So there is a light at the end of some tunnels

I honestly never thought this day -- or should I say night -- would come. I never would have dreamed that there would come a time when the thought of Lag B'Omer (previously known by me as the only holiday as terrifying as World Heroin Day) did not wreak havoc in my heart.

I am not going to review the craziness that olim parents experience when they come face-to-face with their first Lag B'Omer celebration in Israel -- particularly if they made Aliyah with elementary aged children. Suffice it to say that I still meet other parents on the street who I haven't seen for years and we can effortlessly recall the precise details of our first Lag B'Omer "celebrations" with our children in Israel. I am bonded to some of these people for life simply because we paced near huge bonfires while our young children ran around in utter delight throwing wood they had spent weeks collecting, into a ravenous flame. And I mean ravenous -- I've seen my fair share of 15 foot flames over the past 12 years.

You have no idea how loud you can yell at your kids until you have publicly threatened them that if they move a step closer to the bonfire they will be grounded for life -- presuming they survive. If you were to yell at your kids like that at any other time, I am pretty sure the authorities would have grounds to remove them from your care. However, if you yell like that on Lag B'Omer you will surely be met with applause by every other oleh parent present.

I stress the word "oleh" here because the other thing you soon realize during your first Lag B'Omer is that there is rarely a native born Israeli parent to be seen, even if the participating child is in first grade. The native parents grew up doing exactly what you are yelling at your kids to stop doing -- and without any parental guidance. Yes, it is the continuation of a cycle of active neglect that no sane oleh parent can even begin to understand.

And it was probably the one time I really questioned the sanity of my decision to leave Canada -- where bonfires are rightly illegal -- and come to live in a country of happy pyromaniacs.

Well, tonight, for the first time that I can remember, I am sitting here writing a blog post while the fires rage outside AND I DON'T CARE. Two of my children are home doing other things and one is on Har Meron  with 300,000 other Israelis celebrating the holiday. As I see it, if he is old enough to drive and carry a gun, then he is old enough to stay suitably far away from the bloody bonfire without me yelling at him.

Oh, and by the way, there is no such thing as World Heroin Day -- at least not yet.