LAG B’OMER 5768

Good morning gentlemen and I hope that you have been enjoying Lag B’Omer, bonfires and all.

What is so important about Lag B’Omer? We know that we are allowed to make a Chasanah on Lag B’Omer, that it is a time of simcha, we don’t say Tachanun, etc.

We have all heard of the Gomorra that tells us that 12,000 (or possibly 24,000) pupils of Rabbi Akiva died for 33 days between Pesach and Shavuous but Lag B’Omer, was either the day that they ceased passing away or it was the day in the period on which nobody died.

Recently, we have seen another phenomenon, namely that thousands, no tens of thousands, of people stream to Meron on Lag B’Omer to the Tziyon of R’ Shimon Bar Yochai. What has this got to do with Lag B’Omer? Now I know that people say that his Yahrzeit was on Lag B’Omer but I am going to stick my neck out and ask where do they have the proof for this. I have researched the matter and the earliest reference that I can find is a letter written by R’ Ovadia Bartenura, the famous commentator on Mishnayos who when he emigrated to our Holy Land from Italy wrote to his son and in passing mentioned that he was in Meron on Lag B’Omer and “as everybody knows this is the yahrzeit of R’ Shimon Bar Yochai”. There is no mention of the date in the Zohar, as far as I am aware, although, the actual happenings during the day when R’ Shimon passed away are detailed over many pages.

I must tell you that I have just returned from Eretz Yisroel and I was in Meron this Sunday, the preparations for Lag B’Omer are unbelievable. The organisers say that over ¼ million people come to visit over the two or three days of the Lag B’Omer period.

In any event, I am curious as to why R’ Shimon was zoche to such a tremendous influx of people coming just to his Tziyon.

On last Sunday I did a round tour of Teveria, Tzfas and then Meron. I started off at the cave where Rabbi Akiva is buried. Rabbi Akiva, for your information, was the Rebbe of R’ Shimon Bar Yochai. The Gemora tells us that after the untimely death of all the other disciples Rabbi Akiva went to the five learned Rabbis including R’ Shimon, and there was R’ Meir, R’ Yehuda, R’ Yose and R’ Elozor and taught them and from them we have a tremendous amount of the tradition and lots of mishnyas are in the names of these great tanoim. People don’t go to visit Rabbi Akiva the way the mass movement to visit R’ Shimon takes place!!!

You may recall that Rabbi Akiva was for 40 years an Am Ha’aretz, the next 40 years he was a pupil of the leading Rabbis and the last 40 years in his life, he was acknowledged as the great Torah leader. Finally, at the age of 120 he was hunted down because he was teaching Torah in public and he was killed in the most horrible way, with the words of Shema Yisroel on his lips as the Gemora tells us at the end of Brochos.

The Gemora in Menochos mentions that he quoted many many halochos on every tag, תג that is the little crowns on top of the letters of the Sefer Torah, to the extent that Moshe Rabbenu was shown this happening and couldn’t quite understand everything. Moshe was very upset until he heard somebody asking Rabbi Akiva a particular question and Rabbi Akiva answered that is halocho l’Moshe m’Sinai. We, therefore, do not have any understanding of how great Rabbi Akiva was and although many people go to visit Rabbi Akiva’s kever, there is nowhere near the ¼ million that R’ Shimon receives.

I then went further down the hill in to the city of Teveria where R’ Yochanan Ben Zakai and a number of his leading talmidim, including R’ Eliezer Ben Horkenus are buried right near the Rambam and Shloh Hakodesh.

You may recall that Rabbi Akiva was a leading talmid of R’ Eliezer ben Horkenus, the famous tanna who made the Pirkei to R’ Eliezer.

We are now at the time of year when Pirkei Avos is learned and read. You will, therefore, recall that R’ Yochanon ben Zakai was the Rebbe of R’ Eliezer ben Horkenus, R’ Yochanon ben Zakai was the leading rabbi at the time of the chorban Bais Hamikdosh who managed to get out alive because R’ Eliezer and R’ Yehoshua carried out his body from Yerushalyim, ostensibly because he had died. He then appeared before the Roman Emperor Vespasian and persuaded him to allow the Rabbonim to continue with their work., תן לי יבנה וחכםיהHe, as you can see, was the Rebbe of R’ Eliezer who in turn was the Rebbe of Rabbi Akiva who in turn was the Rebbe of R’ Shimon. People do visit the graves of R’ Yochanon Ben Zakai and R’ Eliezer Ben Horkenus but there is nowhere near the crowds that there are for R’ Shimon.

Let us turn to the Rambam, that very, very great person was the first to codify the whole of halocho, the whole of Jewish Law comprehensively and lucidly in perfect Loshen Hakodesh for all generations. We all know the expression m’Moshe ad Moshe lo com c’Moshe that was used about him. There was nobody as great from the time of Moshe Rabbenu as the Rambam. Nevertheless, once again, I make the same point, people do go in great numbers to the tombstone of the Rambam but I don’t think that it comes anywhere near the ¼ million for R’ Shimon and remember that R’ Shimon ben Yochai is visited at other times of the year as well by many hundreds of thousands of people.

