B’ Omer bonfires (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Dati Leumi) will be allowed on Lag B’Omer at Meron at staggered times and with the participation of up to 50 people by invitation only.
The town of Meron will be re-opened on May 13 but the area of the kever of R’ Shimon bar Yochai will continue to be closed to visitors through next Shabbos, until Sunday, May 17. Renting rooms or guesthouses to non-residents of Meron is forbidden and no public transportation to the site will be available.
Private bonfires were reportedly banned due to the concern of Israel’s Fire and Rescue Authority about the risk of fires in many small areas that may be difficult for firefighters to access.
Families of three-year-old boys will hold the chalukah at their homes rather than Meron this year. Below is an image of a chalukah in Petach Tivkah being carried out “coronavirus style,” with the hair being cut in adherence with social distancing rules:
גוזרים מרחוק.
חלאקה בימי קורונה בפתח תקווה pic.twitter.com/E9DMRNYdng— Efrat Finkel (@EfratFinkel) May 5, 2020
The cover of the Mishpacha magazine in Hebrew for the upcoming Shabbos focuses on the “ga’aguim” – the sense of loss for Meron.
מגזין שכולו געגועים למירון.
תיהנו. pic.twitter.com/E6fBYrU0jD— אריה ארליך A. Erlich (@AryeErlich) May 6, 2020
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Chalakah, not chalukah. The chalukah was the distribution of money by the various Kollelim of Tzidkas Rabbi Meir Baal Haness, in the old Yishuv. Chalakah is an Arabic word for a haircut, that chassidim somehow adopted when they came to Eretz Yisroel.
Will they also shut down קבר שמעון הצדיק?
It is about time people realize that these pyromaniac clowns DO NOT, DO NOT, represent Judaism.
They have invented a new cult that bears no resemblance to the pristine beauty of authentic rational Judaism as it existed before it was corrupted by Lurianic fairy-tale-wonderland gnostic fantasies and “Hasidic” (a misnomer if there ever was one) guruism and avatarism.
I am sure that many secular are seeking and would return to the ways of their fathers but are put off by the proliferation of “caAbalist” charlatans and “Hassidic” clowns who have effectively hijacked our Judaism. (If I for one minute believed that these clowns are practicing Judaism, I too would become secular).
The tragedy of our time. These clowns are not funny!