Forty-five Plucked Roses

B’’H

Forty-five long stem beautiful roses were plucked from Hashem’s garden last week in Meron. After hearing the stories about the souls that ascended, those forty-five souls were our most cherished. The time now that we are in is called the weeks of the Sefira, which means counting; however, it also connotes a precious Sapphire stone. The forty-five priceless gems were transferred to a much higher and loftier place.

One of the survivors of the tragic event at Lag B’Omer shared his story this week, during his recovery. He described how he was buried alive with piles of people on top of him while writhing in excruciating pain. Lying next to him was an eighteen-year-old boy by the name of Yosef Dovid Elhadad.

He overheard Yosef Dovid saying the following: “Sweet Father, thank you! Sweet Father, thank you! Someone is stepping on my nose. I cannot breathe! Thank you, my sweet loving Father. Thank you!” After a few minutes, he said to me, “Let’s say together the Psalm 100 Mizmor L`Todah (A song of praise to Hashem.) I agreed and we said the Psalm together. Then, there was silence. I kept asking him when would help come and save us. Yosef Dovid didn’t respond. After a few more minutes he said, “Let us say the song of thanks to Hashem together, again.” I agreed and we said it together, word by word. Then he said, “Let’s repeat the Shema together,” and as Yosef Dovid completed the first stanza of the Shema (Hear, O Israel, the L-rd is our G?d, the L-rd is One), I heard Yosef Dovid take his last breath.

The emotion that we were focusing on last time was called Hod. The word Hod has two possible meanings: one is admission, another is giving thanks, otherwise known as appreciation. In truth, it is really the same because the only way a person can properly show his/her appreciation to someone is if he first admits what he received is good and second, he recognizes the source of where it came from.

The day of Lag B’Omer represented the lowest level of our work on controlling and directing our emotions towards the divine. This is viewed in Chasidus as the attribute of having the ability to surrender the deepest and hardest level of admission. Chasidus explains that there is something called cognitive surrendering. When one hears someone speak of things that are clearly above his intellectual capability and understanding; but he has enough understanding that there is something holy here, however, he just cannot grasp it, although he wishes he could understand it.

This feeling of surrender was what I believe was the natural reaction to every single Jew upon hearing the tragic news at Lag B’Omer. Surrendering to the fact that we are not in control of anything that happens to us. Acknowledging the fact that as humans we are extremely limited in our decision making. The only decisions that we truly make are the ones that expend our time and energy preparing ourselves to be a better Jew today than we were yesterday. That we are working on shifting our focus of growth from our ego to our Divine soul that rests inside of every one of us. Instead of saying what more can G-d do for me, we should ask what more can I do for G-d?

We should be getting closer to the realization that every breath we take is only possible because He allowed us to take the breath. Are we ready to acknowledge that we take for granted all of the gifts from Hashem that he is constantly bestowing upon us? If we are willing to accept that everything good that we have in life is presented from the Above, shouldn’t we be saying thank you to Hashem, as Yosef Dovid taught us to? Together, each and every one of us can make more decisions of light over darkness, thus ensuring that our redemption and spiritual path has a deeper purpose and can help end the pain and suffering.

Have a wonderful Shabbos.

Yitzchok Friedman