The Lag Ba'omer festival

Lag Ba'Omer is approaching! 🔥

The 33rd of the Omer, the 18th of the month of Iyar (Today is Monday night and tomorrow is Tuesday) on this day our joy increases, and these are some reasons:

Lag Ba'omer (Hebrew: ל"ג בעומר‎ is the "thirty-third day of the omer") is the name given to the 18th day of Iyar.
According to our tradition, the sadness and grief that accompany the Counting of the Omer are interrupted on this day.
There are two bases for this commandment:

1.On this day the plague that had broken out among the disciples of Rabbi Akiba ceased.

2. This date marks the anniversary of the death of our great Sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

Lag Ba'omer occurs on the 18th of the month of Iyar and the 33rd of the Omer count, which takes place between Pesach and Shavuot.
The Omer was a measure of barley offered at the Great Temple in Jerusalem on the second day of Passover, marking the beginning of the harvest throughout the land of Israel. On this day, the Jewish people began counting seven full weeks until the festival of Shavuot, when they brought the first fruits of the harvest to the Temple as an offering, as this day commemorated the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

In the second century of the common era, on Lag Ba'omer, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi), the prodigal student of Rabbi Akiva, who is credited with the authorship of the great work "The Zohar", died.
Before dying, Rabbi Shimon asks his students to make this day a holiday and a day of joy.

Another reason why it is celebrated is that there was a plague that decimated Rabbi Akiva's students, killing more than 24,000, and on the day of Lag Ba'omer the deaths stopped.

For generations, this day has been celebrated by going into the forests with bows and arrows and making large bonfires. This custom originates from the time of Roman rule over Israel, when Torah study was prohibited. Therefore, students would go into the forest with bows and arrows to prevent patrols from noticing they were going to study Torah and thinking they were going hunting.
In Israel, it is customary to visit the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the town of Meron, in the Galilee, in northern Israel. Thousands of people make the pilgrimage on this day, turning the town into a huge celebration!

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