600 Participate Despite Weather

By Levi Shemtov WB

Despite the rain and the humid weather, over 600 people of Oak Park and neighboring cities joined together on Sunday, April 28 for the Great Lag BaOmer Parade organized by the students of the Lubavitch Yeshiva of Oak Park, MI.

Lag BaOmer is a festive day on the Jewish calendar, celebrating the anniversary of the passing of the great sage and mystic Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, author of the Zohar. Lag BaOmer also carries the theme of the imperative to love and respect one’s fellow (Ahavat Yisrael).

The event began with a children’s rally at the Pepper Elementary School yard at 2:00 PM, with live music and cold drinks. The rally included an encouraging address of Mayor McClellan, and a recorded address of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, from a Lag BaOmer Parade in 1983.

The rally was emceed by Rabbi Bentzion Geisinsky of Chabad of Bingham Farms.

The parade of hundreds of children and adults was headed by a 30 foot float, “the Jewish Expo,” which displayed in jumbo size various fundamental Mitzvahs and live music.

The truck was followed by a Marching Band, a stretched Hummer, and a pickup truck displaying themes of Moshiach and its close proximity to our times. The procession moved on from PES to the Lubavitch Yeshiva, the Harry and Wanda Zekelman Campus.

“It took much work to organize such an event,” said Boruch Ceitlin, a bochur at the Yeshiva and one of the organizers, “but the display of Jewish pride as the community marched together, made it all worth while. We are happy that we not only get an opportunity to learn, but also to bring our studies to good results.”

“It is wonderful to see our students so active and dedicated to the community,” said Rabbi Leima Wilhelm, Dean of the Yeshiva, “they are bringing to life the Talmudic dictum ‘gadol talmud shemay-vie lidei ma’aseh – great is study when it is brought to fruition in good deeds.’ We pray to see a continuation.”

The event was sponsored by a number of organizations, and philanthropists including Dan Werner, Stuart Fay, Howard Besnoz, Jeffrey Saqua, Jay Greenspan, all of metropolitan Detroit, and Jeffrey Cohen of Baltimore.