Sefira and Lag Beomer- What are they? .
I just want to discuss a small not as well known festival that occurs this week.
We are now in the Jewish month of Iyar. We are also in the middle of the days between the Festivals of Passover and Shavous These days are also called the Sefira (which means counting). Every night after the evening prayers we say a blessing and count another day from 1 until 49. Shavous comes out on the 50th day. This way we show how we are awaiting the coming of the day that we received the Torah.
The 33rd day of the Sefira is called Lag Baomer. It comes out this year on Friday May 11th. It starts the night before on the evening of Thursday May 10. It is not a festival like others where work and the like are forbidden though. It is a regular day.
What is special about this day and who is Rebbi Shimon?.
A few things are special about this day but we will focus on
one. Part of the night of Lag Beomer is a time customarily spent by many around a big fire dancing and singing. Thousands go to the grave of Talmudic sage Rebbi Shimon Bar Yochie not far from the city of Tevaria (Tibirias).
What is the meaning of this day and what is the connection of Rebbi Shimon Bar Yochie?
.
Rebbi Shimon, as he is called many times throughout the Talmud, lived in the time when the Romans had control of Israel. They did not quite make life so pleasant for the Jews then. The Talmud records the following incident. A few of the Talmudic sages were gathered together. One of the sages, Rebbi Yehudah started to praise the Romans on all the fine things they did in the country. They set up market places, built bridges, and built
bathhouses. Rebbi Yossi was quiet and did not answer. Rebbi Shimon protested that all what the Romans did they only did for themselves, for their own hedonistic pleasures. There was another sage there that went and repeated the story to his students or parents. Although he did not intend that this
story should reach the ears of the Romans it eventually did.
On account that Rebbi Shimon insulted the Romans that was a crime punishable with death. In order to save himself he ran, with his son, into a cave in hiding. There his wife brought him bread and water. As the danger grew in order not to put his wife in a dangerous situation they ran to a far away cave far from the city.
