For many, Lag BaOmer in Meron should be the first big celebration after the long corona pandemic. It ended in a catastrophe: 45 people are dead. The grief over this has welded the country together. It was touching to see how much humanity was expressed, how people practiced solidarity and donated blood, for example. Secular and Orthodox, all stood together. The shock was great in other parts of the world as well.
However, certain prejudices were expressed, especially in social media. Hadn’t this tragedy struck a community of ultra-orthodox who in the past had not been so strict about the corona rules anyway? The celebrated in a confined space, without distance, without security measures, in short: without reason?
root cause Questions about the cause must be asked and answered. But the religiosity of the participants was certainly not the trigger, nor was the disregard of the Corona distance rules. Thanks to its vaccination strategy, Israel became the first country in the world to overcome the pandemic. The Lag BaOmer festival in Meron was not illegal, the authorities had approved it.
One should be careful not to point the finger at a religious community now.
And haven’t we experienced similar accidents at secular events in the past few years, in football stadiums or at concerts? So one should be careful not to point the finger at a religious community.
If we still want to learn something from the tragedy, maybe it is this: The path from the pandemic to normal will not be as easy as many hope it will be. When the time finally comes, we should beware of some kind of “overcompensation”. Yes, after 15 months of pandemic there is a lot of catching up to do in terms of celebrations and community. But let us remain cautious – and above all show solidarity. The pandemic has already claimed enough victims.
The author is a rabbi of the Israelite Religious Community in Leipzig and a member of the Orthodox Rabbinical Conference (ORD).
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