So I repeat my question of the moment, why is it that on Lag B’Omer, especially over the last 50 years or so there has developed a mass movement for people not only in Eretz Yisroel but the whole world over who fly to Eretz Yisroel and join the throngs, the hundreds of thousands, who stream to the kever in Meron of R’ Shimon Bar Yochai.


I think that in order to find an answer, we need to examine the well known Gomorra in Shabbos Daf ל''ג(note that its ל''ג like Lag B’Omer) where three great Rabbis of the time where sitting discussing what had happened practically in Eretz Yisroel, they were R’ Shimon, R’ Yehuda and R’ Yose. Now I think a little bit of historic perspective is called for here. When the chorban Bais Hamikdosh took place, the Emperor allowed the Rabbis to regroup in Yavneh quite far away from Yerushalyim but about 50 years after that, there was a revolt lead by Bar Kochba and in fact encouraged by Rabbi Akiva, that was brought to a bloody end by the Roman soldiers and the city Beitar was destroyed and millions of Jews with it. The Romans who had conquered the country ruled with an even harsher iron fist.

The Romans felt that the Rabbis had let them down, they thought that they were only teachers but once Rabbi Akiva had been involved in the Bar Kochba revolt. The Romans decided otherwise. They decided to crack down on any study of Torah in public. That is why Rabbi Akiva finally was killed and many of the עשרה הרוגי מלכות were killed around the same time.

When the three Rabbis I mentioned earlier on, R’ Shimon, R’ Yehuda and R’ Yose were discussing the current political situation, R’ Yehuda observed that the Romans had done good. “Look at the market places, the bridges and bathhouses they have constructed.”.

R’ Yose was silent.

R’ Shimon Bar Yochai said “All that they built was for their needs and good”, not to help us. Somebody called Yehuda Ben Gerim heard this conversation and it got back to the Roman authorities. When they heard what had been said, they issued a decree, R’ Yehuda should be ראש המדברים בכל מקום, the official leading speaker for the Jewish people. R’ Yose who was silent, should be exiled. R’ Shimon Bar Yochai who denigrated them, should be killed.

When R’ Shimon heard about this he took his son R’ Elozor Ben Shimon and they went to learn in a private Bais Hamedrash, not in public. His wife used to bring them food, but after a short while R’ Shimon said to his son that he was worried that one day the Romans would turn up, torture his wife, and she would reveal where they were. Therefore, with no further ado, he and his son went off, found an inaccessible cave and decided to stay there, and then a miracle took place. In the cave a spring of water started running and a carob tree started growing with fruit and R’ Shimon and his son stayed there for 12 years. The Gemora tells us that in order that they should not completely wear out their clothes they dug into the sand and learned with the sand covering them and when they wanted to daven or eat etc. they came out of the sand, put on their clothes and this carried on, as I said for 12 years.

By that time, the decree that had been issued had already been annulled and Eliyahu Hanovi came to the door of cave and stated this fact. R’ Shimon and his son then went out into the wide world but they were by then so spiritual, so uplifted that whenever they looked around and saw people doing mundane things, not learning, not davening not particularly doing a mitzvah that they could see, they could not bear it and wherever they looked fixedly, it burnt down. A voice came from heaven and said “Are you trying to destroy my world, go back into the cave,” and they did so for a whole year.

After that time R’ Shimon said, even judgement of real rishoim, even people in Gehenom is only for 12 months so I think that we can go out again. They heard a voice from heaven telling them that they may go out. They did, and when R’ Elozor Ben Shimon, his son, could not stand what he was seeing, R’ Shimon said to him, hold on, don’t get too hasty; let us go and see what people are doing and why. They found an elderly person running along just before Shabbos with two haddassim, myrtles, in his hands. R’ Shimon and R’ Elozor asked why he was doing it and where he was going. The old man replied that it was לכבוד שבת and I am taking them home so that there should be beautiful smell in the house. We all know the smell of myrtles is very, very nice. But why two? They asked. One, because we are told זכור and the second one because of שמור את יום השבת . R’ Shimon turned to his son and said “You see how marvellous our Jewish brethren are”.

It was during that period in the cave that the secrets, the pnemius the innermost parts of Torah were revealed to R’ Shimon on which is based the Zohar Hakodesh.

Prior to that R’ Shimon had been one of the great Rabbis in what we call nigleh the revealed parts of Torah but now he was the greatest authority in the hidden part of Torah, the kabboloh.

