Bonfires light Far Rock, 5T

“We live in a zman [time] of great choshech [darkness],” Rabbi Yankel Horowitz told a parking lot full of Lag B’Omer celebrants outside the White Shul on motzei Shabbat. Then he ignited a bonfire that lit the Far Rockaway night.

Horowitz, Bostoner rebbe of Lawrence, said the great challenge for klal Israel is reconnecting with those who have gone far off the derech.

“The overwhelming majority of klal Israel is surrounded by darkness,” he said. “Not only are they not religious, but they say they have not shaychus (connection) to the Ribono Shel Olam, certainly not to the Torah,” he said, citing a recent national study. “They say they are connected to yiddishkeit purely as a social community.”

“They are lured by non-Jewish culture, non-Jewish philosophy, non-Jewish fashion. They are ‘enlightened’ — [yet] the light of ‘enlightenment’ is darkness in the eyes of Ribbono Shel Olam and the Torah kiddosha.”