Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai Disgusted By Marshmallows

 Meron, Israel, May 19 – The morning after the annual bonfire festivities in honor of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the revered second-century sage expressed revulsion at the practice of using the bonfire flames to roast, Lord help us, marshmallows.

Hundreds of thousands of people gather annually on the night of the thirty-third day of the Omer, the period between the festivals of Passover and Shavuot, traditionally observed as the anniversary of Rabbi Shimon’s passing. The most popular destination by far is the Rabbi’s tomb in the Galilean town of Meron, a development that allowed the deceased spiritual giant to see up close the abominations that people are feeding their children in the name of celebrating the revelation of his wisdom.

“People light these fires partly as an expression of appreciation for the light of divine wisdom that I had the privilege to channel,” said the Rabbi, who is commonly known by the acronym Rashbi. “But it makes me shudder to think that the light of the Zohar is being violated by these corrupt concoctions of sugar, gelatin, and artificial color.” The Zohar is the principal work of Jewish mysticism, a running commentary on the Bible whose teachings are attributed to Rashbi, but which only became widespread in the thirteenth century.

“There are few embodiments of the sitra ochara more manifest than this creation,” said Rashbi, using a kabbalistic term that translates approximately as “the other side,” the source of all evil. “What unscrupulous fool would bring thousands upon thousands of these evil nuggets to the very places where pure, Godly light is emerging?”

The thirty-third day of the Omer, known as Lag BaOmer, is also traditionally observed as the day when the disciples of the famed Rabbi Akiva stopped dying of a plague, a disease that they brought upon themselves by not treating one another with proper individual respect. Rabbi Shimon was among the disciples that Rabbi Akiva ordained afterwards, and played a central role in restoring the Torah scholarship that had been lost through the plague. But the sight of the gooey monstrosities that have become present at every Lag BaOmer bonfire has made Rashbi reconsider the cause for celebration.

“I wonder whether my twenty-four thousand deceased colleagues would endorse a redemption of their legacy that includes those…things,” he remarked. Upon seeing a delivery man replenishing a store’s inventory of marshmallows, Rabbi Shimon glared at him, and the latter turned into  pile of bones.