Let us go back a few hundred years before that. In the middle of the first Bais Hamikdosh period there was a king called Iziyahu and he decided that he wanted to bring the ketores that the Kohen had to bring each day in the Heichel, although he was warned not to do it, he insisted and because of that, he became a Metzorah. Immediately after that Yeshiya who was then the greatest novi had the vision of Hashem sitting on a great throne with angels surrounding it and this is from where we get the famous posek which is the central part of the kedushah, קדוש קדוש קדוש ה' צבאות

The prophet Isaiah, Yeshiya, was given this special vision but why? What I am suggesting is that all of the Bnei Yisroel stood in awe of the Bais Hamikdosh, they knew that it was holy. The fact that this king decided that he would go in and bring the incense, the ketores, even though he was punished immediately by becoming a Metzorah, nevertheless, took away from the awe, the reverence, the holiness. In order to counteract that, Hashem gave this special vision took Yeshiya that people should realise to some extent what means the holiness of Hashem, Kodesh, Kodesh, Kodesh, Hashem of all the hosts and he was therefore shown hosts of angels all singing.. This was the antidote to what the King Iziyahu had done.

If we go forward a couple of hundred years, we find that Yechezkiel Hanovi, who lived during the time of the chorban of the first Bais Hamikdosh but then went to live in Bovel, also had a vision, even though he was in Chutz L’Eretz. He saw what we call מעשי מרכבה. It looked like a chariot, and the story ends with the famous posek which is also part of the Kedushah, ברוך כבוד ה' ממקומו Blessed is the glory of Hashem from his place. Why was he shown this, especially as he was in Golus already, he was not even in Eretz Yisroel and normally the nevios was given only in Eretz Yisroel. I believe that the reason was that the Bnei Yisroel had become so broken and depressed, they had lost the Bais Hamikdosh, they had been killed in hundreds of thousands and even millions and so many were taken into captivity to Babylon that they needed a special uplift, an injection. That is why Yechezkiel had this special vision, to tell us that even though the Bnei Yisroel are in Golus, nevertheless, Hashem is there watching and looking after us. That is the meaning of the words ברוך ה' כבוד ממקומו, from his place, we can’t see him it is not where we are supposed to be, in Eretz Yisroel, its Mimkomo. The Glory of Hashem is really everywhere we only have to look for it.

We then go forward to the time of the second Bais Hamikdosh and that was finally destroyed. As I mentioned above, there was then a revolt by Bar Kochba and that was brutally put down. What I am suggesting is that R’ Shimon Bar Yochai was given a special present, the great secrets of Torah were revealed to him in detail, I am sure that other great Rabbis before him knew them in principle but his greatness was that he knew them in detail and then taught them to his select band of disciples so that the Bnei Yisroel should always know that even when things look terrible surrounded by enemies trampled on by the Romans, Hashem is with us and looking after us, even revealing the secrets of the Torah.

Why did R’ Shimon have this special gift bestowed on him? I believe it is because he did not deviate in any way from the מדת האמת from telling the whole truth. Going back to the Gemora in Shabbos, it was true that which R’ Yehuda said, namely, that the Romans had built the roads bridges and bathhouses etc. and of course, in some small measure the Jewish populace left there had some benefit, but R’ Shimon was right, they weren’t doing it in order to help the Jews, they were doing it for their own agenda and reasons as the Gemora states in detail.

If we go forward many hundreds of years, you will recall that there were the Crusades which started off in England, went towards France, Germany and were supposed to be going to recapture the Holy Land. On the way, unfortunately, the mob decided to kill and pillage the Jewish populace. You can imagine how depressed and low our brethren at that time were. Immediately after that, there was the golden flowering of the baalei Tosefas.

If we switch over to Spain a few hundred years later, when the expulsion took place, once again many thousands were killed others were forcibly baptised and others eventually wandered to other countries.

From those who managed to escape there became a great flowering of Torah, the Bais Yosef, R’ Yosef Caro, who ended up in Tzfas and at the same time the Arizal, R’ Yitzchok Luria together with other great people, the Alshich Hakodesh, R’ Shlomo Alkabetz, who made Lechla Dodi, the Baal Hacharedim, all led to a great flowering of Torah and in particular kabbalistic interpretations based on the Zohar which once again uplifted the whole of the Bnei Yisroel.

Coming nearer to our period, there was the Chelminicki riots in Russia, the Ukraine, Poland and that part of the world and about the time, the Shabsai Tzvi, false messiah story, the gloom that descended on the Bnei Yisroel was considerable. Almost immediately afterwards there was the Vilna Gaon and the Baal Shem Tov who once again brought up the whole populace from their despair. It is worthwhile to note that they were both great in Kabbolah and Zohar.

If I may add, we have just had in our lifetime, the Second World War with the Holocaust of well over 6 million Yidden being killed and look what happened afterwards, there was a sudden great reflowering, flourishing Yeshivas, Bais Yaakov seminaries, an uplift of Torah learning and dedicated sincerity almost without precedent. It is just at this time that R’ Shimon Bar Yochai’s tziyon has become such a focal point, hundreds of thousands of people flocking just there. I think that the key as to why this is so and why Lag B’Omer has become almost a major Yom Tov is in what I have said. He lived shortly after Churban Bais Sheni followed by the Bar Kochba revolt, during which period millions of Yidden were killed. We are living at a similar juncture of history.

R’ Shimon showed that one can reach great, great heights if one sticks to the emes without making any פשרה.

So to sum up, we are in an historic period and all we now have to look forward to is ביאת משיח צדקינו במהרה וימינו אמן.

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