The Bride in the Tanners’ Market

An address to children at a Lag BaOmer parade:

Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai taught: “G-d promises the Jewish people in exile: ‘I shall never reject them or abhor them to break My covenant with them.’ – This is like a man whose bride lives in a leather tanners’ market, where everything reeks. Were she not there, he would never have entered. But because she is there, it smells to him like a spice market, the most beautiful scent in the world.”

G-d accompanies the Jewish people, His beloved, in exile. They do not become sullied there by the unpleasant odors around them; rather, their self-sacrifice for Judaism and for the Jewish education of their children emits the sweetest aroma throughout creation, transforming the exile itself into a G-dly place.