Lag BaOmer: Guardians of the Torah
Rabbi Richard Baroff, in his debut Closing Thoughts column, shares about the tradition of Lag BaOmer.
Lag BaOmer occurs this year beginning the evening of Monday, May 8 and continuing through Tuesday May 9—Iyar 18 in the Hebrew calendar. In Israel, many Ultra-Orthodox three-year-old boys receive their first haircuts on this day.
Many traditional Jews will visit Meron, in northern Israel, where the great second century sage and mystic, Shimon Bar Yohai, is buried. Bar Yohai died on Lag BaOmer, and so the pilgrimage to his tomb is on this day. In various places in Israel, there are large campfires, hikes, and archery.
The festival is also connected to Bar Yohai’s teacher, Rabbi Akiva, a rabbinic giant of the second century C.E. During the persecutions of the Roman emperor Hadrian, a plague broke out among the many thousands of students of Rabbi Akiva. But miraculously, on Lag BaOmer, the plague stopped.
LagBaOmer is the 33rd day of the barley harvest. An Omer is a sheaf of grain. Lag is an acronym of two Hebrew letters: Lamed which stands for 30, and Gimmel which represents 3. The acronym was vocalized for convenience: Lag = 33.
The counting of the Omer is a ritual that connects Passover with Shavuoth. On the second day of Passover, in ancient times, the first sheaf was brought to the priest (cohen) according to Torah ritual.
The ritual continued throughout the periods when the Jerusalem temples stood, and, in time, became a synagogue ritual. For 49 days, exactly seven weeks, the ritual of counting the sheaves takes place symbolically at the synagogue.
The 50th day is the Jewish Pentateuch, the Festival of Weeks, Shavuot. The counting of the barley harvest is known as Sefirat haOmer (the Counting of the Omer) or simply, Sefira. It is a somber time. Traditional Jews often refrain from celebrations during the counting of the Omer, especially weddings.
The sadness which partially prevails in this seven-week period reflects the oppression at the hands of the Romans, particularly during the Bar Kochba Rebellion from 132-135 C.E. The loss of that war to the Romans led to the complete destruction of the Jewish community in and around Jerusalem. The Jews were banished from Jerusalem for hundreds of years. During the war. Rabbi Akivah was tortured and killed; Shimon Bar Yohai hid from the soldiers with his son in a cave for many years. Many rabbinic scholars were, in fact, killed during these years. The festival of Lag BaOmer is known as the Scholars Holiday.
Lag BaOmer is a day of fun, but also of defiance against the tyrant Hadrian. In modern times, the Jewish people thwarted Hadrian’s plans to destroy Israel and to drive the Jews completely out of Jerusalem forever. Two days of commemoration observed during Sefira, Yom HaAtzmaut/Israel Independence Day (Iyar 5) and Yom Yerusalayim/Jerusalem Day (Iyar 28), thwarted both evil plans. The modern state of Israel was founded May 14, 1948 on the fifth of Iyar, and Jerusalem was reunited for the first time in almost 19 centuries on June 7, 1967, on Iyar 28.
As bonfires are lit this year on Iyar/May, we should be inspired by the heroism of Akiva and his student, Bar Yohai, as well as the courage of those who have fought for the establishment of the state of Israel and the reunification of Jerusalem.
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