What I Know About Lag B’Omer

 

I don’t know anything about Lag B’Omer

Except what I read on Wikipedia

Which tells me a few different things it’s supposed to celebrate,

One of which is the end of a plague that killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s students.

Oy, plagues. Enough already.

 

I like to think about Akiva though,

Because I had a crush on him when I was a kid. 

Still do, sort of.

If you’re old enough, you might remember in Hebrew School they used up class time with slide shows

That had pre-recorded narrations. 

You know, that went DING whenever you were supposed to go to the next slide?

The one about Rabbi Akiva made a real impression.

For one thing,

He was quite handsome in his working man robes,

And romantic, the way he loved his wife

And how he worked so hard to win her.

 

And I loved the way he studied with children when he decided he wanted to learn.

There was a slide of Akiva sitting in the classroom at a child’s desk.

(Though I think I may be making that up.)

I thought of Akiva when I went back to school in my fifties.

So anyway, I’m glad the plague stopped killing his students.

 

The last picture of the Rabbi Akiva slide show was of him, old, with a long beard,

No longer cute, tied to a stake, 

Wrapped in what I remember as barbed wire,

Bleeding and looking up, presumably to God,

Whom he could see because he was saying the Sh’ma.

Ever since 9/11, I say the Sh’ma

When the F Train goes under the East River.

If the subway tunnel collapses

I want to see God.

Oh, also bonfires and haircuts. 

Happy Lag B’Omer!