Sunday, May 18, 2014

Lag BOmer in Israel

A major holiday in Israel, Lag BOmer is celebrated in Israel by burning whatever you can find.
The kids take everything that burns, so be prepared to guard your belongings in Israel. Hide your Schach (stuff you put on your Sukkah- you heretic who doesn't even lift your summer roof before Sukkot- the holiday of booths, you ignoramus). Hide all inanimate objects. This includes grandparents. The children will burn everything. Stand by your door. Let them know it belongs to the house.
If you are not around for Lag BOmer, hire a neighbor to make sure they do not burn down your home. We are talking frum vigilante work.

In Israel, last Lag BOmer, I learned that Supermarket carts only cost 5 shekel. If you put the 5nis in the cart, it is yours. You can then put as much wood as you would like in the cart, and burn the cart too.

There is also a tradition of taking a bow and arrow, to confirm the reputation that frum Jews are violent. But I suggest that your children do not run around the streets with bows and arrows. With the security situation the way it is, and the "accidents" up in number. If they are good with a bow and arrow, there are neighborhoods I could suggest sending them to.  

Tzfat, at the grave-site of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai is where the party is at. It is tradition that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai died on this day. So we party. General frum tradition is to drink a lot of alcohol when a rabbi is dead. We also light the fires, which represent stuff that I could have used getting burned.
Known as the day of Rabbi Bar Yochai's Hillulah, it is your frum duty to get smashed. This will also allow you to feel more mystical.
This day in Meron is the Homecoming party of Breslov and Chabad. They do not have kissing booths, but they do have matchmaker booths. That is mutar. You can kiss the matchmaker, if they are the same sex as you. If you give it a few dates and a year or so, and a lot of invites to your parents' friends, you might be kissing somebody else. If you play the game right, you'll be back at the graves the next year saying that the segulah worked (Segulah is a positive omen you created after something worked out, you heretic who thinks you make decisions).

You can go up to Mount Meron for many days, where Rabbi Bar Yochai (the Rashbi) was buried. Many chasidim go up for the whole weekend. This is the only time it is permitted for frum Jews to go camping in the woods. What makes this acceptable is that there is a huge tent with prepared food, made in a kitchen. Just be sure to bring a mattress, so you can enjoy the full frum camping experience.
He is known as the Rashbi, as he is a very important rabbi. If you do not have an acronym, to be honest, you are not very important. I have never come across an important rabbi who did not have a quotation mark in his name.
It is not very hard to acronymize your name. All you have to do is take the first letters of all your names. Include your dad's name, maybe the town you are from. Do not use your mom's name, as anything from your mother's side is heretical. This is why you practice traditions of your parents. But your parents are heretics, which makes this hard.
Acronymizing can be very hard if your name is Isaiah Aaron Ethen. If that is the case, make sure the town you are from does not have a vowel. Also watch out for acronymizing if your name is Adir Shimon Shmuel. If that is the case, be sure to add in Rabbi and ben whomever your dad is (ben is son in Hebrew- you heretical son Avraham whose dad I am quite skeptical of).

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