It's that time of year again. Kids with 'borrowed' shopping carts full of wood rush by. The smell of bonfire smoke fills the air. Lag B'Omer is here.

I have grown accustomed to the bonfires (and the smoke) which will accompany the onset of Lag B'Omer this Saturday night. I wonder how many of the revelers even know that the fires are in honor of the great sage and author of theZohar, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (a disciple of Rabbi Akiva), who according to tradition passed away on Lag B'Omer. But that doesn't really bother me.

What puzzles me more is the main reason behind the celebrations on Lag B'Omer. According to the Talmud (and Wikipedia), during the time of Rabbi Akiva 24,000 of his students died from a divinely sent plague during the counting of the Omer. The Talmud goes on to say that this was because they did not show proper respect to one another, befitting their level. They begrudged each other the spiritual levels attained by their comrades. Jews celebrate Lag B'Omer, the 33rd day of the count, as the traditional day that this plague ended.

But how could these great scholars in their own right, the students of Rabbi Akiva, the same Rabbi Akiva who preached, "Veahavta le-raiacha kamocha"Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18( and proclaimed, "This is an essential​ principle​ of the Torah", have fallen in this vital precept? How could they, of all people, have lacked respect to their scholarly colleagues?

A possible answer came to me when I looked ahead one week on my calendar. You see, my 20th high school reunion is coming up next week. Has it been that long? I used to think that high school reunions only happened to people on television, people like Al Bundy (Polk High) or Fred Flintstone (Bedrock High). Inevitably, the sitcom characters are reluctant to attend their reunions, but once they do, they discover that times have changed. Usually the former high school quarterback is now balding and sports a beer gut, and the Prom Queen is now a chain-smoking mother of six. In an episode of the NBC hit comedy'30 Rock', Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) attends her small-town high school reunion thinking she will be remembered as 'the nerd', but to her horror discovers that she was perceived as a bully for her biting insults as a teen.

One thing that has changed over the last two decades is that in the past you would have received an invitation in the mail (if the reunion committee managed to track you down) and you probably had not been in contact with most of your high school classmates since graduation. But now, in the internet age (we did not have internet yet when I was in high school), alumni websites already post pictures and bios of your former classmates. One can also join alumni groups on Facebook (which is how I found out about my 20 year reunion) and keep in touch with virtually all of your classmates wherever you are in the world quite easily. Although it may be easier to reconnect and stay in touch with former classmates today, some of the mystery behind these reunions is gone.

But I have the perfect excuse for not attending my high school reunion -distance. I simply live too far away (and don't have the means) to travel all the way from Israel to Palo Alto, California to join the rest of the 'Henry M. Gunn High School Class of 1990' (I still recall our sport's teams name: 'The Titans') at this special gathering.

But the word'distance'is not merely an excuse; it also has meaning, if you are a soldier in the Israeli Army. At the start of basic training in the IDF, new recruits are taught how to address their commanding officers ('hamefaked'/ 'hamefakedet'). In Hebrew the term for this is'Merchak Pikudi', but it is more commonly known by an English word, heavily accented by Hebrew:'distance'.

Maintaining'distance'is important in the Israeli army as most of the commanding officers are only slightly older, by a year or two, than their recruits. When I was inducted as a new immigrant in the IDF, I was older than both the recruits and the officers by several years, but still respected the'distance'the officers enforced. Only on the last evening of basic training, after several week of'distance', the officers 'broke distance' and eased the restrictions, allowing soldiers to call them by their first names, etc.

It seems to me that what Israeli society lacks today is'distance'. Most of us who grew up in the Diaspora addressed our teachers by their last names (Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith). Nobody would dream of calling a teacher by their first name as many students in Israel today do. The same went for other people in authority. Teachers, Rabbis, doctors, professors, authority figures, and older people in general were always addressed in a respectable way as 'Sir' or 'Ma'am' or by their title. There was none of the familiarity that is so prevalent today. Perhaps that's why'distance'must be hammered home so hard in the IDF. Many of the Israeli born recruits are simply ill prepared to address those in authority in a respectful way.

The same is true at home. It's ironic that my high school reunion will fall on Mother's Day in the US because mothers are among those who deserve our respect the most. I have seen many cases where there is little or no'distance'between mother and child. In some cases the parent is at fault for turning the child (daughter, in many cases) into a good friend (shopping together and in some cases turning to the teen for advice on what to wear as if they were best friends). This never happened with my dad. Whenever I would get too silly or disrespectful around my father he would sharply remind me, "I am not your friend!" and I would quickly adjust my behavior. Many young people today should do the same.

So perhaps this was the trap that the students of Rabbi Akiva fell into. Perhaps they becametoochummy with their fellow pupils. Perhaps in their study of Torah they became too close to one another and did not leave any'distance', which caused them to lack respect for one another. If one takes the analogy of a fire, which is quite appropriate for Lag B'Omer, a fire can be wonderful, provide heat, light, warmth, etc., but if one gets too close- you get burned. Perhaps the same thing happened to the students of Rabbi Akiva, they becametoofriendly with one another and lost the respect they should have maintained for their colleagues – they did not maintain'distance'.

As for the Class of 1990 from Gunn High, the academically excellent public high school with the high percentage of Jewish students (including many Israelis) in the heart of the Silicon Valley, I will be keeping my distance, but in a good way.

Oh yeah, and one more thing - GO TITANS!

.