Jews do love our natural phenomenon. Fire is an especially fun one. We recall the fire offerings in the Temple three times a day and before every Sabbath we start them. Three additional special times a year celebrate with fire – two of those times we even say blessings when we burn stuff.

Chanukah … at minimum we usually have 27.5 hrs of burning (45 candles, minimum 1/2 hr each) find out which of our kids plays with fire and wax far longer, learning how to use them to create and cure skin problems.

Before Passover we burn our oppressor like a 1968 Miss America protest (Google says that’s not true – I still like the metaphor). In America, it looked something like this:

This was complete with musicians, tours of a fire truck, and people dressed in authoritative uniforms telling us to stand in line so that it would be “safe”. The line stretched for 1/2 a mile down the park at its peak.

When I got to Israel I thought, great, it will be even bigger!

Here’s the pre-pesach burning over here:

What a letdown.

Lag B’Omer Fires in Israel

Then … ah wait … I learned about Lag B’Omer in Israel from a Chaim Walder book! It was a cute story about helping one another collect wood to make the biggest bonfire … really tried not to write that with a sexual innuendo.

Lag B’Omer celebrates Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai exiting the cave with so much accumulated Torah knowledge that he started burning stuff with his mind. G_d said go back in the case and learn until you can control your powers and tolerate others who aren’t as frum as you. Torah is fire. Torah brings anger. (It says this in the Talmud – I’m not being a heretic.) You have to learn to control your powers. (I’m presuming Stan Lee and Scott Summers are familiar with this.)

Ah – the smallness of the feminist protest fires are more than made up by the Lag B’Omer fires! In America there’d be one shul with a garbage can sized flame and people holding hands and singing as they slowly walked around. Not fast enough to create a fire tornado and too far away to get hurt. Wasn’t my jam.

In Israel … it’s a big deal – rows of fires with different groups of kids at each one and get this … no one is telling them “don’t forget to be safe”. Ugh. Forget that! First comes fun, second comes educational, third comes … well, it’s just reserved because as the saying goes, “Safety fourth.”

Lag B’Omer Fires

I bring you …

Fire of the 8-ish year olds:

Fire of the 9-ish year olds:

Fire of the 9-ish year old girls:

Fire of the teenage girls:

Fire of the … whatever, I’ve just been making up ages anyway. No idea … let’s go for man-children:

Fire of the “Daddy doesn’t actually need his ladder to get to the attic” kid:

Kids using wood as a Cirque-de-Soleil lever right next to a fire:

One of the fires in a row of about six in the next neighborhood:

Israelis have an exceptional tolerance for breathing in smoke. There were rows of fires like this with ash all over and I could barely breathe with a jacket stuffed over my mouth. Not going for the cheap joke on that sentence.

Here are fires seen from the next city:

If only there were a way to get everyone to take a break from the fires and breathe clean air? If only someone would send up a fire in the sky to signal everyone to take a break for fresh air?

The Houti’s saved a lot of people from smoke inhalation that night … at least for a few minutes while we left our fires unattended. Safety fourth.

Houti Siren

(Life expectancy: Israel – 82.7; U.S – 77.4; Iran – 74.6; Yemen – 63.8).

I was on my way back already when the Houtis decided to send their own fire overhead. I could have gotten all farclanggled in kofefe with this family pulling up quickly and getting their kids into the house. Would have been nice to meet another family and have a chat though they seemed too stressed for that, so I continued walking. To meet people is the only reason I would have gone into their house. Instead, I watched what looked like two lights join and then go out. Israel’s missile intercepted Yemen’s. The sirens stopped at that very moment.

… and now for what will get me in trouble. Why do you have to traumatize your kids? Why do you have to traumatize yourself? Why do you have to give the Houti’s what they want? Your attention.

When there’s an above baseline level of potential harm – like … more than walking along an American road, I go to a shelter. Iran fires 200 missiles? Okay, probably should go inside.

The Houti sirens indicate that something less than the size of a tiny car:

may or may not enter Israeli territory;
and if it does, will 90%+ be shot down; and
even if it does or doesn’t, may have debris that may land somewhere over about a 100 square mile area.

I don’t see the point in getting in a huff. Someone will say, “what’s wrong with you! Look at this picture where it damaged a roof of a car!” Yeah, my car window was once smashed so a druggy could steal my $30 GPS from Oorah. The dramatic outlier doesn’t put math on your side or pay for medicine for scaring your children much more than necessary.

(To which I am reminded of one of my favorite Douglas Adams lines … “man goes on to prove black is white, white is black and then gets runover at the next zebra crossing.”)

Proofreading

Saw this poster scary poster on the way home. What is that monster?

Scary stuff.

Here’s the rest of the poster:

Biblical Hebrew doesn’t have punctuation, and I think they were going for that here. Trying to add it myself – no disrespect meant. This is for humor purposes only.

We will stop. Dahcing for you? Never!
We will stop. Dahacing never for you.
We will stop dahcing. Never for you!
We will! Stop dahcing never! For you!
We will stop dahcing never – for you.
We will never stop dahcing for you.
We will never stop! Dahcing for you!
We will never stop dahcing – for you.

The Entire Aliyah Diary

Arrival

01. Aug 19, 2024: Preparation In America
02. Aug 25, 2024: First Few Days
03. Aug 29, 2024: Moving In
62. July 17, 2025: I MADE IT

Cultural Adjustment Fun

Cultural Adjustment Difficulties

On The Roads

Shopping

11. Oct 13, 2024: Packages. (חבילות.)
34. Feb 17, 2025: Finding Obscure Things
41. Mar 23, 2025: New Shopping Habits
44. Apr 6, 2025: Pesach Shopping & Osher Ad

Government and Bureaucracy

Politics and Thought

Travel: South Israel

Travel: Central/North Israel

Travel: From Israel to …

54. June 4, 2025: Marseille and Avignon