Singing Solo

Whenever we plan our Lag B’Omer issues, we envision crowds. That’s the kind of day it is: a day of masses, of unity, of thousands swaying and singing, craving connection. The music of the day is the music of an ensemble. Along with the inevitable clarinet there’s always a keyboard, a darbouka, a bass guitar; it’s never a krechtz alone — there’s always the chords and the rhythm and the twangs coloring in the spectrum of musical emotion.

This year started out as the year of the crowds. Together we thrilled in a round of grand mass celebrations of Torah learning and Torah commitment. We reveled in scene after scene of crowds swaying, praying, singing and dancing to a shared song. We imagined a Father looking down on all those faces and smiling along. We figured Lag B’omer would be another chapter in the same saga; another scene of thousands making their way to a common destination, to sing together and profess their shared goals once again.

But the Lag B’Omer we’re currently anticipating is nothing like the crowd scenes of the past. And the content in this magazine carries a different, much more solitary feeling. We tried to weave in the tempo and tenor of those yearly melodies – melodies throbbing with both vulnerability and joy – but this time they’re sung solo, as individual experiences.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the contrast between the Siyum Hashas – with its sweeping sense of the power of a group to achieve and conquer together — and the isolated scenes of those earnest but not always grand attempts of lone individuals to keep to their learning commitments while shut inside their homes. Or the audio version: the contrast between that chain of thundering, resonant “amein yehei shmei rabbahs” in so many stadiums, and the muted sounds wafting up from minyanim cobbled together from porches or through windows. How does a lone soldier summon up the awe and grandeur of those moments of total submission when he can’t see the rest of the army – and a washing machine is churning in the background?