Tarbuka with love

>> Lagstock celebrates a Jewish holiday in a novel way

by MARK SLUTSKY

It is told that as the Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, author of the Kabbalistic Zohar, or Book of Splendours, lay dying, he dictated to his students the various mystical secrets he still had yet to divulge. The Rashbi, as he is otherwise known, knew that he would not live past the 33rd day of the Omer, the ritual counting of days between Passover and Shavuot, the holiday marking the Israelites’ receiving of the Torah from God. But as he still had so much to tell, the sun itself stopped its setting to allow him a little more time, bathing his house in a mystical fire.

The Lag Baomer, as this day is called, is now, some 1,800 years or so later, a traditional day to get down, with festivities usually including bonfires, music and the like. You have to wonder, though, if the wise Rashbi foresaw Lagstock, a local Lag Baomer fest featuring a tam-tam contest. And one hosted by someone named DJ Juicy JK, at that.

Described by co-organizer Eric Gozlan as an event intended to “create unity amongst our community,” the Chabad Lubavitch Chai Centre’s Lagstock is a huge, youth-focused event designed to introduce young ’uns to Jewish culture in an accessible way (you may have seen the centre’s “mitzvah tanks,” Judaically retrofitted Winnebagos, cruising St-Laurent recently and spreading the word).

Israeli rockers the Moshav Band headline the event, fresh from an engagement in California. Montreal’s answer to the melech, Schmelvis, will be on site, “serenading old ladies,” in Gozler’s words. And of course there’s the aforementioned tam-tam event (“Bring your own tarbuka”—a Middle-Eastern percussion instrument—urge the posters).

Lagstock started a few years ago with a crowd of 200. Last year the festival attracted 5,000 people, and the organizers (who also include Rabbis Yossi Kestler and Naftoli Perlstein), expect even more this time around. Keeping with the theme of unity, the event will be resolutely non-political. :

At Parc Trudeau in Côte-St.-Luc on Monday, April 29, 6:30pm, free