We Love Lag Ba'Omer Because We Made it, Not God

We Love Man-Made Holidays More than God's

Sitting here watching Lag Ba’Omer get crazier every year, I noticed something. Have you ever noticed how the more holidays (or holiday practices) are human-created, the more people like them?

You can run through the whole Jewish calendar like this.

The most popular holidays are the ones that were not created by the Torah.

They are the ones created or “improved” by man.

Chanukah and Purim, created by Chazal (traditionalists here, folks—thanks :)). People love them. And people love adding to them, making Purim wilder, with more and more practices, fancy shalach manot, parties, and costumes. Every community has special foods, and every year, Purim gets even more special. People love it. Hey, Breslov keeps Purim all month!

Detail of Vermeer's The Art of Painting ca. 1666-1668

On Chanukah, the menorahs get bigger, every infant needs one. Everyone gets presents now. Where did that come from (I know)? Don’t forget about Chanukah vacation and special Chanukah foods, and even cakes.

Then there’s Lag Ba’Omer. First it became the yahrzeit of Rav Shimon Bar Yochai. Then they started with fires. With burning things in fires. With music. Now they have concerts and Chabad music trucks. All for a post-Chazal holiday. If even that.

What about Shavuos? Avoiding any academic questions, the most popular things about Shavuot are dairy foods and staying up all night—both post-Chazal innovations.

Pesach? People love their hard matzot and not eating kitniyot—both post-Chazal. They also have a Simchas Beis Hashoevah on Pesach, even though it's only on Sukkot. We love our seder, but it’s mostly a remembrance of the Korban Pesach, besides, of course, the matzah, but even that is deployed partially as a remembrance with the afikomen.

On Sukkot, people make such a fuss about things like wearing Shabbos clothes on chol hamoed—something started by the Maharil, not Chazal.

In colder climates, they love sleeping in the sukkah anyhow—something Chazal probably wouldn’t have understood. Mistaar patur and all that.

Simchas Torah isn’t even a holiday. ST only exists because of two days in the diaspora. And it dates late.

Yom Kippur? We make such a fuss about chazanus and saying the avodah. It’s nice, but the Torah’s version was the avodah actually being done. And wearing white is nice, but I don’t think Chazal did that.

Rosh Hashanah? Chazal didn’t dip apples or do tashlich. They didn’t have apples. And honey is nice, but like tashlich, it came later (and in the last 10 years or so, suddenly Israel charedim are all wearing white on Rosh Hashanah and swearing this is what they always did).

Then we have the mourning of Sefirah and the Omer. Both things people go crazy about (except, of course, for charedim playing music the night of Lag Ba’Omer—even if they are Sefardi, let alone Ashkenazim who claim it’s still assur). Both post-Chazal.

I could go on. But you get the point… We love the holidays made by man. We love the customs made by man. And the more we made them, the more we love them.

As they say, “So help us God!”

And now let me go throw a log on the fire and round around singing “bar yochi".”