Lag BaOmer bonfires

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We celebrated the Jewish holiday Lag BaOmer last night!

The mama cat, who has a litter of kittens hidden nearby, kept coming over to investigate this intrusion on her territory.

The authorities asked that Israelis not make the huge and numerous bonfires this year, to cut down the pollution and fire danger.
So we had a small, civilized one.

Wings on the charcoal.

Today, the morning after, kids have a day off from school.

More about Lag BaOmer here.
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Lucy Goosie's Lag BaOmer

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Bad blogger, that's what I am tonight.
Forgive me, but I just can't get psyched to put on shoes and socks and venture out now, after 10 p.m., to the periphery of Meitar to look for and photograph the traditional bonfires of our Lag BaOmer holiday.
It's not that I mind getting all smokey-smelling and having to wash my hair and clothes, it's just that I'm lazy tonight.

But maybe even better than bonfire photos,  I give you this detail from artist-friend Lucy Ridsdale's painting called Cleansing Fire.
Thanks Lucy! 
The Hebrew letters say Lag BaOmer.
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To know more about this holiday you could see the short explanation by the Velveteen Rabbi 
or the more detailed ones at  Jewish Treats blog.
Or watch the short video about the spirited yearly hilula celebration on Mt. Meron.
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UPDATE:  My Australian friend Lucy Ridsdale is an amazing young woman.
See her in an olive tree in an earlier post. 
She is a painter and a perpetual pilgrim.  In fact she earned a degree on the subject of pilgrimage.
Right now she is finishing a Master of Arts in Ritual Chant and Song in Limerick, Ireland.
You never know what she'll be doing next.
Take a sample taste of her blogs:
Taking the Long Way Round [Ireland]
La Via de la Plata, Pilgrimage on a Camino de Santiago
One step at a time is good walking [her 1000 km on the Bibbulmun Track in Australia]

We can all learn a lot from this Wild Goose.
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Dancing on his grave

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This little group of huts and tents marks the tomb of Shimon HaTsadik in the Sheikh Jarah neighborhood in Jerusalem.
Shimon (or Simeon the Just) was a Jewish High Priest somewhere around 300BCE.

On a quiet day the women's side of the prayer place looks like this.

Quoted on the velvet cover is Shimon's famous maxim from the Talmud:
"On three things the world stands [exists]--on Torah, worship, and acts of lovingkindness."

The gate was locked or I would have gone down to explore what probably is more tombs inside the cliff.
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OK, so that is the scene on a normal day.
But tonight is the holiday of Lag BaOmer and hundreds of very religious Jews should be at the tomb right now, dancing and singing and praying and lighting bonfires.
Oh yes, and they will also do the upsherin, giving 3-year-old boys their first haircut.

Hundreds of thousands will be doing the same thing all night at another tomb of another Shimon, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai on Mt. Meron.
But people who can't travel all the way to the north have the alternate site here in Jerusalem.
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Meanwhile, I am in my house in the hills with windows and shutters closed, trying to keep out the smell of smoke from all the bonfires in my village.
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Take a look at how Lag BaOmer was celebrated at the tomb of Shimon HaTsadik 90 years ago at the wonderful blog Israel's History--A Picture a Day.
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