Lag Ba'Omer

[pohaikawahine]

The semiholiday of Lag B'Omer is almost here (18th of lyar) (May 16) (33rd day of Omer) .... according to what I read this holiday is also known as the scholars festival because it is associated with the students of Rabbi Akiva and this is the day that Rabbi Shimonbar Yohai died. The article that I read also said that later kabbalist saw an association with the rainbow, which is a symbol of redemption, since there is a tradition that the rainbow will appear in the sky as the harbinger of the final redemption. (from a Guide to Jewish Religious Practice by Rabbi Isaac Klein).

The rainbow in the tradition of Hawaii-nei is associated with the frequency of each of the seven energy centers in the body (the lower frequencies are the red's, oranges, yellows .... the highest frequencies are the blues, violets, etc.) To walk the "night rainbow" is a metaphor to move the internal energy up and down the spinal column, but its purpose is to move it into the center of the brain (the ahu or altar) to reach that place of visions and revelations or the pineal gland (the third eye) where one meets g-d face to face .... it appears to me that perhaps the symbol of redemption would be the same .... to move up into the higher frequencies of thought and breath one would reach the stage of final redemption .... that should be the stage at which we are entering right now in the counting of the days of the Omer .... the culmination will be the 50th day (the Jubilee) or the day of Shavuot, the day the Torah was given on Mount Sinai. I also read that the Jubilee is associated with freedom in that the Jewish slave who elects to serve his master forever (Exodus 21:6) actually ends in the Jubilee year, when he goes free. If we enter the wilderness as slaves and exit as freemen when the Torah is received then Passover, Lag B'Omer, and Shavuot should take us to the top of the mountain. All seem to be reminders of who we are and how we must return to the internal process to set in place the regathering. If we let another year pass in ritual without giving breath or life to the process of change we will not be able to celebrate the Jubilee. Our freedom is right around the corner and the Torah has taken us there step by step .... she watches us from behind the veil but she is not inaccessable, the marriage takes place when we finally enter the holy of holies .... the counting of the days of Omer tells us how to enter the promised land ....

Rabbi WEisz (Yeshiva Aish Ha Torah in Jerusalem) says that "we are studying a level of reality that is totally beyond the reach of our ordinary senses" .... our ordinary senses are left behind as we enter behind the veil and consumate the marriage of "wakea and papa" (that the the hawaiian equivalent of sky father and earth mother or the reconnection of the path of the night rainbow) .... he hawai'i au, poh p.s. I love the Torah