I keep thinking of the symbolism of Lag BaOmer. For hundreds of years Jews have been commemorating a date when people finally stopped dying of a plague. 1/4

And I think of all the other ways Jewish scholarship has developed laws around the ideas of exceptional circumstances and observing religious laws when there are restrictions or plagues or strange circumstances of history. 2/4

And I find the whole thing comforting. It reminds me of Judaism’s long history and tradition. It reminds me that I’m part of a chain of religious observance that has seen everything. It reminds me that modernity and current affairs have always been watchwords of Judaism 3/4

I find that it makes me feel much less alone even in this isolation to think of millennia of scholars wrestling with the exceptional. Being part of history is hard but learning from what has gone before gives it meaning. 4/4