‘One Flame’ Festival to Take Place in Tsfat on Lag BaOmer

By Yehuda Sugar

A theme of rebirth will frame the second in a series “One Flame” Lag Baomer music fest and art show in Tsfat this year, celebrating the yom hilula of the great Kabbalist and Talmudic sage, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the end of an infamous historic plague and a return to normal.

A crowd beyond the estimated 1,000 that turned out for the first “One Flame” concert on Lag Baomer two years ago in Tsfat is expected at the event as people emerge from more than a year of lockdowns, quarantine and fear due to Corona, said event producer, Rabbi Shalom Pasternak.

About his selection of the theme, Pasternak said: “We need to raise ourselves out of our present troubles and create a future of messianic hope and prosperity. We are overdue for a rebirth.”

To accent the rebirth theme, a fiery phoenix reminiscent of the biblical chol bird, distinguished for its refusal among all animals to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, serves as the affair’s promotional emblem. As the midrashic commentary on the mention of the phoenix-like chol in the Book of Job (29:18) indicates, death was decreed on all of the other animals except this special bird, which is perpetually rejuvenated to its youth every thousand years.

Rapping musician, Nissim Black whose own story and conversion epitomize a phoenix-like rise to fame from misfortune was handpicked as the event’s headline performer for his superstar status and to emphasize the rebirth theme, Pasternak said.

Rounding out the program will be the yeshiva’s own Kabbalah Dream Orchestra, Shefa Band, Drummers of Zion, a live art show, fire jugglers and various other kid attractions.

At 100 nis per person in advance and 120 nis at the door with an earlybird special of 75 nis available through the end of this week, the event is a fundraiser for the overhaul of the Tsfat baalei teshuva yeshiva, Yeshivas Temimei Darech (https://thewayinside.net/) that Pasternak has directed with Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Ariel Gorenstein, for more than a decade.

The concert is an extension of the yeshiva’s own mission as a “rebirther of young souls,” Pasternak added. “This is the work of our times.”

In a further act of unity and outreach, Pasternak has engaged the city of Tsfat this time around to co-sponsor the event.

The fest, like its inaugural counterpart of two years ago, will be held on the high point mount of Tsfat known as the Metzuda the night of Lag BaOmer, the 33rd day of the transformational omer count, the 18th of the Hebrew month of Iyar (April 29-30 this year) from 6 p.m. 11 p.m.

During the 24-hour period of Lag Baomer, credited with being the day in history when a plague ended that killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s disunified students, a break is taken the world over from the period’s mourning customs to celebrate with music, song and bonfires reminiscent of the Rashbi’s joyous and fiery Torah teachings on the day that is also his yartzeit.

“Rising together with the living Torah of the Rashbi,” so says the final promotional pitch line of the event poster.

Tickets can be purchased in advance at the following link: https://oneflame.eventbrite.com