That s where I realized I lost them, I did everything I could
Avigdor Hayut, who lost his son in the Meron disaster, meets with the father of one of his students who also perished in the tragedy; I loved him as if he were my own son
Sivan Hilaie |
Published: 05.02.21 , 18:35
Rabbi Avigdor Hayut lost both his 13-year-old son Yedidiyah and his student Moshe Levi in the tragic Mount Meron stampede that took the lives of 45 people and injured some 150 others last Thursday.
The three were among tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews who flocked to the gravesite of 2nd-century Mishnaic sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai for the start of the Lag BaOmer holiday.
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Our tiny country has an outsized share of distinctions: most Nobel laureates per capita, most start-up successes, most technological innovations… but also most calamities and tragically avoidable disasters, or at least so it seems. Last night’s tragedy on Mount Meron is particularly painful. 45 people were killed crushed in a stampede on a narrow walkway as they left the Lag B’Omer bonfire celebrations on the mountain. Hundreds more were injured, many of them now in the hospital. The victims were headed home after a night of religious celebration, dancing and singing at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.
There is the fire of the bush, blazing, yet somehow, not consuming.
There is the fire of the pillar, which illuminates our path so that we may travel by day, and by night.
There is the violent, trembling fire of the mountain from which G-d descends from the Heavens to be heard by us.
And there is the fire through which G-d responds, and is identified as the one true G-d by us.
It is through fire, Rashi tells us, that the Law of G-d was written.
There is the perpetual fire,
Esh Tamid, eternally burning on its altar, inextinguishable. A fire which cleanses us of sin – both intentional and unintentional – and thus extinguishes our transgressions.