Coming up is a most minor of holidays, Lag B’omer. Call me a curmudgeon, but I intend to spend the evening inside with my windows shut tight. It’s not only that I’m not too hot on sing-alongs around the campfire. At least in Israel, I think it’s time to find a new way to celebrate the day.

First of all, there’s the food: burnt potatoes. On Chanuka, when we celebrate winning a battle or two in a war we ultimately lost, we eat delicious fried latkes and donuts for a whole week. On Purim, to commemorate an apocryphal victory in a far off country, we drink ourselves silly and stuff ourselves with sweets. Granted, the success we celebrate on Lag B’Omer was even shorter-lived than usual. Still, couldn’t we come up with something better than burnt potatoes? (That’s assuming you’re not taking advantage of the break in the seven-week semi-mourning period to get married, in which case the traditional food is a choice of roast chicken, fish or beef entrecote.)

Second of all, there’s the activity: burning more things. Sustainability, nature and all the rest go right out the window on Lag B’Omer. If you haven’t been in Israel for the holiday, you can’t imagine the combined effect of bonfires burning in every back yard and open space. Air quality from North to South is lower than Beijing on a heavy inversion layer day. In addition, since Israel is not a land blessed with cords and cords of fallen wood, a good percentage of the fuel for the fires comes from dubious sources, ripped off by children, for instance, from building sites. In other words, wood that was likely grown unsustainably elsewhere and shipped to Israel for the purpose of erecting another high-rise apartment complex or shopping mall ends up adding carbon and soot to the atmosphere, instead.

And, as long as we’re encouraging our children’s criminal tendencies, we let them burn their school notebooks on the fires, as well. Then we get them to make bows and arrows from the sticks and twigs that haven’t gone into the fire, and give them permission to run around aiming sharp things at each other, cats, dogs and their baby sisters. At the end of the evening, we count ourselves lucky when the only injuries sustained are burnt tongues from trying to eat the burnt potatoes too fast.

I’m not suggesting we trade Bar Kochba for bar kaima (sustainability) or that we celebrate by taking a trip to the local recycling center. Still, I think we might find a “greener” way of observing a holiday that, after all, also honors the author of the Zohar — the book of Jewish mysticism. Maybe we could put out the fires, and spend the evening looking at the stars, instead. And, really, couldn’t we at least have popcorn? Sandwiches? Hot chocolate? Anything but burnt potatoes?